CHICAGO – Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson was catapulted into office as an outsider promising to shake up the city’s notoriously combustible politics. But nearly two years into his term, he is increasingly isolated and has alienated even some of his ideological allies as he struggles to implement his progressive agenda.
The most obvious recent example is the controversy brewing over his heavy-handed effort to reform the city school board. Its seven members rejected Johnson’s call to fire the schools’ chief executive, who had rejected their request for a high-interest short-term loan to address a budget shortfall, and resigned en masse.
Johnson aggressively defended his mandate in an interview with POLITICO on Friday from London, where he focused on economic development and attended a Chicago Bears game in the city.
“There are people who might have some trepidation about how bold our vision is,” Johnson said, pointing to big investments in affordable housing, among a list of accomplishments. “There are people who are having a hard time adjusting. But the masses in the city of Chicago are very aligned with the vision.”
The dispute with the school board is just the latest drama to occur on the fifth floor of City Hall. Before that, Johnson reorganized his intergovernmental affairs team, bringing in an executive who had worked closely with the Chicago Teachers Union, the influential group that helped elect him mayor. He has repeatedly clashed with the City Council over his campaign to eliminate the use of controversial gun detection technology. And he failed to get his first and second choices approved to chair the council’s powerful zoning committee.
All of that came before the mayor delayed releasing his proposal to address arguably the city’s most pressing problem: a $1 billion budget shortfall heading into 2025.
Many City Council members support Johnson’s progressive agenda for the city, but are angry at how he has been trying to achieve it. His unilateral moves to remake the school board, in particular, have angered city officials like Councilman Bill Conway.
“I appreciate that Mayor Johnson is a man of principle, but he also needs to realize that city government is not set up like a dictatorship,” Conway said.
Nearly two years ago, Johnson, a former social studies teacher and CTU organizer, was a surprise success when he won the race for Chicago mayor.
He rose through the ranks as an activist, even leading a hunger strike to keep a South Side school open. He was endorsed by the teachers union to become a county commissioner and then, a few years later, the CTU anointed him as their candidate for mayor.
But Johnson’s challenges began as soon as he took office, when Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott began sending busloads of immigrants to Chicago to draw attention to the nation’s immigration problems.
Johnson embraced Chicago’s reputation as a welcoming place for immigrants and dedicated significant resources, along with the state and county, to providing housing and other services to newcomers. But some black Chicagoans felt slighted: Why was the mayor willing to find housing for immigrants, they asked, when there were many in their own community who needed help?
The migration crisis too tensions created with Illinois Governor JB Pritzker as the mayor repeatedly criticized the state for not doing more even though Illinois paid more to address the relief effort.
Johnson has touted his efforts to build up distressed neighborhoods in this diverse city that has nearly equal populations of black, Latino and white residents. And he has been methodical in trying to hire black staff for key positions.
But the mayor’s focus on boosting opportunities for Black residents has also drawn criticism.
“As much as you want to address legitimate issues affecting the African-American community, you can’t do it if that’s all you focus on,” said Bill Singer, a former councilman and longtime City Hall observer. “You have to focus on the entire city and on things that the entire support structure of the city is working with you on. And right now it is not.”
Johnson dismisses such criticism, arguing that his administration’s efforts benefit the entire city, including programs that he says have led to lower crime rates, bond investments that boost small businesses and expand affordable housing, and plans for a billion-dollar corporate investment in a quantum computing campus.
“I made a commitment to do things differently and I’m going to do it,” Johnson said. “If people have a problem with the fact that young black people are the largest group of people who enroll in community colleges, they may be the same individuals who didn’t care when those young black people were in schools that were being disinvested and closed.”
Recent tensions between the mayor and City Council echo the turbulence of the 1980s, when Mayor Harold Washington was scrutinized at every turn by a group of aldermen. But there is one notable difference: Washington’s opponents were a small group of white council members, while Johnson faces opposition from all sides, including some progressive allies and black council members.
“He’s absolutely right to draw attention to areas of the city that have long been neglected and disenfranchised, but he needs the City Council to come along with him,” said Constance Mixon, a political science professor at Elmhurst University and co-editor of the report. book “Chicago of the 21st century.” “He can’t do it himself.”
Johnson was propelled into office with the support of progressives and minority communities who wanted change in a system they say is dominated by white corporate elites. For decades, all of Chicago’s mayors have been related to Richard J. Daley, who was first elected in 1955.
“They all came out of the Daley machine,” said Delmarie Cobb, a political consultant who began working for the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign in 1988, mentioning former mayors Rahm Emanuel and Lori Lightfoot, as well as Paul Vallas, who Johnson defeated in last year’s mayoral race. “This was an opportunity to do away with the machine completely.”
Crime remains a persistent concern in Chicago, despite some recent successes, including a significant decrease in homicides. Black communities have debated whether the ShotSpotter gunshot detection system approved during the Emanuel administration is the best way to protect their gun-riddled neighborhoods. Johnson has vowed to end the contract with the company, arguing, like many progressives, that it is simply a surveillance tool that does little to solve crimes.
But some Black communities, and City Council members, credit the tool with saving lives. ShotSpotter identifies gunshots so police and paramedics can get to a crime scene faster.
However, the mayor kept his campaign promise and rejected the program, leading his opponents to weigh a legal challenge.
But Johnson’s biggest challenges have to do with finances and the school system. The city faces a nearly $1 billion deficit and the Chicago Public Schools system is grappling with mounting debt.
It’s a financial storm the mayor hopes to weather. He is trying to divert a pension payment from city school workers to Chicago Public Schools, and wants the schools to take out a $300 million, high-interest short-term loan to pay it off.
When Pedro González, the school board’s executive director, rejected that idea, Johnson became frustrated that the board he had hand-picked did not support him. Ultimately, all seven resigned, a surprising move given that the board is also in the midst of contract negotiations with the powerful teachers union.
The upheaval comes just weeks before the November election, when Chicagoans will vote for their first elected school board. Critics say Johnson is trying to circumvent the new board, which will be made up of 21 members (10 elected and 11 appointed by the mayor) so he can fire Martinez and fulfill CTU contract requests.
Many elected officials and civic leaders have warned against taking out a loan and worry that firing Martinez would be a mistake, especially given that schools appear to be improving under his leadership.
Johnson earlier this week compared those who have complained about the city’s financial challenges to Confederate slaveholders, a reference that has angered civic leaders who also run businesses in the city.
“They said it would be fiscally irresponsible for this country to free black people,” the mayor said. “And now we have detractors making the same argument as the Confederacy when it comes to public education in this system.”
The controversy threatens Johnson’s ability to manage the future: in the short term, as he tries to get the City Council to approve his budget, and in the long term, as he hopes to be re-elected to a second term.
“There needs to be an understanding that the legislative and the executive are equal powers, and this tension and discussion about who is the authority is not helpful,” said Councilman Andre Vasquez, co-chair of the council committee. progressive group.
Singer, the veteran alderman who has long studied Chicago City Hall, said the city will weather the latest turmoil.
“The bones are great. The institutions are great. They are not going to disappear. But the city will shrink more than it already has if this continues,” Singer said. “I think he can survive a couple more years (of Johnson), but not a second term.”
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