Lightfoot’s Office Attempted to Recruit Public School Students to Help with Her Re-election Campaign in Exchange for Class Credit

I’ve honestly been so busy lately that I forgot Mayor Beetlejuice even existed. I enjoyed my blissful ignorance while it lasted, but she’s finally re-entered my headspace.

Playing into her usual hag-like persona, her office sent an email to Chicago Public School teachers on Wednesday with an… interesting… request.

From The Daily Wire:

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s re-election campaign emailed some Chicago Public Schools teachers on Wednesday encouraging them to urge their students to volunteer to aid Lightfoot‘s re-election in return for class credit.

The email came from Megan Crane, a deputy campaign manager, and was received by teachers’ official work email accounts.

“Externs are expected to devote 12 hrs/wk to the campaign,” the email stated. “Students are eligible to earn class credit through our volunteer program.”

“We’re simply looking for enthusiastic, curious and hard-working young people eager to help Mayor Lightfoot win this spring,” the email, which was obtained by WTTW News, added.

The initial information from the Lightfoot campaign given to WTTW by a spokesperson claimed the idea meant “to provide young people with the opportunity to engage with our campaign, learn more about the importance of civic engagement and participate in the most American of processes” and “done using publicly available contact information.”

But following WTTW’s revelation regarding the email, Lightfoot’s campaign stated it would “cease contact with CPS employees” out of an “abundance of caution,” followed by a third statement saying, “All [Lightfoot for Chicago] campaign staff have been reminded about the solid wall that must exist between campaign and official activities and that contacts with any city of Chicago, or other sister agency employees, including CPS employees, even through publicly available sources is off limits. Period.”

Colleen K. Connell, executive director of the ACLU of Illinois, called the email “inappropriately coercive and raises First Amendment concerns. The Supreme Court has made clear that government officials cannot use their office or power to coerce participation or to punish for lack of participation in political campaigns. … Because the mayor has the ultimate authority over the Chicago schools, teachers may feel coercion in this ask from the mayor’s campaign or fear negative consequences for lack of participation.”

I guess the labor shortage is rearing its ugly head in Camp Lightfoot. It turns out people don’t like working for a self-absorbed shrew…

Imagine having so little faith in your ability to get re-elected that you try to build your own child army…

She’s scared, and she should be. Her policies are awful, and she doesn’t give a flying rip about anybody but herself.

I’m curious as to what exactly she was expecting these kids to do. If it included standing on street corners with signs, knocking on doors, or passing out flyers, she would have been in for a swift lawsuit. With gun violence the way that it is in Chicago, I would have never let my kid go out and do that.

Manning the phones? Maybe… Knocking on the wrong door and becoming another statistic that gets ignored? Hard pass.

I’m all for getting young people involved in local politics. Bribing them with class credit when their proficiency percentages in Math and Reading are on the floor, however, isn’t how you go about it…