FBI Raid Highlights Truth About Silent Status-Quo Mayor Hopefuls

The FBI’s raid on Ald. Ed Burke’s government offices last week highlighted a political truth about the crowded race to replace Rahm Emanuel as Chicago’s mayor: There are two kinds of mayoral hopefuls — proponents of the political status quo, and the rest of ‘em.

Cook County Democratic Party boss Toni Preckwinkle, Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza, Bill Daley, the brother and son of Chicago’s longest serving mayors, and long-time insider Gery Chico, represent the business-as-usual side of the ballot.

They are backed by wealthy influence peddlers vying to control the political terrain for their own purposes and fill the power void once dominated by a unified Chicago Democratic Machine. Political expert Dick Simpson, himself a former Chicago alderman, says a vote for any of those candidates amounts to a de facto endorsement of an Emanuel third term.

A Tribune story pointed out that the status-quo candidates all had a common response to their requests for interviews about FBI’s unannounced pop-in at City Hall: No thanks.

Chico responded with a few lines about his “friend and supporter” that didn't say much. Mendoza issued a statement suggesting that Burke practices the “kind of politics that we need to get away from in Chicago,” without mentioning that powerful alderman helped launch her political career.

Daley remained mum. Preckwinkle wouldn’t talk either. Her campaign spokeswoman told the Tribune Preckwinkle was “far from close” with Burke, who happened to serve on the city council with Preckwinkle and raised campaign cash for the Democratic Party boss.

More than any other issue in this mayoral election, voters deserve to know if candidates believe political practices that have provided Chicago mayors overwhelming power despite the city's "strong-council, weak-mayor" form of government should continue.

Given the opportunity reporters probably would have asked the status-quo candidates to discuss their connections to Burke and politics practiced the “Chicago Way."

But that’s not something Chico, Daley, Mendoza and Preckwinkle want to talk about on the campaign trail. They’ll likely avoid the topic at all costs until reporters stop asking.

That's not good for Chicago. Voters, especially folks living in poor neighborhoods forsaken by the Democratic ruling class, deserve to hear status-quo mayoral hopefuls discuss their views on how the City Council operates under an alderman as powerful as Burke.

Anybody who knows how Chicago government works will tell you Burke is a central player in maintaining the city’s political status quo that Daley, Chico, Mendoza and Preckwinkle represent.

The next status-quo mayor needs a powerhouse alderman like Burke working behind the scenes to deliver votes that maintain the long-standing City Council rubber stamp on the city budget.

Without that help getting the City Council's blessing, a mayor’s political agenda — and city business as usual — comes to a grinding halt. That’s what happened in the 80’s when Burke was the machine’s political enforcer who helped keep in line a 29-member voting bloc that crippled the late Mayor Harold Washington’s administration.

More than any other issue in this mayoral election, voters deserve to know if candidates believe political practices that have provided Chicago mayors overwhelming power despite the city's "strong-council, weak-mayor" form of government should continue.

It will be up to the other candidates vying for the mayor’s office to drive that point home.

So far, though, only a couple candidates have weighed in. Lori Lightfoot — the former federal prosecutor who resigned as Police Board president and announced her campaign as an act of defiance against Emanuel’s administration — hammered home the point best.

She took aim at Preckwinkle, the party boss who calls herself a progressive.

“It’s just astounding to me. You cannot call yourself a progressive, you cannot tell people you are for them, that you are going to put them first, that you have a different vision and you want to have a different compact with government if you are not speaking up about this issue. It is unacceptable,” Lightfoot said in the Tribune.

Then, Lightfoot hit the nail on the head. After eight years under Emanuel — historic property tax hikes, the City Council approved payout to silence Laquan McDonald’s family and urban development policies that widened the city’s class divide — she asked the most important question hanging over this election: “When are we going to break from the past?”

Well, that will be up to voters.

There are two kinds of them in Chicago — rich, wealthy proponents of the status quo, and everybody else.

Lead Photo: Chicago Alderman Ed Burke, whose office was raided by the FBI on Nov. 29, 2019. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green File)