On a day when metaphors were flying fast and furious at City Hall, Ald. Ricardo Muñoz (22) summed up the landscape hours after Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced he would not run for a third term.

“We saw a meteor hit a constellation today,” said Muñoz, who was one of dozens of aldermen, elected officials and political power players to immediately start weighing a bid for the office on the 5th Floor of City Hall. “Now, the dust is settling.”

Flanked by his wife Amy Rule, Emanuel set off what promises to be an explosive chain reaction Tuesday morning at a hastily assembled news conference at City Hall.

“This has been the job of a lifetime, but it is not a job for a lifetime,” Emanuel said while clutching his wife’s hand and struggling at times to maintain his composure, especially while paying tribute to his immigrant grandfather.

After touting his record on education — “universal full day pre-kindergarten, universal kindergarten and a longer school day and year” — Emanuel took no questions, and gave reporters little insight as to why he pulled the plug on the re-election effort that had already hired staff and launched a signature-gathering effort.

“Politicians always say they’re leaving office to spend more time with their family,” Emanuel said. “My kids were smart enough to see that coming and scattered to the two coasts, so as of the other day we are now empty nesters. Amy and I are still young – and Amy still looks it. And we look forward to writing that next chapter in our journey together.”

Contenders scramble to weigh in

The already-announced challengers acknowledged that the contest’s landscape had shifted, with more donors freed up — or less fearful of the political ramifications — to back a challenger.

“I always assumed I would be outspent,” candidate Paul Vallas said. “I always assumed I would prevail on the issues, my ability to speak with great specificity about what I would do to deal with Chicago’s complicated problems.”

Vallas and challenger Lori Lightfoot both said voters should be skeptical of latecomers to the race.

“If they didn’t have enough guts to get into the race when Rahm Emanuel was still running, what makes you think that whoever, somebody gets in the race is going to have the guts to make the tough decisions to move this city forward?” Vallas asked.

Lori Lightfoot addresses the media. [A.D. Quig/The Daily Line]

Lightfoot said Emanuel’s announcement was “undeniably big news, but it doesn’t change what we’re fighting for. It doesn’t change the needs of people all across this city.”

“We still need a leader to unite the city, and I plan to be that leader," Lightfoot said. "Everywhere we have gone in the last four months, Chicagoans tell us they need a government that sees them, that listens to them, and that invests in their communities."

Former Chicago Police Department Supt. Garry McCarthy welcomed Mayor Rahm Emanuel's decision not to run for mayor. [A.D. Quig/The Daily Line]

Emanuel’s exit “makes it easier for those who were afraid of the bullying tactics” of City Hall to voice their support, former Chicago Police Department Supt. Garry McCarthy said. “I’m counting on support from people who were afraid of him.”

Black Lives Matter activist Ja’Mal Green said he had no doubt Emanuel’s decision not to run again was related to the first-degree murder trial of former Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke on in connection with the death of Laquan McDonald.

Chicago’s next mayor should not be part of the current political establishment, Green said, while standing just outside the office he hopes will be his next spring.

“We need someone who understands the issues from a community standpoint,” Green said, echoing calls that groups like Black Lives Matter Chicago, Black Youth Project 100 and Assata’s Daughters have made about Emanuel since the release of the McDonald video.

Reaction from outside the mayor’s circle

While Ald. Nicholas Sposato (38) is on the opposite side of Chicago’s political spectrum, he agreed with Green that Van Dyke’s trial — set to start Wednesday — pushed Emanuel to re-evaluate his plans to run for a third term.

“The pressure and the stress on the man must have been insurmountable,” Sposato said.

Both Sposato and fellow Far Northwest Side Ald. Anthony Napolitano (41) said they would wait to see which candidate won the backing of Chicago’s labor unions before endorsing anyone.

“It is quite a conundrum,” Napolitano said.

Chicago Teachers Union leadership said the unrelenting criticism Emanuel faced from former President Karen Lewis paved the way to push the mayor out of the race.

“We don’t get to this point as a city without Karen Lewis putting this entire city, racial justice, educational justice, social justice, economic justice on her back,” said the Chicago Teachers Union political director Stacy Davis Gates. “Karen Lewis made everyone in this city believe that they could demand equity, that they could demand justice... The people in the CTU who followed her and worked damn hard to make this happen. He hit the wrong people in 2011 and we hit him back.”

Late Tuesday, the union asked members to give $19 per month to CTU in “honor of a 2019 without Mayor 1% on the ticket,” using the derisive nickname the union and other critics have used for Emanuel for years.

The union has yet to make a decision on who to endorse, Davis Gates said, but she celebrated that “the city of Chicago gets to hear people who have a vision for this city express without the threat of millions of dollars looming in the background to destroy them.”

The Chicago Teachers Union isn’t the only labor union re-examining the mayor’s race. Groups that might have focused on aldermanic races could shift their priorities, said Jerry Morrison, assistant to the president of SEIU Local 1.

“We’d take a serious look at it, as would our friends and allies... Rethinking what the playing field in the election dynamics look like,” Morrison said. ”What are the priorities? I would assume that some folks that prioritized aldermanics might change their priority to the executive.”

Morrison warned the field of candidates was not yet set.

