Organization Adds Johnson to its People’s Slate
WASHINGTON, D.C.—People’s Action today endorsed Brandon Johnson to represent Chicago as mayor. Johnson is running a movement politics, people-powered campaign and will work to govern alongside People’s Action’s member groups to advance wins for the multiracial working class. Johnson is also endorsed by People’s Action affiliates The People’s Lobby and One People’s Campaign.
“Brandon is truly a people’s champion,” People’s Action Director of Movement Politics Marta Popadiak said. “He has created a new standard for accountability to the movement he comes from as well as bringing big legal justice reforms and public investment in struggling communities.”
People’s Action cast the race as a match-up between a people’s candidate who will unite the city to meet the needs of everyday people versus a corporate Democrat playing off of people’s fears about each other. The group pointed to the strong coalition of unions, organizing groups, progressive political organizations, elected officials, and Chicagoans from around the city who backed Johnson as proof of a powerful, movement-grown movement behind him. They contrasted him with Paul Vallas, who seeks to build power through stoking racist backlash to criminal justice reform and a long record of privatizing schools and supporting racist austerity.
“At a time when people do not feel safe and neighborhoods face the trauma that comes from generations of racially motivated disinvestment, we need a Mayor who will fight alongside the community to deliver real changes we can feel in our neighborhoods,” Brandon Johnson said.
Brandon knows how to deliver. He has done it before as a public school teacher, Chicago Teachers Union leader and Cook County Commissioner. He has fought alongside grassroots leaders to combat extreme austerity, transforming legal justice in Cook County and expanding funding for health and human services in Black and Brown communities.
People’s Action’s Movement Politics program recruits, runs, and elects progressives into local and statewide offices across the country. Since 2016, People’s Action has helped elect over 450 movement politics candidates. The program focuses on electing women, people of color, low-income and working class people who are grounded in progressive movement building with our member organizations.
People’s Action builds the power of poor and working people in urban, rural, and suburban areas to win change through issue fights and elections. We are a national network of 40 state and local grassroots power-building organizations in 29 states–united in the work of building a bigger “we.”
Contact: Nazz Aboutabl, n.aboutabl@peoplesaction.org, 202.316.9658