In the Chicago City Council of recent vintage, meetings were generally calm and predictable. The mayor lightly banged the gavel to keep decorum. Aldermen played their roles, mostly shifting in their seats. If drama gripped the room, it was provided by outsiders because Chicago’s mayor ran the show.
But with Mayor Lori Lightfoot, meetings have been edgy and unscripted. A former federal prosecutor, Lightfoot has shown she’s willing to engage with those who challenge her — and challenge her they have.
At Lightfoot’s first City Council meeting in May, she cut off Ald. Edward Burke, 14th, when he objected to rules she introduced. “Alderman, I will call you when I’m ready to hear from you,” she told him as mouths fell agape.
At Wednesday’s meeting, two other incumbent dissidents, Anthony Beale of the 9th Ward and Raymond Lopez of the 15th Ward, asserted authority by temporarily blocking James Rudyk Jr., Lightfoot’s pick for the Zoning Board of Appeals. Beale and Lopez were protesting the mayor’s aggressive effort to curb aldermanic privilege. Said Beale: “Aldermen are the voice of their community, and we’re concerned about the direction in which this ship is going.”
Lopez later tried to rally a full council vote on banning liquid nicotine products and e-cigarettes in Chicago before a committee meeting could take place. Lightfoot calmly ruled him out of order and moved on.
This is not the initial sound of an insurrection. It certainly isn’t the ugly Council Wars era of 1980s Chicago. It’s just a bit of pushing and shoving in the early days of a new administration. But celebrate this, Chicagoans: It’s healthy, even when the mayor takes swipes at citizen speakers or gets caught on a hot microphone calling a Fraternal Order of Police official “a clown.” Because this is what you voted for — an outsider mayor and a City Council willing to question her decisions. Don’t be surprised if there’s more to come.
The council includes 12 freshmen and one newer member appointed in 2018. Six members of the council are democratic socialists with an aggressive agenda opposing gentrification, supporting immigrant protections and aligning with the Black Lives Matter movement on policing. They share the semicircle of desks at City Council with a dozen old-school, incumbent aldermen driven more by politics than policy.
The growing Progressive Caucus also is pursuing its agenda for an elected school board, affordable housing and tax increment financing reform.
Lightfoot has her own focus: rolling back the influence of aldermen in their wards and limiting what outside work is permitted of them professionally. That has prompted resistance from aldermen who make a living as lawyers, consultants and lobbyists.
The competing agendas have created some early turbulence for the new mayor. But this is what Chicago has needed for decades: a City Council that isn’t a rubber stamp. In other words, checks and balances on power.
Beale and Lopez aren’t simply seeking to take down the new mayor by a notch. They are voicing legitimate concerns about aldermanic control. How will Lightfoot’s changes affect the day-to-day life of Chicagoans? Will aldermen become powerless over development in their own wards? Or will streamlining basic functions of city government reduce clout-driven decisions?
Chicago, in case you didn’t know, operates by charter as a weak mayor-strong council government. That means the council can override mayoral vetoes. The setup is designed to empower aldermen, not the mayor. In practice, the council has long been obedient to, and dependent on, the mayor.
A December 2018 report from the University of Illinois at Chicago looked at votes on the council that were not unanimous. Researchers found that 11 aldermen voted with former Mayor Rahm Emanuel 100% of the time. Another 32 voted with him 90% to 98% of the time. The aldermen who voted with him the least still voted with him 71% to 90% of the time.
A City Council that exists primarily to endorse the vision and whims of a mayor isn’t effectively representing constituents. As much as the two sides of government need to work together, they need to be able to think and act independently.
This is the elemental stuff of democracy, even if it feels new and fresh in Chicago.
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