The scandal in the Chicago Public schools is likely to affect the Democrats’ primary contest for the US Senate.  The Chicago Machine’s Great Black Hope, Harvard educated Andea Zopp, was a member of the Chicago School Board when it approved the fraudulent contracts that are sending the CPS cheif executive to prison.

The board seemed remarkably incurious about the relationships between Byrd-Bennett and her former employer.

At a Board of Education meeting on Oct. 24, 2012, Zopp and others on the board voted unanimously to approve the hiring of Byrd-Bennett as schools CEO, then minutes later also voted unanimously to award the first stage of the consulting contract with SUPES, one worth $2.095 million. The vote on SUPES took place with no discussion or debate from board members.

Nine months later, on June 26, 2013, Zopp again voted with other board members to approve the second stage of the contract worth $20.5 million.

The tally was 6-0, with one of the seven board members absent. Again, it took place with no discussion or debate on the contract from board members.

On Thursday, Zopp’s campaign declined a Chicago Tribune request to interview the candidate on Byrd-Bennett. Appearing before the Tribune Editorial Board in August, Zopp said school district staff conducted a review process on the Supes contract, though she acknowledged that the review staff also worked for Byrd-Bennett.

The obvious beneficiary will be Rep. Tammy Duckworth, also running for the Democrats’ Senate nomination. There are no recent polls.  But Duckworth has much higher name recognition to begin with and this won't help Zopp at all, especially in the upscale suburbs where Democrat voters tend to favor candidates with Ivy on the resume because the same voters don't care for open and obvious corruption, Zopp's supposed to be the super smart lawyer and she didn't think to ask a single question about a deal that was obviously fishy from the start.