Progress Illinois

In her flattering 2005 profile of America’s “5 Best Big-City Mayors,” Time’s Nancy Gibbs opined that Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley “wields near imperial power, and most of Chicago would have it no other way.” Fast forward three short years and a lot seems to have changed.

While Daley won re-election handily in 2007, capturing 71 percent of the vote to seal his sixth consecutive term, he’s siphoned political capital at an uncharacteristically consistent pace. Meanwhile, a group of alderman, including veteran progressive council members Toni Preckwinkle (4th Ward), Joe Moore (49th Ward), and Ricardo Munoz (22nd Ward), have created the so-called Independent Caucus, one that Preckwinkle assures me will “shed some light on difficult issues that face the council.” In existence for almost a year, their growth has been humble, but momentum is on their side, and before long they could represent the city council’s first formidable opposition bloc in 25 years.

Opposition Grows

Daley's iron grip on the council began to weaken several years ago as corruption allegations surfaced around City Hall. In 2004, the Chicago Sun-Times discovered that the city was paying private trucking companies – many of which had mob connections or ties to city employees – to do little or no work. Less than two years later, Robert Sorich, Daley's former patronage chief, was convicted on two counts of mail fraud for rigging city jobs and promotions to favor those with political connections. Daley escaped both scandals unscathed -- at least in the legal sense -- but his integrity was called into question.

Then came the Big Box fight. In the summer of 2006, the city council passed an ordinance that required large retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target to pay their employees a living wage. Daley denounced the bill vociferously during the initial debate, but 35 council members broke with him, forcing the mayor to veto his first bill in his then 17-year reign.

Shortly thereafter, the February 2007 aldermanic election offered further evidence of the growing discontent with the Daley Machine. A slew of reform candidates upended Daley-backed incumbents, from Dorothy Tillman in the 3rd Ward to Darcel Beavers in the 7th.

Chicago’s labor movement is largely credited with bringing about this result. The Chicago Federation of Labor, an umbrella organization for the city’s unions that for years was inseparable from the Democratic machine, broke with the mayor last election cycle, electing not to endorse him or many of his close allies. Instead, they spent $2.7 million in campaign donations and services on the reform candidates, many who would not have been given the time of day by former union leaders.

The election subsequently laid the groundwork for the formation of an opposition bloc. “Clearly, on the basis of the big box living wage struggle in the summer of 2006,” says Preckwinkle, “there was a sense that maybe labor could use some more allies of a variety of descriptions in the city council.”

Putting Out The Call

It’s still unclear exactly who makes up the Independent Caucus, but Preckwinkle describes it as “a multi-racial coalition that includes some people who are independent, some people who are progressive, and some people who are both.” Twenty aldermen were solicited last year and between six and 15 meet regularly.

What connects a majority of the city’s reform-minded freshman with the council’s progressive stalwarts and their friends in labor? Many are tired of the administration’s tilt away from the needs of working families and government accountability and towards a focus on promoting downtown development and attracting global businesses. “While we want to work with the mayor, we should not be considered automatic supporters of his programs and policies,” says Moore. “We want to analyze and question them from a progressive perspective.” And while discontent has been building slowly, Preckwinkle thinks the time is ripe to organize around it. “For the first time, we thought we had a critical mass in the city council that might be for a progressive agenda,” she says.

Even with fluid membership, the caucus has made noteworthy strides. After reviewing economic material before city council meetings last fall, 21 aldermen voted against a Daley-backed property tax increase, the largest rebuke of the administration – outside of the big box vote – in recent memory. Thirteen of those council members even denounced the mayor’s 2008 budget, votes that would have been unimaginable just three or four years prior. And when the city kept private the names of 662 Chicago police officers who had amassed more than 10 citizen complaints between May 2001 and May 2006, 28 aldermen -- many affiliated with the Independent Caucus -- petitioned a federal court to make the list public.

To find the last organized opposition bloc in the City Council, you have to reach back to the mid-1980s, when Mayor Harold Washington faced bitter resistance -- much of it racially based -- from the Cook County Democratic Party chairman Ed Vrdolyak and a group of 29 aldermen known as “the Eddies.” Of course, the city’s legislators don’t always fall lock and step with the administration. But according to Dick Simpson, former alderman and professor of political science at the University of Illinois - Chicago, it takes more than just policy disagreements to present an alternative platform. “There’s always been an opposition bloc in the city council since it began in the 1830s,” he says. “It’s only a question of how large and effective they are in pressing their programs.”

Looking forward

This year, the leaders of the Independent Caucus are setting their sights even higher. On the operations end, the caucus is in talks with unspecified funders to hire at least one staffer who would conduct independent policy research modeled after the federal Government Accountability Office. This will help caucus members weed through the mayor’s 2009 budget and the specifics on how resources from the city’s Tax Increment Financing (TIF) Districts are utilized, two items on which they intend to challenge the current administration. “What were in the process of doing now is educating ourselves on TIFs and what some people believe are the weaknesses in oversight,” says Moore. “If nothing else, we want the process to be more transparent.”

The caucus will also work to bolster the city’s affordable housing stock. Many members raised ire last May when a lax affordable housing bill passed through the council, one that defined homes priced around $220,000 as affordable and only forced developers to set aside 10 percent of their units for affordable buyers. The same concerns that prompted the big box fight two years ago haven’t dissipated either, and if they can offer enough political cover for some of their gun-shy or electorally vulnerable colleagues, the Independent Caucus could lead the charge on another living wage ordinance.

Opposition from Daley allies could derail their preferred legislation, but as Simpson suggests, that shouldn’t deter progressive aldermen from organizing around a forward-thinking platform. “It’s very important to set an agenda for the future,” he says. “Daley won’t be mayor forever.” Moore also points out that a little debate never hurt anyone either: “It’s important for any healthy democracy to have a group of folks who will challenge and question whoever the incumbent happens to be.” Give them some time and members of the Independent Caucus may be fielding those questions themselves, as the council’s next governing majority.