Jennifer Schaffer
From Ballotpedia
This page was last updated during the official's most recent election or appointment. Please contact us with any updates.
Jennifer Schaffer is a member of the Chicago Police District Council in Illinois, representing District 19. She assumed office on May 2, 2023. Her current term ends on May 4, 2027.
Schaffer ran for election to the Chicago Police District Council to represent District 19 in Illinois. She won in the general election on February 28, 2023.
Schaffer completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. Click here to read the survey answers.
Elections
2023
See also: City elections in Chicago, Illinois (2023)
General election
General election for Chicago Police District Council District 19 (3 seats)
The following candidates ran in the general election for Chicago Police District Council District 19 on February 28, 2023.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Jennifer Schaffer (Nonpartisan)  | 23.8 | 29,278 |
| ✔ |  | Maurilio Garcia (Nonpartisan) | 18.9 | 23,229 |
| ✔ | Samuel Schoenburg (Nonpartisan) | 17.2 | 21,104 | |
| Dan Richman (Nonpartisan) | 16.0 | 19,711 | ||
 | Julienn Kaviar (Nonpartisan) | 12.1 | 14,857 | |
| Demerike Palecek (Nonpartisan) | 12.1 | 14,840 | ||
| Total votes: 123,019 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Endorsements
To view Schaffer's endorsements as published by their campaign, click here. Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Schaffer in this election.
Campaign themes
2023
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Jennifer Schaffer completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Schaffer's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
| Collapse all
Jenny is a mom to three kids who attend Chicago Public School and lives in the North Center neighborhood. With her roots as a Special Education teacher, she knows how to be a strong advocate for all people and can bring diverse groups together to make change. While raising her young children, Jenny became active in Embarc, an nonprofit which provides experiential learning curriculum in underserved CPS schools to allow students to tap into the power of their potential . Through the relationships she built with these students she had to confront the stark inequities that exist in our city and decided to act. Jenny joined many efforts focused around reinvesting services and resources in underserved communities. She also saw a need for change right in her own neighborhood. She founded and leads an antiracism group for parents at her kids’ elementary school and took a leadership position on her synagogue’s Social Justice Team where she worked with the larger coalition to pass the ECPS ordinance. As a member of District Council, Jenny will uplift innovative strategies to make our neighborhoods safer.
- We must advocate to expand emergency services to include mental health crisis teams, drug addiction treatment programs, and homelessness response providers and uplift community initiatives aimed at reducing crime before it happens.
- We will elevate community voice by amplifying the voices of people of color, the LGBTQ+ community, and other marginalized communities in public safety decisions. We will update residents on local crime statistics provided by police leaders via regular notices to the community and host discussions around the latest, data-backed methods to reduce crime and expand people’s understanding of the role police play in keeping our community safe.
- We will promote responsible, fair, and effective policing such as maintaining officer days off and offering more training, all to allow officers to perform to the best of their ability. Additionally, by delegating non-violent tasks and responsibilities to civilian workers and social service experts we can ensure that police will be available to respond to violent crime in the neighborhood.
I am passionate about creating a public safety system that works to keep everyone in the community safe. Safety cannot happen in a bubble, when the most vulnerable among us do not have access to services and resources needed for their safety the rest of the community suffers as well. I am committed to making sure we all have what we need to thrive. As a District Council member, I will build upon and grow the relationships I have created with grassroots organizations, social service agencies, and community members to build people power and uplift data driven, modernized solutions to public safety informed by the lived experiences of all these groups. I will advocate for policies such as Bring Chicago Home, (creating a direct funding source to support homelessness relief in Chicago),Treatment Not Trauma (having mental health workers respond to non-violent mental health calls), and The Peace Book Ordinance (bringing violence reduction and healing work to communities in need) and other innovative policy which works to create peace in the 19th District.
This office is extremely exciting because it gives community members a voice in what public safety and policing will look like in their neighborhoods. We will have the power to come together as a community and have our voice heard. The power of creating a safer community will be in the hands of the most invested stakeholders - the members of the community. District Council members, alongside the community, can create a vision of how an expanded public safety system would operate and then hold elected officials responsible for ensuring this vision become a reality. This position is exciting to me because we can come together as a community to advocate for a public safety that is more robust and creates more safety.
