Southwest Side Ald. Raymond Lopez, one of Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s biggest critics on the City Council, is now trying to succeed her in office.
Lopez, whose ward includes the Back of the Yards and West Englewood neighborhoods, announced Wednesday that he will run for mayor in the 2023 election.
In a short speech at the Plant, a former industrial factory that has been redeveloped into a brewery and commercial space, Lopez focused on high crime in Chicago and promised to support the city’s first responders. He also said he would fire police Superintendent David Brown, Lightfoot’s pick to head the department.
“My No. 1 goal is safety,” Lopez said. “We must prioritize safety in our city or else nothing will happen.”
Lightfoot has not formally declared her campaign for reelection but is widely expected to seek a second term and has strongly hinted she will run. In January, for instance, she told the Tribune her work isn’t done “and I’m yielding to no one.”
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She will likely campaign on her track record getting the city through the coronavirus pandemic and pushing for greater investment on the city’s South and West sides. But she faces significant criticism over crime, which spiked over the past two years.
Other potential candidates include businessman Willie Wilson, who’s recently been in the news for his gas giveaways. Local Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara, whose union has fought bitterly against Lightfoot’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, has also said he will run for mayor.
Many other names have been discussed as possible 2023 mayoral candidates, including fellow Chicago Ald. Roderick Sawyer and Ald. Brian Hopkins. Others include U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley, former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas, state Reps. Kam Buckner and La Shawn Ford, Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Stacy Davis Gates, former city Building Commissioner Judy Frydland and Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson.
Aldermen rarely announce runs for mayor, in large part because they cannot run for reelection and pursue the city’s top job at the same time. Lopez has been one of the city’s most prominent aldermen since getting elected in 2015, and he expressed confidence he could get elected for another decade while acknowledging that he is giving up his seat.
Elected to the council in 2015, Lopez has criticized and publicly feuded with Lightfoot since soon after she took office in 2019. He has accused her of being negative, petty and vindictive — traits that some of Lopez’s critics say he shares. Lightfoot, in turn, has accused Lopez of “carrying water for” indicted Ald. Ed Burke, Lopez’s ward neighbor and ally.
In previous elections, Lopez has pushed back efforts to defeat him by progressive groups and generated a reputation as one of the council’s most conservative members, particularly on crime.
After a mass shooting in Brighton Park, Lopez said he was thankful “that no innocent lives were lost” and called out members of the community for what he said was their complicity in the violence, drawing intense criticism from some residents.
A former skycap for Southwest Airlines armed with a mile-high contrarian streak, Lopez is a complicated figure in Chicago politics with ties to numerous political organizations. Known to some of his colleagues as “Showpez” and “Lil Burke,” Lopez is a fast talker who asks sharp questions at committee hearings, and had the best attendance of anyone on the City Council last term, according to a WBEZ and Daily Line analysis.
Critics, however, say Lopez is a publicity hound who nitpicks Lightfoot to gain attention. He will have to broaden his base beyond the 15th Ward to mount a serious challenge against Lightfoot. Whether Lopez is able to raise enough money to run citywide or overcome criticism that he is just an obstructionist remains to be seen.
If elected, he would be the first openly gay man to be elected and the first Latino.
Lightfoot is also likely to criticize him for his ties with Burke, the indicted 14th Ward alderman she has made her political nemesis. Lopez has acknowledged his close relationship with Burke, but also noted he became alderman in 2015 by defeating Raul Reyes, a Burke lieutenant who ran for the post, a point he reiterated on Wednesday.
“I am my own man and to be perfectly honest, it’s insulting to hear from her that someone like me can’t think on my own,” Lopez said.
Lopez grew up near Midway Airport and has five siblings. His parents split up when he was 2 and his grandparents helped raise him.
By age 18, Lopez was a precinct captain with the 23rd Ward Democrats led by then-U.S. Rep. Bill Lipinski, where Lopez recalled being “the only Mexican in a room full of white guys.”
After a stint with Daley’s office of special events, Lopez left full-time politics to work for Southwest Airlines. There, Lopez told DNAinfo in 2015, he learned more about customer service and accountability.
