In the worst election night for City Council incumbents in more than 15 years, three aldermen lost their jobs Tuesday, including Ald. Burton Natarus (42nd), the colorful, veteran alderman of downtown Chicago.
Ald. Darcel Beavers (7th) lost to Sandi Jackson, the wife of U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), and scandal-plagued Ald. Arenda Troutman (20th) was also unseated. But Natarus was hesitant to concede.
Another 11 council members appeared headed toward the runoff election in April after failing to win a majority.
On a night when Mayor Richard M. Daley easily won re-election, the results in wards across the city showed that the mayor’s popularity–and his once-powerful patronage armies–no longer could be counted on to pull along council allies.
That uncertainty creates the likelihood that Daley will come up against increasing independence in a council that he dominated for much of his first five terms.
There may be no better symbol of that shift than the election of Sandi Jackson in the 7th Ward on the South Side. With 95 percent of precincts reporting, she had 57 percent of the vote to 32 percent for Beavers.
“I hope with this election people will look at their role on the council in a different way, I hope they’ll come to it feeling more empowered,” Sandi Jackson said.
The 7th Ward race represented a proxy battle between two of the most prominent families in black Chicago politics.
Darcel Beavers was appointed by Daley in November to replace her father, William Beavers, an outspoken defender of political patronage, nepotism and old-school power politics.
Jesse Jackson Jr. had boldly spoken of leading an independent ticket of candidates for citywide offices and 15 council seats. But he backed down from challenging Daley after polls forecasted defeat, and he focused almost all of his efforts on helping his wife.
The congressman spent more than $200,000 to import campaign staff from Washington, D.C., and plaster his wife’s image next to his own on billboards across the Southeast Side.
“We need to start with a serious reform of ethics in Chicago,” Jesse Jackson Jr. said.
“Where Mayor Daley is making sense, I see myself working hand in hand with him,” Sandi Jackson said. “Where there are things that have clearly gone awry, I will work against him.”
Darcel Beavers declined to give a concession speech, but she said, “The numbers don’t lie. The race is over.” And her father acknowledged that “she can’t possibly win.”
Natarus, a 36-year council veteran, also held out hope, even though he had 45 percent of the vote against 55 percent for challenger Brendan Reilly, with 97 percent of the precincts counted.
“This is a tough job and I hope whoever wins this can handle it,” Natarus told supporters at a Near North Side bar.
Natarus acknowledged that some in the ward wanted a change, but he said he did not think that would bring improvement.
Leaving his campaign party late Tuesday, Natarus told reporters, “I don’t care. … If I don’t make it, just remember I’m going to apply for my pension.”
Daley had campaigned alongside Natarus and in recorded “robo-calls” to voters in the ward.
“We’re waiting for a few more precincts to come in, but certainly the results we have suggest we’re going to prevail tonight,” Reilly said in an interview at the Hotel Allegro, where his supporters were gathered.
In the 20th Ward on the South Side, challenger Willie B. Cochran declared victory over Troutman, who was charged last month with taking bribes. With 88 percent of precincts counted, Cochran led with 62 percent to Troutman’s 32 percent.
Cochran said he thought the charges against Troutman “played a very major role” in the campaign.
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Troutman had appeared to be cruising to a fifth term until federal authorities broke into her home to arrest her less than two months ago.
Federal prosecutors accused Troutman of taking a $5,000 bribe to grease the way for what she thought was a real estate proposal in her ward. Authorities invented the development deal as part of a sting.
The arrest energized Cochran, who quickly won backing from mayoral allies such as Bishop Arthur Brazier and Rev. Leon Finney.
Despite returns that pointed to a landslide win for her opponent, Troutman also declined to concede, telling supporters at about 9:30 p.m. that “it’s not a done deal.” She compared herself to Rev. Martin Luther King and other black leaders.
Among the incumbents who apparently will have to continue to fight through the April 17 runoff voting were: Madeline Haithcock (2nd); Dorothy Tillman (3rd); Shirley Coleman (16th); Lona Lane (18th); Howard Brookins Jr.(21st); Michael Chandler (24th); Ted Matlak (32nd); Rey Colon (35th), Vi Daley (43rd) and Bernard Stone (50th), a 33-year veteran. Also facing a likely runoff was Ald. Joe Moore (49th), who was attacked as out of touch after pushing a ban on foie gras.
Another runoff election will be necessary for the only open seat on the council, in the 15th Ward.
Stone, the council’s oldest alderman at 79, was pushed into a runoff against Naisy Dolar, who is vying to become the first Asian alderman.
There have not been so many wards involved in the runoff election since 1991. In the last election in 2003, only one incumbent lost outright in the first-round of balloting, with three more unseated in the runoff.
The mayor had campaigned for Vi Daley, Stone and Haithcock in the last days of the campaign, while Coleman complained that the mayor’s campaign had not provided financial support as she faced a well-funded opponent.
In past elections, patronage armies loyal to the mayor crisscrossed the city to help elect aldermen who readily heeled at the mayor’s command. They scared other council members into submission. But the federal probe of patronage hiring in the mayor’s office crippled those groups.
Labor unions that are feuding with the mayor vowed to step into the void left by the mayor’s legions of campaign workers.
The Service Employees International Union and other labor groups spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and deployed hundreds of workers for challengers. SEIU contributed to the Reilly and Jackson victories, and at least four targeted incumbents were headed to runoffs with union-backed foes.
Jerry Morrison, executive director of SEIU’s state council, declared the results a “big, big win for working families and unions.”
But the unions suffered one big defeat in the 12th Ward, where mayoral ally Ald. George Cardenas handily won re-election despite a massive union push for challenger Carina Sanchez.
Cardenas was one of three aldermen who switched sides in the “big box” wage debate last year, helping sustain Daley’s veto of the union-backed measure.
Labor almost completely funded the Sanchez campaign and supplied her with hundreds of precinct volunteers who campaigned door to door in the Near Southwest Side ward’s Mexican neighborhoods.
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