I heard Vallas deny it, but he's not being truthful
Paul Vallas HAS gotten campaign contributions from Betsy DeVos
Reader, I feel I must apologize for this barrage of mayoral race posts. Your email inbox is as bad as your mailbox by now. Will we never leave you people in peace???
Soon, soon.
But stuff is happening every day now, and I just think you ought to know about it. So hit delete if you’re over all of it. Read on if you’re not.
Cassie Creswell of Illinois Families for Public Schools heard, as I did, Paul Vallas deny anything to do with Betsy DeVos last night at a WBEZ event. He said it in that sighing, annoyed tone of voice you might use about an exhaustingly naughty child. Seemed pretty shameless to me, but he’s done this sort of thing in the past. He denied, for instance, knowing anything about Awake IL and Shannon Adcock, and that his participation in an education panel with them (referenced below) was because he really had no idea they were anti-public ed, homophobic, racist, alt-right kooksterbobs. He would never have done it if he had only known. Then of course Shannon Adcock had to stick up for herself—and honestly, who wouldn’t?—and remind Vallas that he was so impressed with a speech she gave at a prior event that he thought she should run for governor.
Whatevs. That’s all in the past. Right?
Well anyway, Cassie decided to provide the receipts for the claims Vallas denied just last night. And that, dear thoughtful readers, is the substance of today’s post. Following is the media release from ILFPS.
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MEDIA STATEMENT
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday March 31, 2023
Contact: Cassie Creswell, Illinois Families for Public Schools, 773-916-7794
PAUL VALLAS LIES ABOUT SUPPORT, CONNECTIONS WITH TRUMP SECRETARY OF ED BETSY DEVOS
DEVOS’ SUPER PAC CHAIR ATTENDS VALLAS EVENTS; VALLAS HOSTED EVENT WITH DEVOS IN 2021
CHICAGO — Mayoral candidate Paul Vallas is falsely denying his connections to former President Trump’s former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and an Illinois Super PAC that DeVos funds.
DeVos funds and controls the Illinois Federation for Children PAC which made a $59,000 independent expenditure in support of Vallas’ campaign last week. On the same day, DeVos’ American Federation for Children Action Fund, a national 527 PAC funded primarily by DeVos and her husband, made a $65,000 contribution to the Illinois Federation for Children PAC.
Yesterday evening at the Sun-Times-WBEZ mayoral debate, Vallas denied having contact with DeVos, stating “I’ve never had any conversations or contact with Betsy DeVos. And our campaign has not received any money from her.”
The Vallas campaign said on Wednesday evening that “our campaign has not been in contact with this organization [Illinois Federation for Children PAC].”
In reality, Vallas and DeVos served together as hosts at an Union League Club of Chicago event on September, 9 2021 in honor of the superintendent of schools of the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago.
Moreover, the chair of the Illinois Federation for Children PAC Nathan Hoffman has been regularly attending Vallas campaign events in the last month, including Vallas’ February 28th election night party:
Hoffman was a registered contract lobbyist in Springfield for the DeVos-founded and funded 501c4 American Federation for Children until January 2023.
On June 18, 2022, Vallas appeared on a panel hosted by extremist anti-LGBTQ+ group Awake Illinois with keynote speaker Corey DeAngelis, senior fellow at DeVos-founded and funded American Federation for Children.
Paul Vallas’ decades-long history of privatizing multiple school districts in the US and extensive support for transferring public funds to private schools are tightly aligned with DeVos’ ideological opposition to the existence of publicly-run, publicly-funded schools.
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