A Brandon Johnson campaign consultant lost his own Chicago race by 1 vote but isn’t contesting it
Darius Newsome worked on Johnson’s faith-based outreach, but fell short of winning a police council seat in the mayor-elect’s home district.
By Chip Mitchell
A Brandon Johnson campaign consultant lost his own Chicago race by 1 vote but isn’t contesting it
Darius Newsome worked on Johnson’s faith-based outreach, but fell short of winning a police council seat in the mayor-elect’s home district.
By Chip MitchellA paid consultant on Brandon Johnson’s campaign who finished just one vote short of winning a police district council seat in the mayor-elect’s West Side neighborhood took steps toward contesting that result in court but has decided to let his defeat stand.
Darius Newsome, who worked on Johnson’s faith-based outreach, won 2,245 votes, one fewer than Carmelita P. Earls, for the third of three seats on the Austin District council. Earls, a former Chicago Fire Department deputy district chief endorsed by unions for city cops and firefighters, will take office next Tuesday with two police reform advocates, Arewa Karen Winters and Deondre Rutues.
“She won fair and square, so I’ll do what I can to support her,” said Newsome, director of educational partnerships at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “I plan to continue working on police accountability and keep in communication with the district council.”
Johnson’s Illinois campaign finance filings show a $3,000 expenditure to Newsome on March 14. The two live less than a half-mile apart in the neighborhood.
Newsome and Earls were among seven candidates on the Feb. 28 ballot for the three police council seats in Austin, one of CPD’s busier districts.
For several days, as late-arriving mailed ballots streamed in, Newsome and Earls were actually tied, according to Max Bever, a spokesperson for the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners.
“The tiebreaker under the state code would have been flipping a coin,” Bever said.
But Earls took the lead on March 13, the day before the board’s final tally of votes, Bever said.
Newsome and his attorney Art Mitchell spent most of March 31 at the board’s offices for a discovery recount. That process allowed examining ballots and equipment in 25% of the district’s precincts, according to state law.
“The heart of the discovery recount is whether the paper ballots match the numbers reported from the precinct,” Bever said, adding that Newsome mounted the only discovery recount in either round of the city’s elections this year.
Newsome said he and his lawyer found no significant discrepancies and he decided to forgo contesting the result in Cook County Circuit Court.
The considerations on whether to file such a court petition always include cost, according to election attorney Burt Odelson.
“The lawyer fees could add up,” Odelson said, estimating that the legal work to contest results of a police district council race could “minimally” run $5,000-$10,000.
The police district councils are among recent reforms aiming to make CPD more effective against crime and curb police abuses. Each of the city’s 22 police districts will have a council that consists of three members, who serve four-year terms.
The councils are expected to hold monthly public meetings with officers to relay concerns and ideas from district residents about policing and public safety. Other duties include expanding restorative justice and community policing efforts.
The councils will also nominate candidates for the city’s new Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, another new entity created for CPD oversight. The mayor will appoint seven of those candidates.
Chip Mitchell reports on policing, public safety and public health. Follow him at @ChipMitchell1. Contact him at cmitchell@wbez.org.