On the last day of 2025, the Tribune’s front page featured the headline “Leon to drop out of Dem primary.”
With three months before the March 17 primary, Bruce Leon’s exit from the race to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky must be quite the big deal, right? The article doesn’t mention it, but in this race, it appears Leon has not gotten significant traction. He was polling at less than 5% in November, putting him behind at least seven other candidates in the primary.
It doesn’t appear Leon dropping out will influence the race in any significant way, including moving the candidate he says the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) supports, Laura Fine (polling at 10%), up in the polls into competition with the race’s leaders, Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss (18%) and Kat Abughazaleh (18%).
Instead of a short blurb in the back of the paper, this front-page piece tells a story of Jewish infighting and claims of backchanneling via Orthodox rabbis, and it positions Israel at the center of a congressional race that is taking place more than 6,000 miles from that country’s borders.
Neither the exit nor Leon’s explanation is newsworthy.
The Tribune repeats his charge that AIPAC influenced local Orthodox rabbis to pressure Leon to drop out of the race. “AIPAC has been breathing down the rabbis’ necks,” he is quoted as saying. Maybe AIPAC did. It is a political action committee after all. That’s akin to reporting that a traffic light worked today and putting it on the front page.
Although I don’t think it was the writer’s intention, this article chums the water for conspiracy theorists to circle, tapping into common antisemitic tropes about power, money and control. I have no connection to AIPAC, but it is important to remind readers that it is an American organization, funded by American citizens. This article, assuming Leon’s suggestion is accurate, would be an example of the organization functioning more or less how it’s designed to function. Nothing nefarious.
But my guess is that the truth will be lost on the average reader. For most casual eyes, the takeaway of this front-page, nearly 1,000-word story is clear, even if it is not true, that Israel is meddling in American politics, yet again.
Antisemitic incidents are at the highest they’ve ever been in America. While the story may be factually accurate, the takeaway is misleading and dangerous to the Chicagoland Jewish community.
— Drew Grossman, Chicago
Race as religious battle?
As a 35-year subscriber of the Tribune, I was appalled to read the article on Dec. 31 by Olivia Olander about the 9th Congressional District. The article purports that Bruce Leon was forced out of the race by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and a rabbinical “edict.”
The acronym “AIPAC” appears 20 times in the 25-paragraph story. The article is biased and misleading. First, AIPAC is an organization of Americans who support Israel. It does not support any political party and makes no direct donations to political candidates. Second, rabbis are teachers who can only give advice if asked. They cannot give orders.
The article neglects to mention that Leon polled at less than 5% and that he is not among the candidates who have received political endorsements in a financially expensive race. There is no mention of the religion of any of the other candidates. The article does not mention the aggressive anti-AIPAC organizations that advise their donors to favor anti-Israel candidates.
The article does not even state the names of all the candidates in the race, an insult to those who polled higher than Leon. The article also fails to mention that Kat Abughazaleh filed for her candidacy six weeks before U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky announced her retirement as district representative.
The article turns this race into a religious battle. The Tribune owes 9th District readers a much better, unbiased article on their candidates for the upcoming primary and a much better discussion of the power of the anti-Israel organizations and other funding organizations relevant to this race.
—BettyAnn Brody Bucksbaum, 9th District resident, Glenview
Violence in West Bank
Thank you for publishing Elizabeth Shackelford’s Dec. 28 column “No peace for Palestinians in the land of Bethlehem.” It is so important to have the reality of the present Israeli military occupation of the West Bank set forth with such clarity.
Even when I was part of a Seraj Library Project delegation in October 2022, I could see the growing settler violence, a violence that has intensified since Oct. 7, 2023.
— Newland F. Smith III, Evanston
Our property tax system
Modernizing Cook County’s property tax system was always going to be a heavy lift. As the Tribune has reported, the decade-long effort to replace a 1970s-era mainframe with a modern digital platform has been marked by delays, cost overruns and technical challenges. But while debate downtown has focused on contracts and project management, the human cost of this transition is being felt across the county — most sharply in neighborhoods on the South and West sides.
In an equitable system, technology should reduce risk for homeowners, not shift it onto them. Yet the current phase of “modernization” has exposed a data-integrity gap that places the burden of accuracy on those residents least able to absorb sudden errors.
Recent reassessments in parts of West Garfield Park, North Lawndale and Englewood illustrate a broader problem, with increases that go far beyond routine market movement. These are warning signs of a system struggling to reconcile legacy data with automated valuation at scale.
The response has been a record surge in appeals, with the Cook County Board of Review receiving an unprecedented number of filings in the most recent cycle. That volume should not be dismissed as routine pushback. It signals that the system is producing results that are not fair or credible. Together, these outcomes suggest that maintaining the flow of property tax revenue took precedence over ensuring the system was fully accurate and durable — leaving homeowners to absorb the consequences of unresolved errors.
Modernization should not require a record-breaking fight to correct obvious outliers. If it is to mean fairness — not just efficiency — it must include three commitments:
- Proactive relief: Expanded use of existing correction tools, including certificates of error, to address the most extreme and implausible outcomes at scale.
- Data integrity: Independent verification of the property data feeding valuation models so legacy errors do not persist.
- Human-centered accountability: Homeowners should not serve as the primary quality-control mechanism for a system that has cost hundreds of millions of dollars to implement.
Efficiency without equity is not modernization. Until Cook County closes the gap between correcting a bill and correcting the data itself, the promise of reform will remain out of reach for the residents who need it most.
— Tony Bonvolanta, Chicago
Safety for Chicagoans
For years, many of us transit riders have been asking for more safety and security on the CTA, but it took (what I believe is) feigned concern from the Washington Republican cabal to get anything done. Unfortunately, Chicago was given a 90-day extension to comply. Maybe now, New York’s commonsense tool of having officers/security move from train car to train car will be adopted.
Hey, Washington! Please take an even deeper look at Chicago citizens’ safety and force City Hall to bring back ShotSpotter.
— Michael Pearson, Chicago
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