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For Immediate Release
September, 27 2019, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
Ronnie Reese 312-329-6235, RonnieReese@ctulocal1.org
Ninety-four Percent of CTU Members Vote to Authorize Strike for Schools Chicago's Students Deserve
Chicago Teachers Union House of Delegates governing body will set strike date at Wednesday, Oct. 2, meeting.
WASHINGTON
The Chicago Teachers Union this evening released totals of the Sept. 24-26 strike authorization vote. The CTU Rules and Election Committee reported that as of 9:30 p.m., the Union passed the 75 percent threshold of members voting "yes." Ninety-four percent of teachers, clinicians, PSRPs, nurses, librarians voted to authorize a strike to win the schools Chicago's students deserve.
The vote stands as a mandate from CTU members for Chicago Public Schools to uphold promises of equity and educational justice made by Mayor Lori Lightfoot, and that those promises must be in writing in an enforceable contract. This is the only way to hold the district to its word after decades of austerity, budget cuts, understaffing, school closings and privatization.
The CTU House of Delegates will convene for its next scheduled meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 2, to set a strike date. The earliest the Union could strike is Oct. 7. The work stoppage would be the third since 2011 and the first under Lightfoot.
"Our school communities are desperately short of nurses, social workers, psychologists, counselors and other support staff, even as our students struggle with high levels of trauma driven by poverty and neighborhood violence," CTU President Jesse Sharkey said. "This vote represents a true mandate for change."
"And all of our members vote, not just 30 percent of the electorate," Sharkey said.
Bargaining Update
Rank-and-file members met with the district today to negotiate over early childhood and bilingual education provisions. They were sorely disappointed at the non-engagement from the other side. Watch their explanation in this video:
An affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT), CTU is the third largest teachers local in the country and the largest local union in Illinois.
LATEST NEWS
Trump Admin Finally Hands Over Evidence on Good and Pretti Killings to Minnesota Prosecutors After Withholding It For 6 Months
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said it "should never have taken this long."
Jul 13, 2026
After being shut out of the investigations by the Trump administration, Minnesota prosecutors announced on Monday that federal investigators finally turned over reams of unseen evidence related to shootings by immigration agents that killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti and injured Julio Sosa-Celis in January.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty announced that after "six months of relentless collective effort," state and local prosecutors had "obtained hard drives of previously withheld evidence" about the killings, which took place during the administration's aggressive surge of immigration agents in and around Minneapolis and sparked a wave of protests.
Moriarty added that prosecutors had also obtained some physical evidence that was "previously withheld" by federal investigators. This includes the SUV that Good, a 37-year-old US citizen and mother of three, had been driving when she was shot through her driver's side window by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jonathan Ross as she appeared to be leaving the scene of an enforcement operation.
Attorney Antonio Romanucci and the legal team representing the family of Good said in a statement that turning over the vehicle and other evidence was "an important and meaningful step towards justice and accountability," and that they were "grateful for the resumption of regular investigatory protocols, which is not only important for the families impacted in these cases, but it is essential for the community and the country."
Shortly after Good was shot, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin portrayed her as a “violent rioter" who had attempted to run over Ross with her car, which then-Secretary Kristi Noem claimed was an "act of domestic terrorism." But video evidence showed that her wheels were pointed away from the agent, indicating that she was attempting to leave.
Homeland Security adviser Stephen Miller similarly described Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse, another US citizen, as a "would-be assassin” while DHS said he showed up at a protest against ICE attempting to "massacre law enforcement" based on the fact that he was carrying a legal firearm when he was shot by two Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents.
Videos showed that Pretti had intervened to stop agents from harming another protester and only held his phone during the confrontation, never reaching for his gun.
Sosa-Celis, a 24-year-old Venezuelan national, was called a "violent criminal alien" by DHS, which accused him and his two roommates of having attacked agent Christian Castro with snow shovels, leading Sosa-Celis to be shot in the leg through the door of the home.
Assault charges against him and his roommate were dropped by federal prosecutors after video and medical evidence showed that Castro had not been attacked. ICE Director Todd Lyons acknowledged that the agents had lied about the incident, and Castro has since been arrested after being charged by Moriarty's office as part of an independent investigation.
