Aldermen fell one vote short of overriding Mayor Brandon Johnson’s veto pen Wednesday, ending their push to make it harder for him to issue city debt.
Most City Council members backed requiring a 30-aldermen majority to approve future Chicago bond issuances, a step up from the current simple majority. But they voted 33-17 to override Johnson’s veto of the measure, short of the needed 34-vote supermajority.
During an intense floor debate that surfaced racial tensions, the word of the day was “power.”
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The measure would strip power away from a City Council majority just as Black and Latino aldermen gain stronger control over the body, argued Ald. Jason Ervin, Johnson’s floor leader. Bonds pay for libraries, streets, affordable housing and small business support, said Ervin, who is Black.
“For as long as I can remember, 26 votes ruled the day in this body. That’s how democracy works: You win with the majority,” he said. “It’s ironic that we only talk about independence and executive oversight when the person sitting up there looks like me.”
Several white aldermen made exasperated faces as Ervin spoke, and some muttered to themselves under their breath while he blasted the measure as an effort to rob minorities of City Hall strength.
“If you can’t beat people at their own game, you just change the rules,” Ervin, who represents the mayor’s West Side 28th Ward, continued. “We see that happening all over the country.”
Ald. Brendan Reilly, who appeared angry as Ervin spoke, quickly fired back. The ordinance isn’t about targeting a specific mayor, but “fiscal discipline,” he told his colleagues. Most major cities require a supermajority to authorize bond sales, he said, adding that Chicago’s uniquely massive debt load means the city must borrow with such caution.
“This isn’t about power, this is about good governance,” Reilly said. “No one here is going to hold up good community investment in anybody’s ward.”
Ald. Raymond Lopez, 15th, said Ervin was trying to “blame the evil white people who are not going to let African Americans and Latinos put sidewalks in their neighborhoods.”
“Come out and say it, because that is the stupidest argument I think I’ve ever heard of anything in this room,” he said.
But Ald. David Moore, 17th, offered a simple message to his Black Caucus colleagues: You’ll break my heart if you vote for this.
He referred to a publicity campaign calling for the veto override paid for by the anti-Johnson political group One Future Illinois. When residents who received automated texts from One Future called Moore to urge him to vote against Johnson’s veto, Moore told them there were unintentional consequences, he said.
Hanging in the balance, he suggested: an even playing field for Black neighborhoods in securing city money for infrastructure.
“I’ll never vote against my constituents,” he said.
Aldermen passed the ordinance in a 32-to-15 vote in late September, but Johnson vetoed it several days later. It was the mayor’s fourth veto, a striking sign of the heightened pushback he faces from the council after the city’s last two mayors never once used a veto.
But while the prolonged fight showed the council’s growing independence, it also showed the limits to their power when at odds with the Fifth Floor. There is no record of aldermen overriding a mayoral veto in recent decades.
Johnson last week blasted the ordinance as a threat to the city’s ability to invest in infrastructure in poor neighborhoods.
“Neighborhoods with the greatest infrastructure needs should not face additional barriers to securing essential public investment,” he wrote to aldermen in his rejection letter last week. “Delaying infrastructure projects can increase construction costs, worsen deterioration, and ultimately cost taxpayers more.”
But aldermen backing the measure pitched it Wednesday as a modest increase that gives the council a small, but meaningful bump in control over the city’s financial future.
Some aldermen have previously tried and failed to put other limits on Johnson’s ability to borrow, including attempts to water down his signature $1.25 billion Housing and Economic Development bond in 2024 and stalling a round of infrastructure borrowing in February 2025.
Ald. Bill Conway, 34th, argued Wednesday that the heightened threshold would not prevent the city from borrowing money.
“When we’re making financial commitments that will outlive our time in this chamber, is it really too much to ask that 30 of the 50 members of City Council agree?” Conway said. “This isn’t about stopping investment. It’s about making better decisions today, so future generations aren’t forced to live with the consequences of our mistakes tomorrow.”
But Johnson ally Ald. Daniel La Spata, 1st, said the long-running criticism that resulted in Wednesday’s vote “just does not have merit in reality.”
“The notion that we have out-of-control general obligation spending is to me based off of the facts a false narrative,” La Spata said.
Aldermen on Wednesday also approved an historic $261 million police misconduct settlement, a cost many have lamented as an unavoidable blow to the city’s pocketbook.
The staggering settlement proposed by Johnson’s administration and passed without any debate resolves 16 lawsuits alleging disgraced Chicago Police Department Detective Reynaldo Guevara framed men for murder. It is the largest police misconduct deal in the city’s history, with no close rival.
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The city still faces 23 pending Guevara cases, and more could follow. Lawsuits tied to the detective have already cost Chicago around $160 million. But settling the batch of deals all at once, city lawyers have argued, could save as much as $400 million by avoiding costly court verdicts, cutting legal costs and attorney fees and minimizing the payout for each year plaintiffs spent behind bars.
And automated cameras that catch drivers who block bus and bike likes will soon come to more Chicago neighborhoods after aldermen approved an expansion of the city’s Smart Streets program.
The measure similarly saw no debate. Under Smart Streets, cameras mounted on city vehicles and CTA buses catch drivers who block bus stops, bus lanes and bike lanes. Drivers are first issued warnings, then tickets that can cost up to $250 for a bike lane violation.
The policy long sought by bike and pedestrian safety activists had existed as a pilot program operating in only part of the city and was set to expire in December, but will now be expanded to the entire city in phases and made permanent.