City Council Moves to Shore Up Independence Despite Opposition

By Marion Hercyl CNW Contributor

The Chicago City Council made a move to make itself an independent body regardless of the winner between Paul Vallas or Brandon Johnson. The City Council has never held this type of vote to restructure itself in this manner, which will allow them to set new committee chairs, and to revise the council’s rules at the end of the term instead of at the beginning. With a turnover of 14 current members and a runoff of 8 wards still to be decided, several on the council were upset by the vote, leading to a raucous, contentious debate.

The plan will increase the number of City Council committees from 19 to 28, which passed by a vote of 22-11, and change the rules to, among other things, limit direct introductions and reduce committee membership which passed by 34-10. Councilmembers who were opposed to the vote claimed that the timing for this was rushed, and leaves out the new incoming members, and the constituencies they serve. The plan does not identify where the estimated $2.5 million-plus needed annually to fund the nine new committees will come from.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot who presided over the council meeting issued a statement after the historic vote, “Today, the City Council took steps to reorganize itself for the next four years. While this process and vote are unusual, particularly given the timing, if members of the City Council and Committee Chairs use this as an opportunity to put the interest of Chicagoans front and center in all their work, this could be viewed as a historic step in increasing the ways this body can advocate on residents’ behalf. However, if this expansion to 28 committees and other reorganization efforts do not have consistent wins on behalf of our residents, it will be viewed in a far less favorable light. Time will only tell which verdict will be rendered.”

While City Council members have always had the authority to decide who chairs each committee themselves, for decades they have ceded that power to the city’s mayors, allowing them to select their allies as committee chairs to ensure their agendas can be more easily approved. By charter, Chicago has a weak mayor-strong council system in which most of the power is vested in the city council. In practice, however, the mayor of Chicago has long been one of the most powerful municipal chief executives in the nation. In this case, Aldermen were determined to keep that power to themselves before either Brandon Johnson or Paul Vallas replaces Mayor Lori Lightfoot. Critics accused the aldermen behind the changes of simply trying to protect themselves and award those who went along with the vote with chairmanships, which bring with them additional staff and six- to seven-figure budgets to oversee, depending on the specific committee. One Alderman who was opposed to the rushed process was Ald. Jeanette Taylor (20th) said, “Why couldn’t we wait five days?” “We’ve been begging to be independent since I got here, and it ain’t happened, and so it’s funny to me that now we’re changing administrations and people have grown some balls.”

Outgoing Alderman and former Mayoral candidate Sophia King (4th), who chairs the council’s Progressive Reform Caucus, complained that a majority of the group supported Thursday’s vote, saying “This is a jacked-up process, and you know it.”

On the roster of committee chairs, one name was conspicuously missing, Ald. Anthony Beale (9th), the 24-year-veteran who is the Council’s second-most senior member.

Over the last four years, Beale has pleaded with his colleagues to end what he called the “dictatorship” under Lightfoot. He claims to have been left out because he made only one request: to chair the Finance Committee, a post-Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd) retains in the new line-up.

Beale said he didn’t care about being a chairman, but he questioned the decision to give someone who’s been here two months and “doesn’t even know where the bathroom is” a committee to chair just “to buy votes.”

Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson have both said they want an empowered, independent, and energized City Council to be their partner in solving Chicago’s enormous challenges.