Mayor Brandon Johnson on Tuesday accused billionaire businessman Michael Sacks of leading a “nasty coalition of billionaires” who are using their wealth to elect school board members who would close more Chicago Public Schools.
Johnson never mentioned Sacks by name. But it was clear he was talking about Sacks, who has helped bankroll a political action committee known as Common Ground Collective that has raised more than $5 million to elect Jessica Biggs as school board president and other school board members who would not be beholden to the Chicago Teachers Union.
Common Ground has so far outspent the CTU by a more than three-to-one margin and is airing television commercials that target Hilario Dominguez, the union’s candidate for board president against Biggs.
“We’re seeing a really nasty coalition of billionaires who don’t send their children to public schools, but all of the sudden, they have a stake in our public education,” Johnson said.
“That one individual who whispered into the ear of a previous administration to shut down 150 schools. Keep in mind he only closed 50, of which 2,000 children are missing. Don’t even know where they are. Can you imagine how brutal and how cruel you have to be to shut down schools in communities where we’ve seen violence spike, where vacancy exists?
"That same individual who called for the closing of Black and Brown schools," Johnson continued, "… is now spending millions of dollars to elect people who want to do more of the same."
In an interview this month for a Sun-Times profile of Sacks, CTU Vice President Jackson Potter accused Sacks of having “supported the mayor or stood silently at best” when then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel “closed the greatest number of schools in American history in 2013, almost exclusively in the Black community.” At the time, Sacks said he’s active in school board elections because cares about and “believes in public education.”
Johnson’s broadside marked a dramatic escalation of that same line of attack — with a week to go before the election of the city's 21-member board of education and school board president.
Sacks responded to Johnson’s latest attack by flatly denying any role in Emanuel’s school closings.
“The Mayor's comments on school closures are false. I never advocated to close any schools and I don’t now. The comments are however ironic as I was in fact a major advocate for Treasurer [Kurt] Summers' Catalyst Fund from which BUILD [Building Up Independent Local Developers] is receiving money to make the very grants the Mayor announced today,” Sacks said in a statement.
“In addition I helped create and was a staunch supporter of the Neighborhood Opportunity Fund which rewrote the zoning code to favor disinvested neighborhoods over downtown. The Mayor knows all of this but he chooses to make things up which isn’t going to help him."
Sacks is scheduled to receive the Nostra Aetate Award Thursday night from the Archdiocese of Chicago to recognize his leadership in the Jewish community, and in promoting interfaith dialogue. The award has become a source of controversy among conservative Catholics because Sacks and his wife, Cari, have long supported women’s reproductive choice.
Earlier this week, Cardinal Blasé Cupich justified the decision to make Sacks the award's first recipient.
“We recognize that now more than ever we need to find ways to reinforce the special relationship between the Catholic community and the Jewish people,” Cupich said in a prepared statement.
“Honoring individuals who do not share core Catholic teachings recognizes their dignity, leadership role and service to their community without implying an endorsement of every statement or stance they maintain” the statement continued, adding that “dialogue cannot occur if respect is contingent upon complete agreement on church doctrine or political policy."
Johnson was asked what he thought of the Archdiocese giving an award to “somebody who has become somewhat of a boogeyman” for his administration.
“I don’t believe in boogeymen or ghosts. I don’t. That’s quite childish, to be quite frank with you. What I do believe in is investing in people, and I believe that those that have means have a moral responsibility to contribute more," Johnson said. “I do see people as a means of creating a fair and a just society. That’s the hope that I bring. And I believe that the people of Chicago are better off when there is an equitable distribution of wealth.”
Sacks has contributed millions of dollars to Common Ground, an advocacy organization that also has a PAC and a super-PAC that has spent millions to advocate for and against school board candidates and support moderate City Council members who have opposed Johnson.
“The way that this individual is spending — we do know the outcome that manifests as a result of his vision for Black and Brown communities. … Now, that would be monstrous and scary. That is something to boogey away from,” Johnson said.
Sacks has been Johnson’s political pinata for well over a year now.
When a 31-member coalition of conservative and moderate City Council members rejected Johnson’s corporate head tax, the mayor blamed Sacks, though the commercials he bankrolled against elements of the mayor’s 2026 budget never mentioned the head tax. Those commercials attacked other major elements of the budget and poked holes in Johnson’s claim that he was increasing spending for violence prevention.
On the day Johnson launched his bid for a second term, Johnson identified Sacks as his primary political opponent and attacked him repeatedly by name.
The escalation of the tension between Johnson and Sacks was triggered by a question during Tuesday's news conference that apparently hit a raw nerve with the mayor: Whether next Tuesday’s historic election for seats on the 21-member elected school board would “send a message about the strength of” the CTU and the now-fractured coalition of progressive unions that helped put Johnson in office.
Last week, the long-simmering feud between Johnson and that coalition boiled over, triggering a pivotal endorsement for Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias in the race for mayor.
“Labor is split all over the place — especially when it comes to this race,” Johnson said. “I’m not sure if there is a coalition that’s akin to mine, and one that I’ve been responsible to build.”
