Inside the Millennium Suite at the Hyatt Regency Hotel on April 4, VIP supporters of Paul Vallas enjoyed specialty cocktails, a pianist and sprawling views of Millennium Park as they waited for the election results to roll in.
Among those in attendance were some members of Chicago’s City Council who endorsed Vallas and whose smiles faded as early returns favorable to Vallas dissipated and Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson was elected the city’s next mayor.
“This is going to be Mayor Lightfoot 2.0, which is going to be twice as bad as what you just saw,” Ald. Anthony Beale, 9th, vented to the Tribune shortly after Vallas conceded in a ballroom filled with teary-eyed supporters. “The tax base is about to leave, the police are about to leave. So I’m very concerned about the direction that the city is headed.”
Weeks later, Beale and his colleagues who backed Vallas find themselves in the unenviable position of having supported the loser in the mayor’s race and forced to build a new relationship with Johnson, who some aldermen had described as too progressive, too inexperienced or too lenient of crime.
While aldermen for years have had to work with a mayor they opposed in elections, the group of nearly 20 aldermen who will be part of the incoming City Council supported a candidate on the opposing end of the original nine-candidate field than the one who won.
The heated runoff between Johnson and Vallas — that Johnson won 52% to 48% — created a polarizing dynamic that also was felt within the council as aldermen picked alliances between the more conservative, police union-backed Vallas and the progressive Johnson who had come up as an organizer with the Chicago Teachers Union.
Vallas’ backers in the council will soon face a choice about how far they’ll stretch themselves to work with the new mayor or how hard they will dig in their heels to fight him.
“The results weren’t what I hoped for on election night, but I think it’s important to know with the new mayor-elect that campaigning is different than governing,” said one of the Vallas backers, Ald. Silvana Tabares, 23rd. “It’s my hope that we can work together to address the issues that are facing the city.”
Even one of the council’s most vocal members who backed Vallas, Ald. Raymond Lopez, 15th, said while Johnson’s policies are “left of left — definitely left of where I find myself politically,” he was “cautiously optimistic” about the incoming Johnson administration.
Still, the situation Johnson will face in the council remains unsettled.
Even before the runoff, aldermen who supported Johnson and Vallas teamed up to reorganize their committee chairs and other rules. While the move was opposed by some — including Lopez, Beale and another Vallas backer, Ald. David Moore, 17th, who likened it to a power grab — supporters said it was a rare opportunity for the council to seize more independence after decades of mayors handpicking committee chairs and four years of strife under outgoing Mayor Lori Lightfoot.
If Johnson moves to undo those changes, that could spark his first fight with aldermen, who would be reluctant to give up their authority to make way for the new mayor’s allies. Johnson’s victory may help push the idea his progressive vision should guide the next era for Chicago but his proposals, from introducing new taxes or increasing existing ones to relying less on traditional policing, were shot down by Vallas supporters in the council during the campaign.
Just weeks after the election, Lopez also said he disliked the message the mayor-elect posted on Twitter in response to the chaos and criminal activity that broke out earlier this month when hundreds of mostly young people took to the streets in the Loop on a weekend night when the weather was unseasonably warm. Police arrested 16 people as some blocked traffic, jumped onto a CTA bus and attacked passersbys. Two teen boys were shot as they stood in the crowd.
“It is unacceptable and has no place in our city,” Johnson’s Tweet read. “However, it is not constructive to demonize youth who have otherwise been starved of opportunities in their own communities.”
“I think that gave a lot of us pause, both politically as well as in the business community,” Lopez said. “Because you cannot condone bad behavior, give any room for it to exist.”
Lopez hopes Johnson will lean on others to help craft messages that don’t have “unintended consequences.”
“We know there are individuals who are looking for any excuse, any wiggle room, any sentiment that gives them the opportunity to act like depraved lunatics in this city,” he continued. “And we cannot have our leader giving them that opportunity.”
Moore was more supportive of Johnson’s statement.
“His thing was not (about) not holding them accountable, but about not demonizing them,” Moore said. “That I stick with and I agree with.”
As council members prepare for the new term, Lopez and a few of his colleagues are considering formally establishing what some familiar with the matter are calling a conservative caucus to be made up of a bloc of aldermen, many Vallas backers, that would meet to pursue common policy and political objectives.. Lopez said he prefers the label “common sense caucus.”
“As we are seeing the ethnic caucuses kind of splinter and not be as powerful as they used to be, we want to focus just on common sense policies and solutions to the problems in the city of Chicago,” Lopez said.
He said that could include legislation Lopez is pushing that would increase fines and fees on parents if their children are found to be violating the municipal code.
Johnson also has some history on his side.
He’s been in politics for a number of years, first as a community organizer and more recently as a Cook County commissioner, and has built relationships with some of the aldermen, , which Moore said gives him hope.
“I consider him a friend,” Moore said. “I know his heart, that’s first and foremost. And if a person has a good heart that’s the best way you can start and you can get beyond the politics and all of that.”
The tough sledding might not just be on Johnson’s side either.
A few of the aldermen who backed Vallas represent wards that Johnson won, including receiving more than 78% of the vote in Beale’s 9th Ward and more than 80% of the vote in Moore’s 17th Ward.
“Sometimes your children believe that not going to school is best for them,” Moore explained in a metaphor for his constituents. “You have to do what is best for your residents, and that’s what I did in supporting Paul Vallas. Not what was best for David Moore.”
Johnson also will have some help on the council as some of his fellow progressives were elected as aldermen, including Alderman-elects such as Desmon Yancy, 5th, William Hall, 6th, Ronnie Mosley, 21st, and Angela Clay, 46th.
Despite this added success, the progressive caucus and the mayor will still have to work with their more moderate colleagues — a relationship that most likely will take time to build.
“We have to give Mayor-elect Johnson a chance to handle what he’s walking into,” Vallas endorser Ald. Nicole Lee, 11th, said. “It’s a lot, this is no small task.”
Chicago Tribune’s Greg Pratt and Alice Yin contributed.
