As Chicago’s City Council stands on the precipice of a major turnover next year, progressive candidates and their organized supporters are looking to make significant inroads and alter the council power dynamic.
Chicago’s municipal elections are a little more than three months away and at least 11 current aldermen won’t be part of the group being sworn in next May. Most are retiring. Others are running against Mayor Lori Lightfoot or were elected to another public office. One is stepping down while under federal indictment.
The large number of open seats plus newly drawn ward boundaries that might make it tough for some incumbents means the council is primed for big change in numbers, philosophy and, perhaps, how malleable they’ll be to the mayor. How many seats progressives are able to win next year may go a long way in determining the direction the council takes in the next term, and how they work with or against whoever occupies the mayor’s office to try to push through their agenda.
Change on the City Council is nothing new. A dozen new aldermen won spots in 2019, and 13 did so both in 2015 and in 2011.
But the political change could be more stark this time around as progressives are hoping to pick up several seats, and in some cases have designs on replacing veteran council members known for supporting the mayor with more independent-minded lawmakers. The progressive United Working Families political organization that’s closely aligned with the Chicago Teachers Union recently endorsed a slate of 18 aldermanic candidates.
“I think politics reflect the needs of those who are voting, and the people who are voting in this city, they need empathy, they need support, they need resources and they need a leader who can be uncompromising in giving those things to them,” said CTU President Stacy Davis Gates.
The progressive’s efforts to widen its reach come as the 50-member council has grown more restive in the past three-and-a-half years under Lightfoot, in part because five members allied with the Democratic Socialists of America and other council progressives have pushed their own priorities — including funding increases for affordable housing, mental health services and environmental protections — and sparred frequently with her.
Lightfoot has succeeded in passing many of her major initiatives. Yet she has caused some of the council contentiousness thanks to her unwillingness or inability to coax or coerce a solid majority of aldermen to consistently vote the way she wants, as mayors Richard M. Daley and Rahm Emanuel did for three decades.
But neither Emanuel nor Daley had to deal with a political moment as polarized as this one. A significant increase in left-leaning members would further empower progressive council votes, potentially leading to more policy wins for them on citywide issues.
The thin margins for such legislative fights were on full display recently, as progressive supporters of a measure to fund services for people without homes by raising taxes on expensive property sales tried in vain to get a City Council quorum to vote on putting a referendum question on the February municipal election ballot.
They fell one alderman short of the 26 they needed in attendance at a special council meeting to hold a debate on the Bring Chicago Home proposal.
“When you look at the electoral map, I think you’re going to see a council with more support for things like Bring Chicago Home and the Department of Environment,” said progressive Southwest Side Ald. Michael Rodriguez, 22nd. “Politics is a game of addition, and we’re getting closer to being able to pass some of these things that are important to the people of Chicago.”
But there’s also the possibility of legislative gridlock if the mayor won’t be able to wrangle members to get in line, and centrist and conservative aldermen who are still likely to make up a majority of the council don’t find common ground with their more liberal colleagues.
Adding to the potential for confusion, there will be many decades of council know-how leaving the body. Veterans such as federally indicted Far South Side Ald. Carrie Austin, 34th, South Side Ald. Howard Brookins Jr., 21st, Southwest Side Ald. George Cardenas, 12th, and Northwest Side Ald. Ariel Reboyras, 30th, will hang it up at the end of this term.
All four have been fairly consistent votes for Lightfoot’s agenda and that of her predecessors, Emanuel and Daley. Progressives will be hoping to pick up at least the 12th and 30th ward seats, which would shift the council to the left and likely lead to more lively debate on all manner of issues.
Another ward progressives are looking to pick up is the 46th, which includes Buena Park and part of Uptown.
Ald. James Cappleman, who largely supported Emanuel’s and Lightfoot’s ideas, is stepping down from the seat in May after three terms. United Working Families has endorsed Angela Clay to take Cappleman’s place. Clay is making her second straight run for alderman of the diverse North Side ward.
Clay said she wants to bring the ward’s concerns to City Hall, unlike Cappleman, who she said cut residents out of decision-making on housing plans and other “meat and potatoes” neighborhood proposals.
“I’m a vessel for people’s concerns, and they want to make sure they have the resources to succeed,” Clay said. “And so I think there’s a great opportunity for us all to try to activate people and get them involved in the process of making sure their needs are being met.”
Others who have filed to run for the 46th seat are Kim Walz, Patrick Nagle and Roushaunda Williams. Marianne Lalonde, who in 2019 ran as a progressive and came in second to Cappleman, also has said she intends to file Monday to run for the aldermanic seat.
Wrigleyville Ald. Tom Tunney, 44th, will also be stepping down after 20 years. The chair of the council’s key Zoning Committee, he considered a run for mayor himself before opting out. Chicago’s electorate “has gone decidedly left” in recent years, Tunney said. But residents mostly want their aldermen to figure out how to accomplish things in the council, he said.
“I think I’ve watched colleagues over the years who were leftists move a little toward the center in order to get things done,” Tunney said.
“I was always a moderate centrist and I did well in that regard. The job description is ‘legislator,’ but you still have to get things done,” he said. “People to the left and the right still have to provide their communities what they need. Everyone wants safety and good city services.”
In addition to the 11 currently sitting aldermen who aren’t running again, three others who started 2022 on the council have stepped down, including Lightfoot ally Michael Scott, 24th, who was replaced by the mayor with his sister; Michele Smith, 43rd, who Lightfoot replaced with Timmy Knudsen; and Patrick Daley Thompson, 11th, who was convicted sentenced to four months in prison for tax-related offenses and replaced by Nicole Lee. All three of the newly named aldermen are running for election on Feb. 28.
But Davis Gates said the opportunity for progressives to make gains is an opportunity to breathe new life into a council that she said needs to continue to evolve and give Chicagoans what they want.
“I think that’s why it has shifted, and you have a body that’s worked with progressive leaders in this city, that have responded to that over time,” she said.
United Working Families is a formidable political force thanks to the CTU’s deep pockets and its ability to mobilize members to campaign for candidates it backs. The CTU and UWF have been staunch Lightfoot opponents going back to the 2019 election, when they endorsed Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s failed mayoral bid. The groups are now backing Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson’s mayoral candidacy.
UWF, the CTU and other labor groups such as the Service Employees International Union have flexed their muscles more in local elections as the power of Chicago’s Democratic ward organizations has waned in recent decades thanks to federal restrictions on political hiring to city jobs, and the centralizing of many ward-level city services via the 311 phone system that were once handled by aldermen.
The 2023 ward map looks promising for wins by left-leaning candidates.
Progressive Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders won 19 Chicago wards in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, and four of those seats will be open with incumbents opting not to run for reelection.
In three of the four open wards where Sanders won, United Working Families is backing candidates.
Davis Gates said progressives can deliver on their promises to voters if they win enough council seats.
“The other slates, Rahm Emanuel, Lori Lightfoot, haven’t delivered, right?” Davis Gates said. “We know the needs of the many have grown exponentially under the Rahm administration and the Lightfoot administration. Look, it’s about serving the people.”