Additionally, District Council members have the important task of nominating people to serve on the city wide Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability (CCPSA). This is a tremendously important task because the CCPSA sets policy for the Police Department and plays a central role in selecting and removing the Police Superintendent, COPA Chief Administrator, and the Police Board members. We must ensure that we nominate leaders for this Commission who have a deep understanding of the impacts of policy in the community, They have to think critically and listen deeply to the concerns of the people most impacted by the policy. We need to make sure that those serving on the CCPSA are committed to our ideals of an expanded public safety system that works for all people because this position will significantly impact public safety across our entire city,
Additionally, District Council members have the important task of nominating people to serve on the city wide Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability (CCPSA). This is a tremendously important task because the CCPSA sets policy for the Police Department and plays a central role in selecting and removing the Police Superintendent, COPA Chief Administrator, and the Police Board members. We must ensure that we nominate leaders for this Commission who have a deep understanding of the impacts of policy in the community, They have to think critically and listen deeply to the concerns of the people most impacted by the policy. We need to make sure that those serving on the CCPSA are committed to our ideals of an expanded public safety system that works for all people because this position will significantly impact public safety across our entire city,
An elected official should be able to listen to the communities concerns and needs and think creatively on how to accomplish them to serve everyone in the community. They need to be responsive to their community and available to listen, think of creative ideas, and take action. As a special education teacher, I had a student who was quadripelgic and nonverbal. His parents wanted him to be able to request his basic needs. I lead a team to use technology to innovate a solution for him to make these requests. On top of that, we programed jokes into his device so that he could interact with his peers. Friends in his grade would always come up to him and ask him for that day's joke. These jokes were a great way for him to seen as an important part of the school community, make friendships, and were a huge confidence boost for my student. He even won an award for this assistive device and got to get up in front of the entire audience and share one of his favorite jokes to start the presentation. Being innovative and coming up with solutions that leave the community better is an important characteristic of all elected officials I admire most.
I love to read and can't pick just one book. I am a big fan of nonfiction books because I grow and learn from each book I read. Naming just a few titles I see on my bookshelf right now: The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee, Caste by Isabel Wilkerson, I'm Still Here by Austin Channing Brown, and Daring Greatly by Brene Brown. I also love memoirs like Unbound by Tarana Burke, Heavy by Kiese Laymon, and Untamed by Glennon Doyle. My favorite fiction book I read recently was Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. I loved how it followed families from generation to generation. Fantastic book! Audiobooks are also the best!
No. This is a brand new position and will operate differently than most government offices because the District Council does not have many hard powers but instead can leverage the important soft power of advocacy. Coming into this role open minded and not beholden to any governmental office or with my sights on any other future position will allow me to best be able to advocate for the needs of my community without concern for political consequence. I come into this position with a strong background in the community, relationship building, and in organizing work which will be the most beneficial experience in this position.
Additionally, I am running on as a slate with Maurilio Garcia and Sam Schoenburg. We have been working together for months already and know that our skillsets compliment one another. Together we are an effective, values aligned team. Our shared understanding of what it takes to be successful in this position and our commitment to teamwork will allow us to hit the ground running after we get elected in February.
Additionally, I am running on as a slate with Maurilio Garcia and Sam Schoenburg. We have been working together for months already and know that our skillsets compliment one another. Together we are an effective, values aligned team. Our shared understanding of what it takes to be successful in this position and our commitment to teamwork will allow us to hit the ground running after we get elected in February.
I think it is crucial that the District Council members must be expert in building relationships. This is something that our slate has already begun to do. To begin with, we have enlisted over 100 volunteers to help us knock on doors and join us in growing our campaign. We have had thousands of conversations at the doors with engaged community members.
Additionally, we have been in conversation with local organizations like Thresholds, READI, and C4 who are working to create safety in our community by offering data driven, innovative ideas in areas like homelessness, mental health, and violence interruption. These are important partners in the work of creating safer communities and must have a seat at the table in conversations around creating safer communities. We also have meaningful relationships with local grassroots organizations like ONE Northside and JCUA. These partners have strong roots in advocacy and in the community. We plan to lean on these relationships in our work towards a shared vision, while continuing to bring more organizers and community social service groups into our network.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2023 Elections
External links
Footnotes
| |||||||||