While working for Southwest in 2007, Lopez and his husband, Hugo, bought a home in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood.
One day, Lopez previously told the Tribune, he became enraged with his alderman over bulk garbage pickup and an office aide hung up on him.
“I knew damn well I was being lied to when they told me this was not something the city offered,” Lopez said, citing his work with Lipinski. “At one point, I told the staff, ‘If you want me to come down and show you how to do this, I can do it too.’ Click.”
Lopez said he told neighbors “someone needs to run against that man, Tony Foulkes, because he sucks as an alderman.”
“Unbeknownst to me, it was a woman (named Toni) who also had an office two blocks from my house,” Lopez added.
Foulkes, who told the Tribune she never met or heard of Lopez until he ran against her, beat him with 69% of the vote in a 2011 runoff. But the next year, Lopez ran for ward committeeman and took the post Foulkes previously held.
Post-census redistricting that year resulted in shifted boundaries that moved Foulkes to the 16th Ward, leaving the 15th Ward seat wide open. Leading up to the 2015 election, when he won a seat on the City Council, Lopez performed as a sort of shadow alderman.
Freshman members of Chicago’s City Council traditionally and informally are advised by senior aldermen to keep their mouths closed and ears open. Lopez said he initially planned to heed that advice, but the ward became a flashpoint in the city’s crime problem during his first term, leading him to speak out in exceptionally harsh terms.
During Lopez’s first term, the worst street conflict in recent memory raged as the Saints, Satan’s Disciples and La Raza gangs used rifles to inflict massive carnage around his ward. A Tribune count in December 2017 found more than 140 people had been shot and 50 killed by gang members wielding rifles dating to September 2016, many of them in the Back of the Yards and Brighton Park neighborhoods.
In May 2017, 10 people were shot — two fatally — at a memorial for a man gunned down in the Brighton Park neighborhood. Lopez said he was thankful “that no innocent lives were lost” and called out members of the community for what he said was their complicity in the violence.
While the gang war raged, Lopez clashed with Emanuel over how to spend nearly $15 million in leftover property tax rebate funds that the alderman tried to earmark for violence prevention. In an encounter behind council chambers, Emanuel asked Lopez, “‘Why are you f—— with me?’ and Lopez responded, “‘I’m not f—— with you. I’ve got people dying in the streets. What do you want me to do?'” the alderman recalled in 2017.
Lopez’s words about gang violence have generated intense criticism. The “no innocent lives” comment led to serious death threats and Lopez was temporarily put under police protection.
Community leaders, however, have reacted with mixed views. Some appreciate the tough talk, saying it’s a “very simplistic view of the world.”
Lopez previously announced a run to replace U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez in Congress but withdrew before the 2018 primary.
Lopez is one of Lightfoot’s harshest critics and the two have strong antipathy toward one another. He has criticized her inaugural address, where she turned to face aldermen after saying stopping corruption is “in the City Council’s interest.”
Just after Lightfoot finished delivering her inaugural address, Lopez went on WGN Radio and expressed his displeasure with how the newly sworn-in mayor turned to face the aldermen seated behind her while calling out Chicago corruption.
“I wish we could’ve had more of a celebratory tone as opposed to a confrontational, ‘everyone standing behind me is corrupt and I’m defending you against them and their evil mechanisms,'” Lopez said.
During the height of civil unrest in Chicago neighborhoods following the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd, Lightfoot hosted a call with all 50 aldermen that devolved after Lopez complained about what he said was an inadequate response by the city to looting.
When Lopez finished his comments, Lightfoot tried to move on without answering him and Lopez insisted that she address his questions.
“I think you’re 100% full of s—, is what I think,” Lightfoot responded.
Lopez replied, “Well, f— you then.”
On Wednesday, Lopez said the city’s police officers don’t feel supported by City Hall and promised to consider potential incentives to keep officers from retiring, like longevity bonuses or a potential removal of the city’s requirement that officers live in Chicago. Motivated police officers can help curb high crime, Lopez said.
Speaking to city workers and public employees, Lopez said, “This mayor will support you.”