20th District Senate race full of lies and half truths

Analysis & Opinion by RUSS STEWART

Mark Twain famously popularized the expression “lies, damn lies and statistics.” In other words, statistics were the incontrovertible truth.

Ex-Speaker Mike Madigan (D) famously created the concept of “Kernel of Truth” (KOT), which solidified and grew his Democratic majority. KOT means using vast amounts of money to perpetuate lies, damn lies and whoppers in a relentless and intentionally mendacious manner so as to create a false narrative, but still based on a kernel of truth.

Springfield Republicans, for example, would regularly vote against Democratic budgets. They contained line-item appropriations for such things as rape-test kits, breast cancer exams and State Police funding. Then, passing the KOT Test, Democrats would demonize those despicable Republicans who did technically vote against every item in the budget. Absolutely brilliant. Madigan wiped-out virtually every Republican state rep in the suburbs and collar counties.

There are lots and lots of corn kernels growing, blooming, selling and flying around the Northwest Side 20th Senate District, and being consumed by the voters who will turn out for the March 19 Democratic primary.

The appointed incumbent is Natalie Toro, a CPS kindergarten teacher named to replace Cristina Pacione-Zayas last June after she was named Mayor Brandon Johnson’s first deputy of staff. (Zayas makes $206,532 and the mayor makes $221,052).

One opponent is  Far Left candidate Gabriela Guzman. Pacione-Zayas’s chief-of-staff from 2021-23, and a CPS teacher and CTU organizer, like Johnson was. Guzman’s campaign is being funded by the CTU and SEIU. Guzman “went KOT” on Toro in early January with a blizzard of mailers featuring photos of Donald Trump and calling her pro-Trump, pro-FOP (the cop union), a tool of John Catanzara, pro-police, pro-MAGA and a false Democrat.

In the 2022 Democratic primary Toro ran for 8th District county commissioner against incumbent Luis Arroyo Jr., whose dad had been indicted and convicted for bribery as a state rep. She also ran against Woke/Leftist Anthony Joel Quezada, a staffer for alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th), who is chair of the fringe Chicago Socialist Party and also his ward’s Democratic committeeperson. “He (Quezada) is a virtual commie,” said one of my sources, an active FOP member, on the condition of anonymity. “She (Toro) was the only logical choice.”

The 8th District takes in 9 wards including the heavily Puerto Rican 35th, 33rd, 31st and 30th, as does the 20th senate district. Quezada easily topped Arroyo  8,822-4,902, getting 35 percent, with Toro a distant third with 4,130, or 16.3 percent.

The kernel of truth had been planted and sown. Because FOP had endorsed both Trump and Toro, Toro was therefore pro-Trump and pro-MAGA by implication. Because she was photographed with Catanzara, Toro was now pro-FOP. Because FOP endorsed rogue Democrat Erin Jones for state senator in 2022, Toro was a rogue Democrat. The purpose of the CTU/Guzman hit pieces was to define Toro early as unacceptably non- if not anti-Woke-Leftist to the 20th’s estimated 30-36 percent Woke/Left primary base. It worked. It negatively defined Toro before Toro defined herself.

And it put Senate president Don Harmon into sheer panic mode. Not only could Toro lose, but Harmon could lose his presidency if Toro lost. John Cullerton resigned as president in Jan. 2020 when Democrats had a 40D-19R majority. About half the 40 D’s were women and 40 percent Black or Latino. The succession battle was between Harmon and Kimberly Lightford.

Harmon stressed self-interest and self-preservation – namely: that he could raise more money so as to get them re-elected. Harmon easily prevailed.

As is usual in a Democratic campaign, top-down command-and-control dominates. Harmon’s staffers become field operatives and run the campaign and crank out the mailers. Trade unions get squeezed for money and weekend workers. And $1.5 million gets budgeted, with rehabilitative mailers hitting every other day since Feb. 1. But Harmon has two problems: First, he can’t go KOT on Guzman. He can’t inflame her “extremist” base by trashing her. So he dishes out and rehashes pablum: Toro “…is Puerto Rican…was born in the district…is a kindergarten teacher…a “progressive”….” It’s the chicken strategy and it’s not working.

