Chicago City Treasurer and former state representative Melissa Conyears-Ervin officially announced that she was running for U.S. Rep. Danny Davis’ (D-7) congressional seat despite allegations of unethical conduct.
“As a working mother born on the South Side, raised on the West Side, and raising my daughter on the West Side, I know how hard the people of the 7th District work every day. I also know they deserve someone representing them in Congress who works as hard as they do to make our community better,” she said in an Oct. 13 statement. “It’s time for a change.
She had postponed her initial announcement a month ago after the city released a complaint against her filed by her former staff members. In a 2020 letter, Tiffany Harper, Conyears-Ervin’s former chief of staff, and Ashley Evans, another city treasurer employee, said that they were fired in retaliation after they questioned what they described as the abuse of power. The city settled with the ex-employees, and Conyears-Ervin denied the allegations.
Austin community activist Kina Collins, who ran against Davis in the last two Democratic primaries, coming close to unseating him in 2022, said she wasn’t too concerned about the race, saying that she still believed the momentum was on her side. She reiterated her position that the allegations were damning if true and said that the voters will make up their own minds.
Davis told this publication that he was focusing on getting things done for his constituents.
“I am spending my time working for the people as I always have and always will do,” he said. “I don’t have much time to worry about what the City Treasurer is announcing. I notice that in her statement Melissa stated that people wanted someone to represent them who will work harder for them than they do. I would say to her ‘follow my record.’ She will learn how it’s done.”
Harper’s and Evans’ complaint alleged that, among other things, Conyears-Ervin used her employees to organize her daughter’s party and to be her bodyguards. They also accused her of hiring politically connected individuals for positions they weren’t qualified for, pressuring a bank to give a loan to a third party on a building that houses her husband’s, Ald. Jason Ervin (28th), ward office, and using city resources to support churches connected to her and Ervin.
According to the letter, Conyears-Ervin hired a former Chicago police officer to act as assistant to the city treasurer – a job that required financial training that the ex-officer allegedly didn’t have – and had him act as her security guard. The letter said that Conyears-Ervin hired Gina Zuccaro, who objected to nominating petitions for several candidates who ran against Ervin in 2019, as an administrative assistant.
The letter also alleged that the treasurer pressured BMO Harris Bank, one of the banks where the city stores its deposits and which has a branch in the West Garfield Park portion of the 28th Ward, to give a mortgage to the building where Ervin’s aldermanic office was located at the time.
The city ended up settling with Harper and Evans for $100,000. Former mayor Lori Lightfoot tried to block the release of the letter in court, but the Johnson administration decided not to continue to fight, releasing it in August. At the time, Conyears-Ervin’s campaign denied the allegations, and argued that there wasn’t anything underhanded about the BMO loan because Ervin himself didn’t directly benefit. Conyears-Ervin later publicly acknowledged that she approached bank officials, saying she didn’t think she did anything wrong.
The Office of Inspector General has launched an investigation, removing computers from city treasurer’s office in mid-September.
Conyears-Ervin’s campaign announcement didn’t address the allegations.
“People have been working hard through the worst increase in the cost of living in forty years, the worst increase in crime in thirty years, the first time in our history the rights of women have been taken away by the Supreme Court, the ever-increasing threat of climate change, and the most dangerous person to ever seek the presidency,” Conyears-Ervin said in a statement. “They don’t see their leaders working as hard as they do to make things better … I’m running for Congress so that working families in this district have someone they can count on to make their community better.”
According to the most recent campaign disclosure, as of Sept. 20, Conyears-Ervin raised $383,000 and spent a little more than $148,843 of it on operating expenses. The records show that a significant portion of the third quarter donations came in in late September, after the allegations became public, and some were repeat donations.
In a heavily Democratic 7th District, winning the Democratic primary has been tantamount to winning an election. While Collins trailed Davis when she first faced him in 2020, she gave him the toughest challenge in decades in 2022, earning 45.6% of the vote. She has already earned endorsements from four Oak Park village trustees and some of the aldermen representing the area around the UIC campus.
In an interview following Conyears-Ervin’s announcement, Collins said that she believed the momentum was still on her side, and the city treasurer’s official entry into the race wouldn’t change that.
“What I will say is that the allegations are deeply troubling, and if they’re true, they pointing to an utterly disqualifying breach of public trust, full stop,” she said.
Collins said that she trusts the voters to make an informed choice.
“I think it is quite the slap of the face to the voters of Illinois [District] 7 who will do their research,” she said. “The voters in this district, one of the things we learned in the primary run, they’re hard-working, they want safe neighborhoods and they want the elected officials to do their jobs, to the degree that their integrity is intact. And when you have allegations like this, it doesn’t help the case of the new fresh leadership in IL-7.”
Conyears-Ervin served as a state representative for the West Side-based 10th District before resigning to run for city treasurer in 2019. She won a three-way race and ran unopposed in 2022. Conyears-Ervin considered running for Davis’ seat when it looked like he might retire, launching an exploratory committee in April. She continued fundraising after the incumbent announced in late May that he would run after all.
