Thirty aldermen have signed commitments calling for the election of Ald. Eugene Sawyer (6th) as acting mayor, four more than he would need to be selected when the Chicago City Council holds a special meeting Tuesday evening.
Aldermen marched into Sawyer`s office on the third floor of City Hall Monday night to sign the document at the same time that crowds at a memorial service for the late Mayor Harold Washington were shouting their support for Sawyer`s chief opponent, Ald. Timothy Evans (4th).
And in what may be the opening of a campaign for the next time voters elect a mayor, Cook County Sheriff James O`Grady said Monday that he is thinking ”very strongly” about running and has already conferred with top party leaders about the race.
A special election is expected to be held in 1989, and the council appears ready to choose Sawyer to serve until that time.
”Yes, I do have 25 votes already signed on the dotted line,” Sawyer said as he left City Hall for a meeting with South Side ministers. ”The 25 votes are signed, sealed and delivered.”
Those names were on a resolution calling for Sawyer`s election that was filed with the city clerk. ”We`ve got five additional commitments, but I`m hoping to get more votes,” Sawyer said.
Asked if he had made any deals to win the aldermen`s support, Sawyer said, ”There were no deals.”
He then reached into his pocket, pulled out a blue button circulated by Washington`s forces that said, ”No Deals.”
”The votes are in,” said Ald. William Henry (24th), Sawyer`s de facto campaign manager. ”They are signed and etched in concrete. They shall not be moved. They will not be moved. That`s it. It`s as simple as that. We did our homework.”
During a impromptu news conference after the memorial service that turned into a political rally for him, Evans told reporters that ”the Sawyer group is in trouble of breaking up” and said ”there might very well be some surprises between now and 5 or 5:30 tomorrow.”
”I am saying to you that we are adding to our coalition,” said Evans, who was surrounded by a group of nine aldermen who pledged to support him. When asked if he could support Sawyer, Evans said, ”There is no way I can endorse a process that has excluded us.”
”I think I should be the next mayor because Mayor Washington chose me to be the finance chairman and because I carry on his programs. . . . People who are counted on by the Sawyer group are coming to me,” he said referring to Ald. Allan Streeter (17th), who was affiliated with Sawyer earlier on Monday. Evans promised that he had some process to delay the passing of the resolution to appoint Sawyer but said he would not tip his hand until the meeting begins at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. He did say that he thought the council should postpone appointing a successor to Washington to allow him more time to gather public opinion and pressure other aldermen.
Ald. Robert Shaw (9th) said the Sawyer forces hope to get 40 votes at Tuesday`s council meeting and hope to get all 50 votes in a demonstration of unity, if the Evans people realize they cannot win.
The pro-Sawyer resolution and more commitments contained the names of 31 aldermen-12 blacks and 19 whites-an indication that the biracial coalition Sawyer forged Sunday night had remained virtually intact throughout a day of furious politicking that took only a brief hiatus for the funeral of the late mayor. In fact, aldermen could be heard discussing political deals as they walked from their cars to the mayor`s grave site.
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The special council meeting was called by City Clerk Walter Kozubowski after three Sawyer loyalists-Aldermen Keith Caldwell (8th), Anna Langford
(16th) and Sheneather Butler (27th)-requested it at 5:20 p.m. Monday.
Under council rules, a meeting must be held if three aldermen request one and give at least 24 hours` notice.
But Henry said the Sawyer forces will try to elect their candidate Tuesday without going through the formality of a meeting. Some lawyers who specialize in election law say state statutes are ambiguous on whether a meeting is needed.
Henry said he would present the resolution to Kozubowski and ask him to swear in Sawyer as acting mayor. If Kozubowski refuses, Henry said, the Sawyer forces will try to elect him in the special meeting.
”If they don`t accept the fact that we`ve got those written signatures, then we`ll do it with the voting,” he said. ”The quickest way is always the best way.”
The resolution reads:
”We the undersigned members of the Chicago City Council do hereby vote to elect the honorable Eugene Sawyer as Acting Mayor of the City of Chicago to fill the vacancy created by the death of the Honorable Harold Washington.”
As the three Sawyer loyalists sought the special council meeting, 17 white aldermen were meeting in a room on the seventh floor of the Palmer House to discuss political strategy and dine on cold cuts and pasta salad.
Upon hearing that the resolution had been filed, the aldermen rushed from the hotel to Sawyer`s office in City Hall, where several signed on with their support.
”If Sawyer`s people filed for a special meeting, they must think they`ve got the votes,” Ald. Edward Burke (14th) shouted as he left the meeting.
Sawyer later told the group of ministers that he had not sought the support of white aldermen but that they had volunteered it.
Besides his own vote, Sawyer said he received written commitments from:
Aldermen William Beavers (7th), Caldwell, Shaw, Marlene Carter (15th), Langford, Ernest Jones (20th), Jesse Evans (21st), Henry, Butler, Lemuel Austin (34th), Burton Natarus (42d), Fred Roti (1st), Mark Fary (12th), John Madrzyk (13th), Burke, George Hagopian (30th), Terry Gabinski (32d), Richard Mell (33d), Joseph Kotlarz (35th), William J.P. Banks (36th), Thomas Cullerton (38th), Anthony Laurino (39th), Patrick O`Connor (40th), Roman Pucinski
(41st), Bernard Hansen (44th), Patrick Levar (45th), Eugene Schulter
(47th), Kathy Osterman (48th) and Bernard Stone (50th).