Neither Ross nor the two CBP agents who shot Pretti—Jesus Ochoa and Raymundo Gutierrez—have been charged.
Federal authorities have repeatedly rejected demands from Minnesota officials to cooperate with investigations into the three shootings and grant access to evidence and the ability to interview witnesses.
In the case of Pretti, agents blocked investigators with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension from entering the shooting scene after the BCA had obtained a search warrant and removed physical evidence before Minnesota investigators could document it. This included Pretti's gun, cellphone, and body camera footage, and other physical and digital evidence.
In March, Minnesota sued the Trump administration over its refusal to cooperate with the investigations, a lawsuit that was still ongoing as of Monday.
The federal government did not explain its sudden change of direction. The Associated Press described it as part of an agreement in which Minnesota agreed to share evidence it had collected in Castro's case if the federal government shared evidence it was withholding about the shootings of Good and Pretti.
Moriarty thanked the federal officials for "their willingness to consider changing course to share evidence and promote public trust."
But Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison emphasized that it "should never have taken this long."
"I remain deeply troubled that the federal government spent more than half a year attempting to conceal this evidence from state investigators," he said in a statement. "And I hope this is the beginning of a major course correction on the part of the federal government."
US Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) agreed that "this took way too long" and said, "It's not enough."
"Minnesotans' trust has been fundamentally broken," she said. "There's a long way to go before we get true justice for ICE killing two of our neighbors."
The federal government's decision to turn over evidence to Minnesota officials came less than a week after an ICE agent shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican father in Houston, whom DHS claimed had attempted to attack officers with his car, only to once again be undermined by video and witness accounts.
DHS has acknowledged that it was not attempting to target Salgado for removal and had mistaken his van for someone else's.
Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare has said that, just like in Minnesota, the federal government was refusing to share evidence with local officials.
“The federal government has not invited us in,” Teare said. “The federal government is not collaborating with us with this investigation.”
On Monday, ICE agents killed another man in Maine, 26-year-old Colombian father Joan Sebastian Guerrero, who was reportedly shot several times after stopping his vehicle, according to video footage.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin has said Guerrero “weaponized” his vehicle and attempted to ram officers. One eyewitness told Reuters they saw a federal SUV ram Guerrero's car.
According to Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), Mullin said that Guerrero, who was authorized to work in the US and had a Social Security number, was not the target of the warrant agents were executing.
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'Impeachment Is Next,' Says Senate Dem After Judge Voids Trump Slush Fund Settlement
In a searing rebuke of Trump's self-dealing lawsuit against the IRS, Judge Kathleen Williams wrote that "a court should not be a forum for a party that cynically views a lawsuit as a vehicle to achieve a predetermined outcome."
Jul 13, 2026
A progressive US senator on Monday welcomed a federal judge's ruling that found President Donald Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service was an illegal act of self-dealing, while calling for the Republican to be impeached for a third time.
Trump and his two eldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, "acted in bad faith and for an improper purpose by 'collusively filing a lawsuit with claims subject to multiple dispositive defenses solely to provide cover for a collusive settlement,'" US District Judge for the Southern District of Florida Kathleen Williams—who was appointed by former President Barack Obama—wrote in her 56-page ruling.
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) called Williams' order "a scalding, blistering judicial opinion calling out Trump’s sham litigation, striking down his corrupt IRS immunity, and holding his sycophant lawyers to account."
"That’s a good start," the senator said. "Impeachment is next."
Finding that "sanctions are appropriate here," Williams referred Trump's personal attorney Alejandro Brito to the Florida Bar for "its consideration, review, and determination as to whether any disciplinary action is appropriate in light of the findings and rulings made in this order."
Williams also banned another one of the president's personal lawyers, Daniel Epstein—who is not related to Jeffrey Epstein, the late convicted child sex criminal and former close friend of Trump—from seeking admission to practice law in the Southern District of Florida for one year.
