Andre Vasquez, Jr.

b. May 21, 1979

40th Ward Map – City Ward Map

A former AT&T salesman, battle rapper, political organizer and a self-proclaimed “Bernie Sanders Democratic Socialist,” Ald. Andre Vasquez took a winding path to City Hall.

After getting politically activated as an organizer for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign, Vasquez volunteered for gubernatorial candidate Daniel Biss and Sen. Ram Villivalam (D-Chicago) before mounting his own aldermanic campaign in 2019 against former Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s floor leader, Pat O’Connor. During his campaign, Vasquez called for a LaSalle Street tax and a real estate transfer tax as potential fixes for the city’s financial outlook, particularly its overdrawn pension fund. He also said the practice of aldermanic prerogative wasn’t serving Chicago and needed an overhaul: “Aldermen need to stop look at their wards like fiefdoms,” he told the Chicago Sun-Times. Chicago’s problems have not been solved under this model.” Vasquez also called for an elected representative school board for Chicago Public Schools on the campaign trail and supported the legalization and taxation of marijuana.

Although he identified as a socialist, Vasquez did not pull the endorsement of the Chicago Democratic Socialists of America, who instead put their weight behind competing candidate Ugo Okere in the 40th Ward race. After Vasquez squeaked into a runoff race against O’Connor, the CDSA endorsed the challenger but expended little organizing power on the race. The runoff heated up when O’Connor seized on Vasquez’s history of using homophobic lyrics in his battle rap — Vasquez apologized, but O’Connor’s campaign pounced, flooding mailboxes with flyers assailing Vasquez as anti-LGBT. Despite the deluge, Vasquez bested O’Connor in the runoff race with 54 percent of the vote, a seismic upset that knocked one of the council’s most senior and powerful aldermen out of political power.

In office, Vasquez has supported the Lincoln Square Master Plan alongside Ald. Matt Martin (47) and led a charge to turn the northern part of Lincoln Square into an arts district. Despite his campaign rhetoric, Vasquez has taken advantage of aldermanic prerogative on some occasions to retain longstanding small businesses or prevent condo buildings without enough affordable housing from coming to his area.

On a citywide scale, Vasquez has pushed back on police spending, joining the rest of the council’s left wing in advocating for the city to tilt its funding toward social services at the expense of the $1.8 billion annual police budget. However, Vasquez did vote for Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s 2021 “pandemic budget” in spite of his skepticism, which drew a censure from the Chicago chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. The organization later said in a statement that Vasquez’s vote showed he “sided with an austerity regime and the Democratic Party establishment over the interests of Chicago’s working class.”

Vasquez was conspicuously absent from the founding members of the City Council Democratic Socialist Caucus, citing a “difference of approach” with his colleagues. But he remains a member of the council’s Progressive Caucus and joined the City Council Subcommittee on Reparations for Black Chicagoans as vice chair under chair Ald. Stephanie Coleman (16).

Vasquez has also made it his mission on the City Council to “atone” for his homophobic rap lyrics, including by sponsoring a 2020 ordinance that struck most references to binary gender from the city’s forms and documents.

He ran in 2020 to be 40th Ward Democratic Committeeperson but was narrowly bested by Maggie O’Keefe, whom he had defeated in the aldermanic race a year earlier. Vasquez has since publicly maintained a warm relationship O’Keefe and participated in some of her political events.

Current Chicago City Council Committees:

Important Political Events

2019, Elected 40th Ward Alderman

2020, Defeated by Maggie O’Keefe in race for 40th Ward Democratic Committeeperson

2020, Appointed as vice chair City Council’s Subcommittee on Reparations

Dick Simpson “Rubber Stamp” scores:

2019-20 — 85 percent

Campaign committee(s):

Neighbors for Andre

Sources

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