Sawyer`s aides took the resolution to Grant Hospital to get the signature of Austin, a freshman alderman. He is listed in fair condition in the intensive coronary care unit. They said he would be taken from the hospital by ambulance Tuesday to vote for Sawyer.
Sawyer`s loyalists want to hold the special council meeting as quickly as possible in hopes of heading off an emotional last-ditch campaign for Timothy Evans, Washington`s council floor leader.
That campaign already has resulted in Ald. Jesse Evans switching his vote. Evans said early Tuesday that pressure from Washington political operatives ”caused me to change.”
”Did you see that rally? Did you see what happened at PUSH? Of course, I`m going for Tim Evans now,” Evans said.
While the Sawyer forces were counting votes Monday, backers of Timothy Evans spent the day whipping up public support for their candidate.
Monday night, as the audience arrived for a memorial service for the mayor at the University of Illinois-Chicago Pavilion, groups of people repeatedly chanted: ”No deals! No deals!” and then: ”We want Evans! We want Evans!”
Earlier in the day, Evans received the endorsement of the Task Force for Black Political Empowerment, a civil rights group that was instrumental in electing Washington as the city`s first black mayor in 1983.
”Ald. Evans has demonstrated his commitment to the legacy, the movement and to the agenda at hand,” said Robert Starkes, director of the task force. ”We think that he can best articulate and carry out the agenda that Mayor Washington set.”
But as if to emphasize the disarray in the broad-based coalition that first elected Washington, another part of that coalition, the Black Independent Political Organization, endorsed Ald. Danny Davis (29th) Monday afternoon who, late Monday, endorsed Evans.
The leader of that group, Lu Palmer, a longtime Washington backer, said he felt neither Sawyer nor Evans was a true political independent. Both, he noted, entered politics as members of the Democratic organization of the late Mayor Richard J. Daley.
”The next mayor of Chicago must have no ties to machine politics,”
Palmer said. ”The next mayor of Chicago must not be a person who wrapped the robes of reform around him only after the people had lifted Harold Washington to the city`s highest governmental office.”
Palmer called for changing Illinois election law to provide for a special mayoral election early next year, instead of in 1989. Davis said he supported the proposed change.
Evans` white and Hispanic supporters were slow to organize their effort to keep Sawyer out of the mayor`s office.
A group of lakefront independents Monday called a ”Stop Sawyer” news conference for 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, only five hours before the council was expected to vote on Sawyer`s appointment. And they called a ”Stop Sawyer”
rally for 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Belmont Hotel, by which time Sawyer expects to have completed his first day in office.
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Organizers of the rally are former Ald. Martin Oberman (43d), State Sen. Dawn Clark Netsch (D., Chicago) and State Sen. Miguel del Valle (D., Chicago). The Evans campaign had the backing of many of Washington`s top aides, but it appeared to be long on rhetoric and short on votes. Evans` backers contended that Sawyer did not share the late mayor`s commitment to ethics legislation and gay rights, and they noted that he had supported a ward map that was later voided by a federal judge for discriminating against blacks and Hispanics.
Although black politicians of all shapes and sizes flocked to Jackson`s side, it quickly became apparent that he was having little effect on the tough political wheeling and dealing that has been going on for the last six days.
Burke, the former chairman of the City Council Finance Committee, said Sawyer gave him the impression in these meetings that he opposes the $84 million property tax increase in Washington`s 1988 budget.
”I believe the property tax increase is dead,” Burke said. ”He
(Sawyer) said he gets the same reaction in his community that we get.”
Hansen, who reportedly had conditioned support of Sawyer on a pledge to oppose lights in Wrigley Field, said Monday night that he had received no such commitment.
Banks, who represents a predominantly white Northwest Side ward, said he supported Sawyer partly because of Jackson`s evident support of Evans.
”I don`t think the decision on who should be made mayor should be determined by Jesse Jackson,” Banks said, ”and that will be real easy to explain in my community.”
While Sawyer`s election had seemed a good bet since late Sunday night, the potential entry of O`Grady in a future race came as a surprise and gave encouragement to Republicans eager to restore a two-party system to Chicago.
O`Grady, 58, the darling of the GOP since he captured the sheriff`s office in 1986, said he has discussed a mayoral campaign with Gov. James Thompson and Cook County GOP Chairman Donald Totten. He was scheduled to meet with former Gov. Richard Ogilvie, a top Republican financier, on Tuesday.
”I feel real strong about it at this time; I`m thinking about it very strongly,” O`Grady said in an interview.
That creates the possibility of a powerhouse Republican primary: O`Grady versus former Cook County Democratic Chairman Edward Vrdolyak, who has made no secret of his desire for another shot at the mayor`s office.