{"id":954907,"date":"2026-07-23T22:15:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T22:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/954907\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T22:15:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T22:15:15","slug":"chicago-school-board-candidate-claims-opponent-broke-campaign-finance-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/954907\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago school board candidate claims opponent broke campaign finance rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up for Chalkbeat Chicago\u2019s free daily newsletter<\/a> to keep up with the latest education news.<\/p>\n

Hilario Dominguez, a candidate for Chicago school board president, is facing a formal state complaint from a challenger who claims Dominguez ignored campaign finance rules.<\/p>\n

State election authorities received a complaint last Friday from Hugo Jacobo against Dominguez\u2019s campaign committee, Friends of Hilario, arguing his latest campaign filings<\/a> reporting nothing raised or spent \u201ccannot be accurate.\u201d Jacobo is working for Dominguez\u2019s opponent Sendhil Revuluri, whose team shared the complaint with Chalkbeat. <\/p>\n

Dominguez, who is also the political director of the Chicago Teachers Union, did not directly address the complaint or the allegations but said he\u2019s spending time with \u201cparents, students, and communities.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cUnlike the billionaires who fought against giving Chicagoans a vote like this, they don\u2019t have a lot of money,\u201d he said in a statement. <\/p>\n

His campaign treasurer Kat Zamorran said in a statement that the \u201ccampaign is in compliance and more activity will be in the next report.\u201d<\/p>\n

Candidates running in the Nov. 3 election were required to file campaign finance reports for the year\u2019s second quarter with the state on July 15. Candidates for school board have raised $1.8 million<\/a>, $1.2 million of that in the board president\u2019s race alone. Dominguez is one of five candidates for board president and has the CTU\u2019s endorsement.<\/p>\n

According to state election law, candidates are required to register a political committee with the Board of Elections when it raises or spends $5,000 in a 12-month period, but candidates can create the committee before reaching that threshold. While Dominguez\u2019s committee was registered with the state on June 4, it does not have to report campaign contributions or expenses until either hits $5,000, so it\u2019s possible the campaign hasn\u2019t reached that number yet. Neither Zamorran or Dominguez answered questions about whether they\u2019ve hit the threshold.<\/p>\n

Matt Dietrich, spokesperson for the Illinois State Board of Elections, noted that contributions aren\u2019t considered \u201creceived\u201d by a committee until they\u2019re deposited to the bank. For example, if a fundraiser happened in June, but donations weren\u2019t deposited until after July 1, that money wouldn\u2019t show up on campaign finance filings until the next round of reports are due in the fall. There\u2019s one exception: Contributions of $1,000 or more must be reported within five days of being deposited, Dietrich said. <\/p>\n

The complaint likely won\u2019t be addressed until the Illinois Board of Elections\u2019 Oct. 20 meeting, according to Dietrich. <\/p>\n

We’re on a need-to-know basis.<\/p>\n

Every weekday morning, Chalkbeat Chicago is bringing thousands of subscribers the news on local public schools and education policy that they need to start their day. Sign up for our free newsletter to join them.<\/p>\n

The board can \u201cprescribe corrective action immediately\u201d or hold a public hearing over the case if it agrees with the complainant. Dominguez could face a financial penalty, but first-time penalties are waived unless a committee commits another violation within two years, Dietrich said. <\/p>\n

Revuluri said he doesn\u2019t think it\u2019s \u201creasonable\u201d that Dominguez could have run his campaign so far, including with printed materials and a fundraising event, and not have exceeded $5,000 in expenses. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy concern is less with some kind of punishment, but more restorative action, where the campaign starts telling the truth, where the campaign is being honest about how it\u2019s being financed (and) what they\u2019re doing with that money because voters deserve to have that information,\u201d Revuluri said. <\/p>\n

The complaint laid out several spending claims, including that Dominguez\u2019s campaign has created campaign materials, such as fliers and banners, and has a campaign website<\/a> containing a note saying it was \u201cpaid for by Friends of Hilario,\u201d which was visible on the website Thursday. The complaint also names people who helped Dominguez collect signatures to get on the ballot, noting that those people are known paid circulators whom other campaigns have also hired and are paid per signature. WBEZ reported that Dominguez had collected about 9,000 signatures.<\/a><\/p>\n

The complaint noted that Dominguez held a fundraiser last month but didn\u2019t report receiving any funds in the latest required campaign finance disclosures. <\/p>\n

Both CTU\u2019s and Illinois Network of Charter Schools\u2019 PACs are expected to spend big in the campaign but haven\u2019t yet poured money into races. The union\u2019s PAC did report spending<\/a> money on fending off petition challenges for some candidates. <\/p>\n

The state will assign Jacobo\u2019s complaint to a hearing officer, who will hold a hearing with both parties, Dietrich said in an email. After that, the hearing officer will make a recommendation, which the board\u2019s general counsel reviews and adds her own recommendation. The board makes the final decision in a closed session. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe burden of proof in these proceedings is on the complainant,\u201d Dietrich wrote. <\/p>\n

Dietrich noted that the complaints don\u2019t become public unless the board decides they\u2019re justifiable. <\/p>\n

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sign up for Chalkbeat Chicago\u2019s free daily newsletter to keep up with the latest education news. Hilario Dominguez,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":954908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,1005,5386,1818,80,13235],"class_list":["post-954907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago","tag-chicago","tag-horizontal","tag-il","tag-illinois","tag-politics","tag-vote"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116971603794347402","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=954907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/954908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=954907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=954907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=954907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}