George Cardenas Should Not Be Mayor

George Cardenas is corrupt.

Corruption comes in many flavors, with varying degrees of subtlety. George Cardenas is crass cartoon corruption. Gold watch hire your father corruption. Rent the ward office from your family corruption. Set up an asphalt plant next to a park while chair of the environment committee corruption. Chicago corruption.

Literally his first election lead directly to an expansion of the Shakman Consent Decree banning political hiring. He ran for City Council against an alderman who had displeased Mayor Daley, backed by the remnants of the Chicago Machine. City workers promised city services in exchange for votes. The Streets and Sanitation commissioner in charge of those workers, Al Sanchez, was later convicted of rigging city hiring. While he awaited sentencing, Cardenas defended his actions and hired his son.

Friends and Family Plan

Cardenas also hired his own father using a special line item in the city budget that wouldn’t show up on the regular payroll. He rented the 12th ward office from his family while he still had an ownership stake in the building.

In 2015 his campaign used city staff to put up campaign signs from the 12th Ward Service Van. That same year he introduced an ordinance to help a mob-connected landlord who faced a class-action lawsuit from his tenants.

In 2016 he voted against the ethics reform ordinance.

MAT Asphalt

He has taken more than $140,000 in donations from people and companies connected to MAT Asphalt, the hot-mix asphalt plant across the street from McKinley Park. MAT Asphalt opened in Cardenas’s ward while he was the Chair of the Committee on Health and Environment. He claimed he didn’t know about the project, while emails show he was helping them navigate the Department of Planning and Development. He posted an FAQ of talking points plagiarized from the asphalt industry, and told the Chicago Plan Commission residents were being “told to complain.”

Omni Medical

He took tens of thousands of dollars through Cardenas Consulting to help a business called Omni Medical Training that placed students from Caribbean medical schools in residency programs at Chicago hospitals. While serving as Alderman, Cardenas received monthly payments, trips to Miami and Los Angeles, a $6,000 campaign contribution, and a $5,000 watch (a hospital signing bonus he refused to return when the deal fell through). He was also allowed to drive a BMW that he also refused to return. He helped them land a contract with Cook County Care and persuaded them to hire his brother Jose Cardenas as an accountant.

He admitted to taking improper campaign contributions after an investigation by the Office of the Inspector General, then said he had returned them when he hadn’t.

Board of Review

In 2025 he was nearly disqualified from running again for the Board of Review after his top petition-passer, an employee named Carlos Sanchez who works for Cardenas at the Board of Review (and previously worked for Cardenas in the 12th Ward office) submitted dozens of pages of signatures with duplicate names, sometimes written 15 or 20 times. Many listed his own address.

Sanchez was part of a spate of political hiring that was investigated at the Board of Review after Cardenas took office. When investigators asked Sanchez about his qualifications to be an assessment analyst he said, “I know how to do the computer“ but “was unable to name any computer applications, including the system used by BOR analysts in their daily work.”

There’s More

Cardenas is also linked to Urban Center Action, the pro-charter school PAC formerly registered at the building his family owns. His name went out with special messages about school board candidates. He’s got ties to the Chicago Latino Public Affairs Committee, Homero Tristan, and Riot Fest (his brother also got a sweetheart deal from Chicago Public Schools to sell Riot Fest parking in a school parking lot in Cardenas’s ward). His corruption is ridiculous and wide-ranging. There is so much more.

For any interested reporters, I am a 12th Ward resident. I have a lot more data, records, and context than I organized for presentation here. Email me for details.