2024 General Election Recommendations

Hello!

Here are my 2024 General Election recommendations. 

I greatly appreciated the commentary and research from Girl, I Guess. I relied heavily on Injustice Watch for their guide on judges (truly an incredible resource!). 

The short version here, with a lot more explanation below, is that I am supporting Ebony Deberry (District 2) and Karen Zaccor (District 4) for Chicago's first elected school board. (I live in District 2, but wanted to give Karen a shout out as District 4 covers the northside as well.) Please note, if you're voting by mail, this is on the back of the first page of your ballot. Otherwise, I voted Democratic straight down the ballot, with the exception of one race and judges for retention.

If you want to learn more about elected school board, check out these resources:

• To identify your district, go to: https://projects.chalkbeat.org/2024/interactive-map-chicago-school-board-districts/ OR https://map-chicago.pages.dev/
• If you’re not in district 2 or 4, go to: https://www.ourschoolschicago.com/ to see a slate of candidates that progressive community organizations, including the one where I work, and labor unions have endorsed across the city. 
• If you want to know more about all the candidates in your district, go to: https://bit.ly/CHIschoolboard

You can register to vote at any early voting site in Chicago, which are now open. Everything you need to know about early voting, same-day voter registration, requesting a mail-in ballot, seeing your sample ballot, and finding your polling location can be found here: https://chicagoelections.gov/ November 5 is the last day to vote! Contact me with any questions, I want to help you vote! It is one critical step in winning the world we deserve. 

As for my longer commentary:

The biggest race in my opinion in Chicago is Elected School Board. For the first time, Chicagoans get to elect our own school board. I am supporting Ebony DeBerry who is running in District 2 and Karen Zaccor who is running in District 4. The city has been divided into 10 districts. Each district will elect 1 person (whoever gets the most votes this November) and the mayor will appoint one person from each district plus the president. In 2026, the districts will be divided in half and each subdistrict will elect 1 person, for a total of 20 elected seats plus a citywide elected School Board president. (It's confusing, I know!)

Ebony and Karen are conveniently both #101 on the ballot in their respective districts, which cover most of the far north side of the city. They are running as part of a citywide slate endorsed by organizations that have led the fight for education justice in Chicago and who have developed a beautiful vision of what our schools could and should be.  

I’m supporting Ebony DeBerry (Dist. 2) and Karen Zaccor (Dist. 4) because of their outstanding track record of investing in our public school system. District 2 includes Rogers Park, West Ridge, some of Edgewater, Budlong Woods, and Lincoln Square. District 4 includes most of Uptown, Lakeview and Lincoln Park. 

Ebony DeBerry, who is running in District 2, graduated from CPS, sent her son through CPS, and also taught at CPS. Currently, she is an education organizer and runs the Parent Mentor program, which puts 60 volunteers into classrooms in 8 north side public schools. She and I have worked together for over a decade at ONE Northside. She is committed to tackling critical issues like refurbishing and renovating schools plagued by asbestos and mold, expanding access to early childhood education, ensuring high quality special education services, and providing therapy and counseling resources for teachers and students. Ebony wants to make sure every student in Chicago has access to a world-class education, regardless of their race or zip code. She is a creative thinker and always helps us find creative solutions in our organizing work. She is a courageous leader, who leads by example, and has supported and cultivated dozens and dozens of women of color to be politically active. 

Karen Zaccor, who is running in District 4, just retired after teaching for over 28 years in CPS. She spent her career working in Uptown. Before she was a teacher, she was a CPS parent and that's what brought her into activism and how she initially ran for the very first local school council. When Rahm closed 50 schools in 2014, the movement to get an elected school board kicked into high gear and Karen was a part of that from the very beginning. Now she's running to fully fund our neighborhood schools, so that every school has a nurse, social worker, librarian, arts and sports programing.

I hope you will join me in voting for Ebony or Karen in your district for school board. If you’d like to get a yard sign or support in other ways, please fill out this form: http://bit.ly/opcgetinvolved2024 We need over 400 volunteer shifts on election day to cover high priority precinct locations for these two women. So if you want to be involved in the election, but don't want to do work on president, join me in supporting these down-ballot school board races. 