The judge further found that acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche's "apparent capacity to speak for both plaintiffs and defendants, sign a 'settlement' document on behalf of all parties to this action, and then repudiate part of that agreement, demonstrates that there was only one party whose interests were being represented throughout this case."
In January, Trump and his sons sued the Internal Revenue Service and US Treasury Department for $10 billion over the leak of the president's tax returns by a former IRS contractor. Trump’s own Department of Justice (DOJ) then settled the case in May by agreeing to exempt the plaintiffs from future IRS audits and create a roughly $1.776 billion settlement slush fund for people claiming they were unfairly targeted by the government.
Beneficiaries of the so-called "Anti-Weaponization Fund" were expected to include January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrectionists, roughly 1,500 of whom were pardoned by Trump and dozens of whom have since been charged or convicted for serious crimes, including child sex crimes, rape, grand larceny, burglary, home invasion, gun violations, death threats against public officials, and fatal DUI incidents.
Blanche has signaled that the DOJ will no longer pursue the creation of the slush fund.
Williams wrote in her ruling that "certainly, a court should not be a forum for a party that cynically views a lawsuit as a vehicle to achieve a predetermined outcome: 'I’m suing myself."
"President Trump did not pursue his claims until he once again occupied the White House and had appointed his former lawyer, and the former lawyer of persons who are putative beneficiaries of the 'Anti-Weaponization Fund,c' to prominent positions in the DOJ," she continued. "These officials then negotiated on behalf of the United States, with his current lawyers, including his former White House counsel, to reach a 'settlement.' It is risible to suggest that there was ever adverseness between the parties."
“Even the fund amount—$1.776 billion—speaks of a ‘branding’ effort rather than a deliberate and thoughtful calculation of damages,” the judge added.
A spokesperson for Trump's legal team responded to Monday's order in a statement asserting that “the IRS wrongly allowed a rogue, politically motivated employee to leak private and confidential information about President Trump, his family, and the Trump Organization to The New York Times, ProPublica, and other left-wing news outlets, which was then illegally released to millions of people."
"President Trump continues to hold those who wrong America and Americans accountable," the statement added.
Defenders of the rule of law welcomed Monday's ruling, with Robert Weissman and Lisa Gilbert, co-presidents of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, taking a swipe at Trump's "brilliant idea of suing the government he runs and resolving the lawsuit with the creation of an illegal and unconstitutional nearly $1.8 billion slush fund, paid for at taxpayer expense and likely to be distributed to January 6 insurrectionists, among others, as well with as an immunity deal protecting Trump and his family from IRS investigation."
"Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was a willing participant in this fraud on the court and the American people," the pair added. “If the Senate needed an additional reason not to confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general, it just got it.”
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'No One Is Above the Law': 12 States Sue to Block Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger
"With this lawsuit, California and our sister states are fighting for free and fair markets, not rigged markets," said Attorney General Rob Bonta. "America has no kings in government or our economy.”
Jul 13, 2026
In filing an antitrust lawsuit against Paramount Skydance over its proposed $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, 12 state attorneys general on Monday deployed a legal tactic successfully used in 2022 to block another megamerger pushed by book publisher Simon & Schuster.
States including California, New York, Colorado, and Washington argued in the lawsuit that should the merger be approved, just one massive corporation would control more than 30% of anticipated top-grossing blockbuster films with large budgets and audiences, while just four distributors—Paramount, Disney, Universal, and Sony—would control more than 90% of those films.
In 2022, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) argued successfully that Simon & Schuster's proposed acquisition of Penguin Random House would harm competition among book publishers as they vied for the rights to books anticipated to be bestsellers.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who is leading the coalition of states in the biggest legal challenge against the merger thus far, said that "the unlawful merger of these two entertainment behemoths would lead to higher prices, lower quality, and less content for film and television, harming movie theaters, basic cable distributors, and ultimately, audiences on every sofa and movie theater seat in the US."
The lawsuit also argues that after the proposed merger, just three distribution companies would control 75% of wide-release theatrical films and 27% of the market in licensing for basic cable television channels.
The merger, said the attorneys general in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, would violate Section 7 of the Clayton Act, which bars business mergers and acquisitions that substantially lessen competition or create a monopoly.
