When Brandon Johnson was sworn in as mayor May 15, to all outward appearances, he was assuming an office replete with the same grand powers it always had.
But the mayoralty Johnson acquired was weaker than the one Lori Lightfoot gained, which itself had weakened since Rahm Emanuel’s inauguration. Only Richard M. Daley, during his record six terms, greatly expanded the office by adding control of Chicago Public Schools to its arsenal of power.
The powers of the mayor’s office have eroded, piece by incremental piece — cuts to the powers of appointment for police chiefs, the advent of an elected school board and, this week, changes to the way inspectors general are nominated. But that hardly means Johnson, or any other mayor, must be hamstrung by the snips and trims over the years.
The new requirement that the mayor must select a new police superintendent nominee from a list created by the new Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability stands out as one way in which the mayor’s office has ceded power.
The transition to a fully elected school board also looms. When that starts phasing in, with the 2024 election, Johnson will lose—————————– some of the direct control his predecessors had over a system that serves nearly 350,000 students. Currently, the mayor picks the school board, and it votes accordingly.
Slighter but still vital powers were chipped away this week. An ordinance passed Wednesday by the City Council forces the mayor to appoint the city’s inspector general on a strict timeline — a change made in response to foot-dragging Lightfoot did after Inspector General Joe Ferguson resigned.
Lightfoot waited months before naming a successor. This left one of the city’s most important oversight roles filled only on an interim basis, causing a loss of momentum in the city’s official watchdog unit.
The council on Wednesday passed a proposal sponsored by Ald. Matt Martin, 47th — which drew support from my organization, the Better Government Association — that requires a fast-paced, mandatory timeline for nominating new inspector generals. The fix, part of a package that includes term limits for the city inspector general, is meant to keep this vital office on the job, regardless of whether the mayor welcomes being held to account by the inspector general.
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One of the biggest changes to the mayor’s powers, so far, is unfolding in the selection of a new police superintendent.
As mayor, Daley and Emanuel were required to rely on the Police Board for nominees, but each found a way to pick his favorites anyway.
When Emanuel was unimpressed by the list of nominees the Police Board handed him as he faced replacing outgoing Superintendent Garry McCarthy, he pushed through an ordinance suspending the Police Board’s power and presented Eddie Johnson, the CPD’s chief of patrol, as his choice.
The City Council rolled over for Emanuel with a 50-0 vote.
The Police Board is composed of people appointed by the mayor. The big difference now is that the new nominating body, the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, by design is meant to be more independent. Its members must be nominated by 22 local police district councils, whose members themselves are elected by voters.
For the first time, voters are selecting the people who nominate the members of the commission, who in turn are responsible for choosing a slate of candidates from which the mayor then picks a superintendent.
It’s an incremental but important change, adding public input to a nomination process previously dominated by mayors. The changes would raise the political stakes for any mayor tempted to ignore or dominate the nomination process.
While recent moves to check the mayor’s powers are clear, it’s how Johnson manages his way through them that will matter most in the end. And early signs are that Johnson may be up to the task of handling the thrust-and-parry of power politics, especially between him and the City Council.
Consider the appointment of committee chairs in the newly elected council. When a clique of old-guard aldermen made a power play during the gap between Election Day and inauguration day, Johnson would have none of it. Johnson worked back channels. He put his people in as chairs of the key committees. He punished the interlopers by denying them leadership roles and launched his administration with a City Council well at heel.
The moves emphatically established Johnson as the one in charge, at least for the early days of his term.
Gery Chico, who served as Daley’s chief of staff, then as president of the school board, and who twice ran for mayor, has seen the mayor’s powers up close. He said Johnson so far seems capable of mitigating the erosions of power to the mayor’s office.
“Mayor Johnson doesn’t let things get in his way so far,” Chico said. “He has the ability to press his agenda and his aims and get it done.”
Voters expect the mayor to be in charge, Chico added, regardless of incremental changes such as an elected school board or a more independent-minded City Council.
These are very early days, of course. The challenges of budgets, labor contracts, pandemics, crime waves, environmental calamities, heat waves and street-clogging snowstorms are yet to come.
Before those inevitable challenges come to the fore, Johnson will need to continue honing his leadership skills, and learning the possibilities and limits of the powers of his office, in order to be an effective chief executive for the city.
*Editor’s note: An earlier version misstated when then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot appointed a new inspector general and gave an incorrect accounting of then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s selection of Eddie Johnson as the next police superintendent. The Tribune regrets the errors.
David Greising is president and CEO of the Better Government Association.
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