Three accountability bodies, one Monday — and each one is failing at the job it was built to do. If you're just joining, Chicago's halfway through replacing mayoral control of its school board with elections. We've got our first hybrid board now — 10 elected members, 11 mayoral appointees — heading toward a fully elected board by 2027. So these coming elections are the real test: do voters get representation, or just a new process with the same narrow set of choices? Chicago Politics and Urbanism Daily. Today we're starting with candidacy challenges that could hand some voters one name on the ballot. Then the ethics pileup: a board going six months without a leader, and a City Council committee getting graded. Spoiler: not an A. Start with the school board ballot. Chalkbeat reports candidacy challenges could leave voters in some districts with exactly one choice. One choice. In a school board race after years of fighting for an elected board. That's an appointment wearing an election costume. Here's the mechanism: anybody can file a challenge to knock a candidate off the ballot — petition signatures, residency, paperwork. It's procedural, and it's quietly devastating if you don't have a lawyer on retainer. And who's filing them? Nobody's answering that loudly enough. Ward-power operators learned a long time ago you don't beat a candidate, you disqualify one. Same chokehold we saw over what gets built — now it's over who even gets to run. It's aldermanic-prerogative logic aimed at a fresh target. Except the school board was supposed to be the thing that broke that grip, not inherited it. These are unpaid neighborhood seats deciding which schools stay open in your kid's district. If the field gets cleared before a vote, the whole 2027 promise is hollow. That brings us to the bodies that are supposed to catch this kind of thing. WTTW reports the Board of Ethics has gone six-plus months without a permanent director, and enforcement actions are stalling. Six months. Cases that should be moving are just sitting there because there's nobody at the top to sign off. And remember, this sits directly under the IG ordinance we called a genuine win on June 10th. Glockner got cleaner statutory cover. The board that's supposed to work alongside him has no one steering it. Two reforms moving in opposite directions at the same time. You strengthen the inspector general, then leave the enforcement body leaderless. The reform passes on paper, nobody maintains it, and the whole thing rusts. We've watched this exact pattern since 2019. Then there's the third leg. City Bureau's Open Gov Report Card gives the City Council Committee on Ethics and Government Oversight a D — 64 percent, passing seven of eleven categories. Seven out of eleven and that's a D on their own curve. The committee grading the city's ethics flunks a third of the test. I want the four failed categories named. If any of them touch the oversight powers Glockner's ordinance was supposed to shore up, the D tells us exactly where that win runs out. And if one of those failing categories is TIF transparency or development agreements? Then there's your accountability price tag on Foundry Park. Two hundred and two million dollars, and we still don't have an affordable unit count. We don't know yet that the failed categories include TIF — that's the document I want to read before I attach it to Foundry Park. Fair. But it's the same week as ballot challenges thinning the field and an Ethics Board with no leader. Add the committee's D, and it looks like one system working the way insiders want it to — for the people already holding the cards. Reema Amin and Maureen Kelleher, writing in Chalkbeat:
For three decades, Chicago voters have not had a direct say in who represents them on the city’s Board of Education. And many may not have much of a choice again this fall, despite an otherwise historic election in which all 21 school board seats are on the ballot in November’s general election.
Seventeen races could end up with one candidate. One. After thirty years of the mayor just handing out school board seats like party favors, this is the historic election where voters finally get a say — and the say might be a single name on the ballot. All 21 seats are up, and challenges have been filed against more than half the candidates. The mechanism here is petition signatures — somebody contests your signatures, the electoral board reviews them, and if it sticks, you're off. And this is supposed to be the big handoff: the first election with every school board seat on the ballot, arriving with a chunk of the field knocked out before a vote's cast. I want to know who's filing these challenges. That's exactly it. Anybody can lawyer up someone's petition into the trash. So who benefits when a district goes from a real race to a coronation? Follow the names on the challenge filings and you'll find the ward-power game wearing a different jersey. Credit to Chalkbeat for doing the math — Reema Amin and Maureen Kelleher counting it out race by race instead of treating it as a footnote to the 'historic' framing. WTTW News writes:
The Chicago Board of Ethics, which has been without a permanent leader for more than six months, was forced to cancel two recent meetings, stalling several probes into campaign finance law violations, nepotism in city hiring and bribery. Mayor Brandon Johnson’s failure to name a new Ethics Board chair has infuriated good-government advocates who are again demanding that he do more to combat Chicago’s reputation as the most corrupt of corrupt American cities.
Six months and counting with no permanent Ethics Board chair. William Conlon stepped down in July after nine years, and Johnson still hasn't named a replacement. You can see the cost: two meetings canceled, which means active probes into campaign finance violations, nepotism in hiring, and bribery just sit there. So the bribery investigation is on hold because nobody picked a chairman? That's a get-out-of-jail card with a six-month expiration date. And remember the school board piece we just hit — voters maybe getting one name on the ballot. Same week the board that's supposed to police ethics can't even hold a meeting. The whole accountability floor is rotting at once. Johnson's line is they're 'getting the right people in place.' Nine years to vet Conlon's successor would be thorough. Six months and zero names is something else. From City Bureau:
The Committee on Ethics and Government Oversight shall have jurisdiction over matters concerning the ethical operation of City government and responsibility for the enforcement of Chapter 2-156 of the Municipal Code of Chicago. The Committee may hold hearings related to ethical governance of the City. The Committee also has jurisdiction to review, and may hold community hearings regarding, reports and audits issued by the Inspector General.
City Bureau put a number on it: the City Council's Committee on Ethics and Government Oversight passes seven of 11 categories. Sixty-four percent. A D. The four it fails are the ones I want named. Remember, this is the committee with jurisdiction to review Inspector General reports — the same IG we just spent a week talking about getting new powers. Sixty-four percent, and on this scorecard they still passed seven categories. That's the part that gets me. The bar's on the floor and they're tripping over it. Stack this on the leaderless Ethics Board we just hit — six-plus months, no director, enforcement stalled. Two oversight bodies, same answer. Nobody's home. One sourcing flag — these grades pull from December 2019 information. So it's a real scorecard, but the details are a few years stale. The D is still the point; the timestamp just isn't fresh. If Chicago Politics and Urbanism Daily helps you stay oriented, take a moment to subscribe and leave a review wherever you’re listening. It’s a small thing that helps other people find the show.
What we’re watching next: all 21 Chicago school board seats are on the ballot in November’s general election.
You’ll find links to every story we covered today in the show notes, so if one caught your ear, you can dig into the original reporting there. That’s Chicago Politics and Urbanism Daily for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.