A day after dropping her challenge to Illinois comptroller and fellow mayoral candidate Susana Mendoza’s petition signatures, Cook County board president and county Democratic Party chair Toni Preckwinkle pivoted to fund-raising. In an e-mail sent at 9:33 this morning, Preckwinkle asks supporters to give her money after decrying the injustice of the incarceration of Tennessee woman Cyntoia Brown.
The ActBlue landing page to which the link leads proposes donations ranging from $5 to $500, with a write-in box where, one assumes, the requested $3 donations can be entered.
“By turning our attention to a case in Tennessee she lets us know she’s not aware of campaigns supporting criminalized survivors in her own backyard, in the city she’s running to represent as mayor,” Garcia-Rojas adds.
The Reader reached out to Preckwinkle’s campaign with questions about why she chose to use Brown’s case to raise funds for her mayoral war chest, which currently stands at more than $1.7 million. Several hours after this story was initially published, Preckwinkle campaign spokesperson Monica Trevino e-mailed a statement saying, “We apologize for the content of the e-mail, which was careless and does not reflect Toni’s values or work to reform the criminal justice system.”