"In this country, no one is above the law," said Bonta. "With this lawsuit, California and our sister states are fighting for free and fair markets, not rigged markets. America has no kings in government or our economy.”
New York Mayor Zohran Mamadani expressed pride that his state was fighting the deal, which he said "is not a merger that serves the public."
The media advocacy group Free Press emphasized that along with reducing competition among film distribution companies, the merger would create a "media colossus" that would also include control over CBS—taken over by Skydance Media CEO David Ellison last year after his company merged with Paramount—and CNN.
The merger would give tech mogul Larry Ellison and his family—allies of President Donald Trump's administration—"the power to shape public discourse at the president’s direction in exchange for the administration’s regulatory approval," said Free Press. "That’s why administration officials like Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have openly rooted for the Ellisons to obtain CNN, based on their documented promises to make 'sweeping changes' to the network to please Trump."
Following the Ellisons' takeover of CBS, the leadership of newly appointed right-wing editor-in-chief Bari Weiss has been condemned by First Amendment advocates as Weiss has sought to remake CBS News—spiking a "60 Minutes" segment on Trump's mass deportations and firing the leadership of the flagship investigative news show.
“President Trump and his cronies want to rush this anti-competitive deal through because David Ellison has demonstrated time and again that he will leverage his control of his media empire to silence Trump’s critics and amplify MAGA propaganda," said Free Press co-CEO Jessica González, thanking the state attorneys general for their legal challenge. "That’s corruption, plain and simple. Any merger of this scale would diminish creativity and diversity in entertainment, weaken journalists’ ability to hold those in power accountable, and further endanger our democracy."
"This is especially true when the Ellisons are in charge," said González. "To win approval for their takeover of CBS News, the Ellisons promised to gut hard-hitting reporting across the network—and have gleefully followed through. And they’ll do the same to undermine editorial independence at CNN if they gain control of the global news network."
Although Paramount's proposed merger has already been approved by 20 countries and regions globally, and Trump's DOJ claimed the creation of an even larger media empire was "not likely to harm competition or American consumer,” regulators in the United Kingdom and the European Union have leaned toward looking more closely at the deal. The lawsuit, said González, "means that this corrupt merger is far from a done deal."
"While the administration won’t take a stand against the president’s billionaire cronies, we can still stop the Ellisons’ power grab," said González. "While Paramount is flaunting its corruption and toasting Trump officials, we’re standing with the workers and artists at the heart of the news and entertainment industries—and with the American people, who deserve a diverse and independent media system that works on their behalf, and against the self-interest of greedy billionaires and unethical politicians.”
The lawsuit also followed a series of town halls held in Los Angeles, New York, and Atlanta by the American Economic Liberties Project, titled "Main Street vs. the Merger." Anti-monopoly advocates heard from entertainment workers, small business owners, and others who would be impacted by the Paramount-Warner Bros. deal.
Comedian Adam Conover warned at one town hall that the merger would lead to higher streaming prices, and writers and other media workers shared fears that the deal would lead to mass layoffs.
"I spent the last month meeting with the workers and business owners who’d be hit with this deal,” said Alvaro Bedoya, senior adviser at American Economic Liberties Project, on Monday. “The rich guys who run Paramount can say what they want, but the people who actually work for them know that this will kill jobs and screw over the small businesses that are the lifeblood of this industry. I hope the states win and win fast, because these people need it.”
Lawsuits challenging mergers typically take at least several months and up to a year to be decided by a judge, and the states are asking the companies to freeze the proposed merger deal—which was set to close in the third quarter of 2026—which the case is being adjudicated. California also said it would seek a temporary restraining order if the companies did not agree to pause the deal.
Paramount has agreed to pay Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders $650 million for each quarter the deal isn't finalized, starting in October.
“This illegal merger would mean layoffs for artists and workers, higher prices for consumers, and the death of Hollywood,” said Matt Stoller, research director at American Economic Liberties Project. “State enforcers have done the right thing in seeking to block it. It is time to stop oligarchs from strip-mining our culture and selling America off for parts. Blocking this megamerger is the first step in doing so.”
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