As for the other races:

I voted for Harris-Walz at the top of the ticket. Perhaps I am breaking rank with my fellow lefties, but I need to tell my children I voted against fascism, and I need to contribute to Harris-Walz winning the popular vote, since the electoral college continues to steal elections from the vote of the people. Gaza, Lebanon, and safety throughout the middle east, including Israel, will be much worse off under a Trump presidency. The future livability of our planet hangs in a very precarious balance. Our ability to organize and win (on any issue I care about) is MUCH better under Harris-Walz, whereas a Trump-Vance administration would force us back onto defense and our progressive movement would experience many defeats, and people I love dearly would be worse off. I know I don't need to go on. But I thought I'd share just a couple of my reasons for voting for Harris-Walz, even in 'deep blue' Chicago and Cook County where the weight of our presidential vote is diminished because of the electoral college. The genocide happening in Gaza, and now spreading into Lebanon, funded with our tax dollars is unconscionable. However, I've never been a single issue voter. I'm grappling with questions like: what does accountability with the Democratic Party look like, rather than revenge? What does real justice look like in the face of the atrocities of the last year (beginning on October 7 and all the devastating loss of life that has ensued) rather than punishment? The only answer I do know is, I'll keep investing in organizing and building electoral power so we can elect people at every level of government who will truly stand for peace. Dr. King's words ring true,  “Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war.”  

If I could have done a write-in calling for ceasefire/arms embargo, I would have done that on my congressional race, where there is not the risk of a fascist, antisemitic, racist, xenophobic, homophobic (and all the other bad things) taking over our country. Alas, there was no write-in option. So I didn't vote on my congressional race. (Girl, I Guess has recommendations on congresspeople who most definitely deserve your affirmative support -- Ramirez and Garcia in Chicago.)

I voted for the Democrats on all the other races where there were contests. I much prefer the primary where I can organize for and vote for my preferred flavor of Democrat. But given someone will win these general elections, in every case, the Democrat was the better option. 

As for Judges, here is my list. I relied heavily on Injustice Watch for their guide on judges (truly an incredible resource!). I've highlighted below where I voted differently from Girl, I Guess when it came to judges. 

Hoffman — YES

Ellis — YES

Flanagan — NO

Lubin — YES

Agran — YES

Bartkowicz — YES

Wright, Jr. — SUPER NO

Varga — NO

Brosnahan — SUPER NO

Boyle — SUPER NO

Walker — YES

Brennan — YES

Flannigan — YES

Howard — YES

Marisie — YES

McHale — NO

Murphy — YES

Ocasio III — YES

Roberts — YES

Gamrath — YES

Brewer — YES

Reddick — YES

Jean-Baptiste — YES

Clancy — NO

Scannicchio — YES

Marsalek — YES

Boyd — YES

Degnan — YES

Ehrlich — YES

Gallagher — YES

Gamboney — NO

Hayes — YES

Kelley — NO

Lewis — YES

MacCarthy — YES

Marino — NO

Mullen — NO

K. O’Malley — YES

Pavlus — YES

Ramirez — YES

Santiago — YES

Quish — YES

Saltouros — YES

Delgado — YES

Horan — YES

Rosado — YES

Harvey — YES

Davis — YES

Coleman — YES

Seaton — YES

Navarro — YES

Perkins — YES

Harris — YES

Jones, Jr. — YES

Gonzalez — YES

Wrenn — YES

Barrett — YES

Blakely — YES

Chupack — YES

Ciaccia-Lezza — NO

Cunningham — YES

Daly — NO

Frausto-Sandoval — YES

Gray — NO

Hagerty — YES

Huge — YES

Lanahan — YES

McGuire — YES

McKenna — YES

S. O’Malley — SUPER NO

Orr — YES

Perez — YES

Shapiro — YES

Sianis — YES

Silva — YES

Vahey — YES

Webber — YES

Willis — YES

Eager to hear your thoughts.

With love and care,

Hannah

P.S. I highly recommend the book How We Win the Civil War: Securing a Multiracial Democracy and Ending White Supremacy for Good by Steve Phillips who explains why democracy is such a threat to white supremacist values, why the right tries at every juncture to disenfranchise voters of color, and charts a path for us to finally win a multi-racial democracy in the US. Said another way, he really makes the case for voting and civic participation.