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  "path": "/education/2026/06/04/half-of-chicago-school-board-candidates-are-facing-challenges-but-powerful-ctu-says-it-didnt-file-any",
  "publishedAt": "2026-06-04T22:12:17.192Z",
  "site": "https://chicago.suntimes.com",
  "textContent": "<p>Nearly every incumbent running for school board aligned with the politically powerful Chicago Teachers Union is facing a challenge to their candidacy and could be thrown off the ballot.</p><p>Hilario Dominguez, the CTU’s deputy political director who is running for school board president, is also facing a challenge. So are three of the four other candidates for president.</p><p>But in a surprise move, the CTU, which has been accused of using petition challenges to kick candidates off the ballot in the past, says it did not file any.</p><p>Jessica Biggs, who is running for president and currently represents parts of the South Side, is the only non-CTU affiliated incumbent facing a challenge. Biggs considers herself an independent. Meanwhile, Jennifer Custer is the only presidential candidate who has a secure place on the ballot. Custer, who represents the Far Northwest Side, was backed by the CTU in 2024 but has split from the union.</p><p>Overall, more than half of the 51 candidates running to be on Chicago’s first fully elected school board are facing challenges, according to a list posted by the Chicago Board of Elections Thursday, two days after the deadline to submit them.</p><p>A slightly higher percentage of candidates faced challenges in the 2024 election in which 10 seats were up for grabs. Chicago is transitioning from having a partly elected and partly mayoral-appointed board to one that’s fully elected.</p><p>CTU officials said in this political environment they “want to see more people on the ballot, not less.” After the Supreme Court’s recent decision that effectively nullified a key part of the Voting Rights Act, the union said President Stacy Davis Gates did not want to take any steps to limit democracy.</p><p>To back that up, the CTU plans to provide legal support to candidates facing challenges who don’t have lawyers. Responding to challenges often requires hiring an attorney and can be difficult for candidates with modestly funded, grassroots campaigns.</p><p>“CTU wants to see more people on the ballot, not less,” CTU officials said in a statement.</p><p>The CTU accused billionaire Michael Sacks and the Common Ground Collective, the super PAC he’s poured money into, of backing challenges to their candidates and “attempting to restrict” civic engagement.</p><p>In a statement, Chuck Swirsky, the executive director of the Common Ground Collective, said Davis Gates and Mayor Brandon Johnson are “massive hypocrites who have no standing to comment on petition challenges.”</p><p>He accused them of using the “CTU’s machine” to toss school board candidates off the ballot in seven of the 10 races in the last election. Some speculated that the CTU was behind many of those objections in 2024, but it’s often difficult to tell exactly who is behind an objection.</p><p>Swirsky also alleged that the union tried, unsuccessfully, to change the state law that dictates how nominating petitions can be circulated at the tail end of the legislative session “to cover up their failures gathering signatures.”</p><p>The Illinois Policy Institute, a conservative think tank, was the first to claim that the CTU was behind this proposed change. The CTU flatly refuted this, saying they did not write the proposal, nor did they support it.</p><p>Several challenges allege that a CTU-backed candidate violated the part of elections law that state lawmakers were asked to change.</p><p>CTU officials said they were confident in Dominguez’s signatures. He submitted three times the number he needed to get on the ballot.</p><p>In 2024, 27 of 47 candidates faced challenges. Some of those who faced objections withdrew their candidacies and others were kicked off the ballot. By election day, only 31 candidates remained.</p>",
  "title": "Half of Chicago school board candidates are facing challenges, but powerful CTU says it didn’t file any",
  "updatedAt": "2026-06-04T22:14:33.285Z"
}