Firms linked to 2 men convicted of corruption have gotten campaign business from JB Pritzker and the CTU

Two political campaign firms with close ties to men with public corruption convictions have gotten business in recent years in Chicago and statewide political races, including the current, hotly contested race for Chicago School Board president and more than $1.5 million from Gov. JB Pritzker in his gubernatorial campaigns, records show.

In the governor’s campaigns, about $1.2 million went to a firm formed by a former Illinois Department of Children and Family Services deputy director, Bamani Obadele, who pleaded guilty in 2010 to a state contracting scheme under former Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Obadele was sentenced to six months in jail and ordered to repay more than $80,000.

Pritzker’s gubernatorial campaigns also spent more than $420,000 with the firm tied to Isaac “Ike” Carothers, a former Chicago City Council member who pleaded guilty in 2010 to taking $40,000 in home improvements from a developer who wanted to build homes in an industrial area in Carothers’ 29th Ward on the West Side.

In the school board race, the Chicago Teachers Union has spent more than $36,000 with the two firms and a company tied to a campaign worker, Karina Escobar-Perez, who pleaded guilty last year to forging signatures on campaign petitions in Indiana for the presidential race. The CTU work was for the campaign of Hilario Dominguez, whom the teachers union endorsed in June for school board president in a five-way race.

Dominguez’ campaign has reported $99,500 in contributions as of its latest filings, on Aug. 5. All of that was in-kind contributions from the CTU, and about one-third was to firms linked to Obadele, Carothers and Escobar-Perez.

The CTU’s political organization has used Carothers’ and Obadele’s firms in other school board races, and all three companies have done extensive work in other political races.

The Dominguez campaign did not respond to questions about the firms.

The governor’s campaign did not answer questions about Obadele’s and Carothers’ work but said: “The campaign hires consultants who are experienced and well-known organizers in their communities.”

A CTU spokeswoman said the people and groups they contracted with as “vendors are the same as those hired by Gov. Pritzker, Rep. [Margaret] Croke, and numerous other candidates.” In her statement, she didn't explain those choices, focusing instead on their endorsed candidates: "What voters should know about the candidates we are supporting is that they will be the fiercest advocates for Chicago's children instead of administrators of unnecessary cuts to their education.”

Pritzker is seeking reelection this year, again running against Republican Darren Bailey, whom he defeated by more than 12 percentage points in 2022. In 2018, Pritzker defeated incumbent Gov. Bruce Rauner by more than 15 percentage points.

Pritzker, who was among contenders to be Kamala Harris’ 2024 vice presidential running mate, has been attending political events across the country amid speculation he might run for president in 2028.

Bamani Obadele (center) speaking at a rally in May 2021 outside Chicago Housing Authority headquarters in the Loop.

Ashlee Rezin / Sun-Times

Obadele is president and director of Goshen Impact Solutions, according to state records. He admitted in federal court that in 2004 and 2005, when he was at DCFS, he steered contractors working for the state agency to buy promotional items from a company he owned and overcharged them, using proceeds for personal expenses, including an all-expenses-paid vacation for himself and friends to Jamaica. Separately, he admitted having generated business for a company whose board he sat on by telling DCFS contractors to hire the firm.

Records show Pritzker’s campaign paid Obadele’s firm more than $1 million during the 2022 election, though that spending appears to have escaped notice during the last election. So far, in the governor’s race, the campaign has spent $76,000 with the company, state records show.

Since 2015, just under half of all the state and local campaign cash that went to Obadele’s firm came from Pritzker’s campaign organization. Pritzker started using Obadele’s firm in 2022.

The CTU spent more than $16,000 with Obadele’s firm for work on behalf of Dominguez’ campaign. The union also gave his firm $5,250 for work related to Katherine Dunneback’s campaign in school board District 9b. The union endorsed Dunneback and a slate of other school board candidates in July.

In 2018, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul came under scrutiny for spending $13,000 with Obadele for campaign work.

Obadele said his work on campaigns includes a variety of get-out-the-vote efforts across the South Side and elsewhere in Cook County. “I have done this the past 15 years with fidelity,” he wrote in response to questions.

In a written statement in response to questions, Obadele defended the work he’s done: “I’m neither ashamed nor proud of my past conviction. I paid my debt to society and have remained committed to pushing forward in a positive and impactful way. Since then, I have built and operated a successful professional business … This work has provided hundreds of individuals, including those who face barriers to employment. I stand for and believe in second chances and the importance of allowing people who have also paid their debt to society to receive the same opportunities I too was given."

Obadele is also the “community and civic engagement director” for Acclivus Inc., a community health organization focused on violence prevention that has had dozens of state contracts in recent years worth more than $100 million, including $16 million in contracts for this fiscal year with the Illinois Department of Human Services and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.

Obadele said he doesn’t run Acclivus, and he's proud to work there because of the anti-violence work it does in Chicago.

“My role there is to oversee community engagement and workforce development,...

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