New nonprofit and PAC ‘aligned with business community’ launching in time for school board elections

A group of business and civic leaders, some with ties to former Mayor Rahm Emanuel, are forming a fundraising and advocacy group that plans to back candidates in Chicago’s contentious first-ever school board elections and organize around other key issues confronting the state.

The new nonprofit and political action committee will be called One Future Illinois. Leaders said they hope to provide political and financial heft behind the business community’s agenda, including “public safety, education, city and state finances, transportation, and jobs.” But short term, their presence will be felt in school board elections in November.

One Future’s leaders include Emanuel’s deputy mayor, Steve Koch; his interim school board CEO and Park District board president, Jesse Ruiz; and the chief of staff in his office of legislative counsel and government affairs and campaign manager for Emanuel’s 2015 reelection, Michael Ruemmler. Ruiz, who will only serve on the board of the 501(c)(4), was also Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s deputy governor for education and chair of the state board of education.

“With each election cycle, our politics are more polarized, and our governments are less effective. One Future Illinois will cut across party lines to solve problems and improve the quality of life for all who live here,” Ruemmler, who also served on former President Barack Obama’s advance team, said in a release.

Ruemmler recently ran the Get Stuff Done PAC, also funded by the city’s business leaders. It worked to defend moderate incumbents and elect “pragmatic” “Obama Democrats” to the Chicago City Council in the 2023 elections, often squaring up against more left-leaning or avowed Democratic Socialist candidates. It stayed out of the mayoral race.

Other board members include Topography CEO and founder Liam Krehbiel; former Taxpayers’ Federation of Illinois President Carol Portman; and Derek Douglas, the president of the Civic Committee and the Commercial Club of Chicago, a business group.

A group like this “probably should have existed for a long time,” Koch said in an interview Wednesday where he was joined by Ruemmler and Douglas. It will serve as a way to easily connect Chicago’s business, finance and civic stakeholders interested in city issues, “where collective action can have greater impact,” Koch said.

Though the Commercial Club is not directly involved, Douglas said many of the policy issues the club cares about are ones One Future will likely take up. That includes public safety, “bringing attention and focus” to sustained funding for community violence intervention , state and local fiscal health and continued unfunded pension liabilities, and education.

The three men declined to say what types of school board candidates One Future will financially support, though Emanuel backed school choice, expanding charter schools and selective enrollment schools during his two terms. He repeatedly clashed with the Chicago Teachers Union , and closed 50 neighborhood public schools.

And Douglas noted the Civic Committee has been in favor of “school choice, supporting various options, as well as investing in neighborhood schools, but choice being important.”

The Civic Committee played a key role in Mayor Richard M. Daley’s Renaissance 2010 plan to boost charter, performance and contract schools, and helped pass statewide legislation that increased the number of charters in the city. Krehbiel is also a charter proponent and was on the board of the Noble Network of Charter Schools.

Under federal law, the nonprofit is allowed to lobby and contribute to an aligned PAC. Such nonprofits, when donating to electoral causes, are often referred to as “dark money” groups, because their donors are not publicly disclosed. Dark money groups and super PACs are playing a bigger role in Chicago races – several launched in 2023 to aid mayoral candidates. This group hopes to raise a sum of at least seven figures.

Asked whether it will be endorsing and donating in school board races, Ruemmler said that is “something that we will definitely look to engage in. We’ll outline a process and evaluate the candidates and see what comes of it.”

As for any dark money criticism, Ruemmler said, “We’re going to follow the letter of the law. There are groups affiliated that I’ve heard of that are forming that are doing the same thing on all sides of the political spectrum. I think voters are going to care more about the candidates and the issues than they are about who is spending money or where it’s coming from.”

Douglas and Koch, Emanuel’s go-to on financial issues, both suggested pensions will also be a key focus. The Civic Committee proposed raising income taxes and pouring proceeds into the state’s pension funds to eliminate outstanding debts. Johnson’s administration is expected to release state legislative proposals in the coming weeks to ensure that Tier 2 and Tier 3 pensioners’ benefits are equivalent to what retirees would collect under Social Security.

“To this point, our only tool has been the power of the policy ideas,” Douglas said. “To get things through, you also need to engage on the political sphere, in the political realm, that’s one way you could see some of our civic priorities being complemented by the work of One Future Illinois.”

The group is nonpartisan, leaders said, and will partner across the ideological spectrum. “It’s really designed to collaborate and partner with other stakeholders across the city, whether that’s other civic organizations, business organizations, elected officials, to figure out where our priorities align and how through working together we can increase the chances of getting those things accomplished,” Douglas said.

aquig@chicagotribune.com