In all of Chicago today, only two people know what it is like to rise from relative obscurity to the mayor’s office in a matter of months. One is Lori Lightfoot; the other, Brandon Johnson.
The rest of us watch and try to learn what we can about what’s coming. In the six weeks between Election Day and inauguration, the mayor-elect must build an administration, hire hundreds of people, set policy priorities and be ready for the swearing-in. With outsiders-turned-mayors like Lightfoot and Johnson, we know little about how they operate, so it’s no wonder that, as we watch, even the smallest gestures get weighted with meaning.
For example: As a candidate, Johnson could show up at a picket line and barely grab attention. But as mayor-elect, his decision to visit striking faculty and staff members at Chicago State University was news. He was the first mayor-elect in memory to make such a move, and the boss’s boss of the state employees on strike is Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
Union solidarity is a signature attribute for Johnson. We get that. But we are left wondering whether that visit was smart for a new mayor who will need Pritzker’s support to achieve his objectives in Springfield.
Perhaps a mayor-elect’s most important decision in these early days is the selection of a transition committee. If politicians really do campaign in poetry and govern in prose, as onetime New York Gov. Mario Cuomo said, transition is where the translation of rhetoric into reality gets started.
The choice isn’t just about the weekslong transition period. More often than not, transition appointees wind up with big jobs at City Hall. Four of Lightfoot’s five initial transition team appointees served in her administration, including as chief of staff and deputy mayor.
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As a group, Maurice Classen, Lisa Schneider-Fabes, Manuel Perez, Ra Joy and Sarah Pang were rich in experience at philanthropic foundations and good-government advocacy; in police, housing and education reform; and in campaigning for public office.
As promising as that all sounded, Lightfoot’s appointees had little experience actually running governmental functions. On top of Lightfoot’s own deficits in that regard, the new key staff members who had joined from the transition team couldn’t give Lightfoot what she needed during her early time in office.
Couldn’t someone have warned Lightfoot during transition that a flip-flop on her initial opposition to Lincoln Yards and The 78 — made before she was even sworn in — would cost her dearly?
Transition teams can leave mayors with a bitter aftertaste too. That was what Lightfoot got, midway through her term, from the erstwhile good-government committee, on which one of my Better Government Association colleagues served. Twice during her term, the transition committee’s former members signed public statements rebuking the mayor for failing to disclose records about alleged police misconduct.
Given the consequences of Lightfoot’s transition decisions, it’s no surprise Johnson’s announcement Wednesday of his initial transition team made for such compelling news.
As a group, Johnson’s team has scant government experience, with only two members drawing city paychecks, for a total of less than six years between them, according to their LinkedIn accounts.
The Chicago Teachers Union isn’t represented, a surprise given Johnson’s work as a CTU organizer and beneficiary of the union’s campaign spending. But the Service Employees International Union, whose affiliates trailed only the CTU in campaign contributions to Johnson, got two slots. Transition leader Jessica Angus and intergovernmental adviser Erica Bland-Durosinmi will be key players.
The group includes two lobbyists, according to state and city records. Consultant DJavan Conway since 2020 has lobbed for Uber, Molson Coors and the CTU before the City Council, and in Springfield has lobbied for those entities plus DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM and other companies. He picked up Exelon as a client in 2021 after leaving his job as a staffer for House Speaker Michael Madigan.
Former Lightfoot administration lawyer Maria Virginia Martinez is a transition committee member whose 26 state lobbying clients include the CTA, the White Sox and United Airlines. The city of Joliet — which has a 100-year, $1 billion contract to purchase water from Chicago — is a client too.
These initial appointees won’t likely make up the full complement of Johnson’s transition team. Lightfoot eventually added boldfaced, business-insider names to advise her during the transition: former Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, former White House chief of staff Sam Skinner and others. She ultimately had 10 committees focused on topics ranging from the arts to business and policing. There was a special budget deficit task force too.
Johnson would benefit from repeating some of these moves. He’s already begun recruiting public volunteers for the larger, subject-specific transition groups. And Johnson would help himself and the city, long term, if he names a few business stalwarts. His initial calls to Chamber of Commerce types this week were a good start, but he will need to build connections and trust with business community members — and now his constituents — who are understandably wary of the $800 million-plus in new taxes he proposed during the campaign.
In the long haul, a mayor’s legacy is not permanently set by what happens during transition. It’s what they do in office that counts.
Lightfoot will be remembered for launching Invest South/West, targeting resources to some of the city’s most disinvested neighborhoods; making substantial progress on city finances; and failing to fix a surge in violent crime. Her transition team had little to do with any of that.
Johnson’s selection of a transition committee this week is the first concrete step in building his own legacy. He has chosen one heavy with union and political influence and only a passing familiarity with the nuances of running city government. The consequences of these choices, whether good or not, will be Johnson’s — and the city’s — to bear.
David Greising is president and CEO of the Better Government Association.
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