Harmon’s other problem is Dr. Dave Nayak, the third candidate running. Nayak’s parents emigrated from India to Peoria. He earned an M.D. from Cornell, and operates a Free Clinic at Belmont-Western where the uninsured pay nothing. He owns a 500-acre farm in Downstate Morris, near Peoria, where he grows commercial corn and soybeans and harvests a lot of corn and snap beans for local food banks and pantries. “I give back to my community,’ said Nayak. “My politician opponents only give us empty words and promises.”

Nayak has had 4 mailers in FedEx-style envelopes with position papers and clips of his work. “$3 million will be spent” in the race, Nayak predicted, adding that his internal polling puts it at 35/20/15 for Guzman/Nayak/Toro. Toro is now attacking Nayak as a “MAGA millionaire” who wants “tax breaks for the rich” – with no KOT. Guzman has hit her ceiling. Nayak will surprise.

2024 CHICAGO SCHOOL BOARD (CSB) ELECTION UPDATE: The concept has been around for a long time but finally reached fruition when the legislature passed a bill on Nov. 1, 2023 creating 20 districts with a 2024 non-partisan election in ten, a 2026 election in ten, and the president elected citywide in 2026. All terms were 4 years, no compensation provided and no runoffs required until 2028 and beyond. A simple plurality (not a runoff majority) would suffice. (To see the Map go to my Website/archives/1-24-24.)

The bill was a huge win for the CTU and speaker Chris Welch since it allowed Brandon Johnson to appoint members in the ten districts that didn’t elect in 2024 (and the president), effective Jan. 1, 2025. That gives all the appointees a headstart for 2026. The winners get a 4-year term to 2030. Every appointee will be a CTU-approved Woke/Leftist and the CSB a CTU rubberstamp. Harmon, who wanted every district to elect in 2024, was the big loser.

But there were two unresolved, sticky issues that needed clarity by March 24, which is the start of the 90-day petition circulation period for the Nov. 5 election. A minimum of just 250 signatures are required to run, each district has about 144,000 people, so expect a stampede of candidates eager to gobble 60K for a part-time job. The issues were (1) compensation, which in the final bill to be passed in March permits the board to set its own salary, benefits and member expenses. Uh-oh. The sum of $60,000 is being bandied about. Then there’s (2) federal voting rights laws, which mandate “equal protection.” A jurisdiction (city) cannot have an election where half the same offices are elected and half appointed. That seems unconstitutional.

But politicians, while often lacking in clarity and integrity, are never lacking in creativity. The solution is PAIRING. In 2024 one member will be elected from every two districts, with the top votegetter winning a 4-year term in the district he/she resides. Then, after Nov. 5, the mayor appoints the member in the other PAIRED district to a 2-year term. Any place but Chicago that would be decried as voter fraud or election tampering. But it’s OK if Democrats do it.

As shown in the maps in my Jan. 24 column, the 2nd District is nestled in the city’s far Northwest corner, containing the 41st Ward, half the 38th Ward north of Lawrence between Nagle and Cicero, half the 38th Ward west of Harlem and a sliver of the 39th Ward from Devon to Touhy. An announced candidate is Ammie Kessem, a 26-year CPD veteran and current police sergeant assigned to the 16th District. She resides in Edison Park and is the current 41st Ward Republican committeeperson. She could have the support of aldermen Napolitano, Sposato and Gardiner and state rep Stephens. She will run as a pro-school choice conservative.

Contiguous to the southeast is the huge 12th District, which runs through a swath of Latino neighborhoods extending to North Avenue near Riis Park, including the Latino 36th and 31st wards and Galewood in the 29th Ward. The 2nd and 12th will be PAIRED, as will the 3rd and 8th to the east, abutting the Lakefront.

Chicago’s population is just over 2.7 million, so each CSB district will be around 144,000 people, roughly 2.5 wards each, which have 55,000 people each. Since the paired 2nd/12th districts have a combined population of 288,000, voter turnout will be in the 100-110,000 range.

The Northwest Side was Trump’s best-performing area in 2020; he got 47, 30, 40 and 29 percent, respectively, in the 41st, 45th, 38th and 39th wards and will do better in 2024.

There will be 10-15 CSB candidates with the CTU bankrolling one. If Kessem gets more conservative votes she’ll be at 25-30,000. Just 25 percent is all it takes.

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