“You’ll see bigger names. You’re going to hear a lot of names floating out there. Whoever can put together the Obama – Toni Preckwinkle – Kim Foxx coalition has the best shot of winning a runoff. This undoubtedly will go to a runoff,” Morrison predicted, arguing a candidate who can pull progressive voters from each of Chicago’s traditional tribal political factions has the best shot.

Other contenders in the wings

Preckwinkle is likely to make a decision about her own run in the next two days, a source close to her told The Daily Line. Her former chief of staff, City Treasurer Kurt Summers, is also said to be weighing a bid for mayor, sources told The Daily Line.

Also in the mix of potential candidates is Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza, the former city clerk, Cook County Comm. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia and U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez.

Although Garcia is set to replace Gutierrez in Congress, he is considering a second bid for mayor, Muñoz said, adding that he would not run to replace Emanuel if Garcia chose to do so.

City Clerk Anna Valencia said Emanuel’s announcement had prompted her to weigh a run for the top job, even though she had planned to run for a full term as city clerk.

“This has been the best job I have ever had,” Valencia said. “But this does certainly change things.”

Valencia said she wanted to continue working to build an “inclusive” city government and to strengthen the “bridge between City Hall and the neighborhoods.”

Valencia said she was disappointed in the current crop of 13 candidates.

“We definitely need another woman of color in the race,” Valencia said. “We must be in the conversation.”

Ald. Ameya Pawar (47) — another potential mayoral candidate — said if he decides to run for mayor it would be to focus on alleviating “poverty and inequality.”

Pawar, who ran for the Democratic nomination for governor before dropping out and endorsing eventual winner J.B. Pritzker, is not running for re-election to the City Council after two terms.

Finance Committee Chairman Ald. Ed Burke (14), singled out as a target for progressive groups energized by Garcia’s “sweep” in the 2018 primaries, said Emanuel’s decision won’t change his campaign calculus.

The City Council’s longest serving alderman did not rule out his own run for mayor.

“Most people will wait to see when the smoke clears to see who remains of interest… whoever is interested has to really want the office more than anything else,” Burke said. “I’ve served with eight mayors now, and I’ve had a working relationship with all of them. It’s been a pleasure to occupy a front row seat to Chicago history.”  

Ald. Ed Burke (14) did not rule out a run for mayor. [A.D. Quig/The Daily Line]

35th Ward Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa — who launched, and then dropped bids for lieutenant governor and congressman earlier this year — was one of only a few aldermen to definitively rule out a run for mayor.

Ramirez-Rosa said he will continue his bid for re-election to the City Council, where he was one of Emanuel’s most vehement critics.

“This is a renewed opportunity to come together to decide what kind of city we want Chicago to be,” Ramirez-Rosa said. “Everyone needs to come together to meet the tough challenge of building a more inclusive Chicago.”

Former Gov. Pat Quinn joined Ramirez-Rosa in ruling out a run, saying he was focused on getting a referendum on the November ballot that would limit Chicago mayors to two terms.

“I think he did the right thing,” Quinn said. “Two terms are enough."

Ripples felt in City Council races, and on the floor

Latino Caucus Chairman Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36) said Emanuel was polling at 24 percent in his Far Northwest Side ward.

“I’m a little surprised,” Villegas said. “I mean I’ve done some polling in my ward and poll numbers were not very favorable, so a little surprised but not totally surprised.”

Emanuel not running shifts aldermanic races as well for, as Villegas put it, ”the hundred percenters,” aldermen who voted consistently with the mayor.

“Although he’s going to be out, those that voted 100 percent with him still have that record, that [opponents will] be able to tie to that alderman too,” Villegas said.

A political operative who works closely with City Council said they would be watching what happens to the Victory PAC, which was launched in July by allies of Emanuel to support to aldermanic candidates. The fund received $50,000 from the Chicago Regional Council of Carpenters PAC on Aug. 13, state records show.

"I'd be very curious to know what's going to happen to that and whether or not that's going to make the landscape a little less threatening," for challengers to Emanuel-aligned candidates, the operative said.

Aldermanic allies in the past could bank on the mayor's campaign coffers or associated committee to intimidate challengers, they said.

"You shouldn't need half a million dollars to run for alderman. That's pretty obscene. If you raised $250,000 in the last cycle you did really well for yourself. Now it's the minimum commitment."

The operative said Emanuel's decision also roils the council's legislative agenda.

"In City Council I think there's going to be a lot of scrambling to figure out who can get what done. What priorities is this going to realign?"

Emanuel's departure could change the calculus around the debate over the community oversight of the police department, Amazon's second headquarters, the Lincoln Yards development and proposed changes to the welcoming cities ordinance.

"How is this all going to affect what makes it on the roster?" they wondered, with Emanuel "standing at the doorway rather than at the head of the table."

The giant grain of salt list of potential contenders:

Per Crain’s Greg Hinz: Retiring U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez; city Treasurer Kurt Summers; Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza, former U.S. Education Secretary and ex-Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan; and former top Obama aide Valerie Jarrett, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, former mayoral hopeful Gery Chico and former U.S. Commerce Secretary Bill Daley.

Per the Sun-Times’ Tina Sfondeles: Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6), Ald. Scott Waguespack (32), Ald. Ameya Pawar (47), Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley, Chico, Duncan, Preckwinkle.

Per the Chicago Tribune’s John Byrne, Bill Ruthart and Greg Pratt: CEO Michael Sacks, Ald. Proco Joe Moreno (1), Ald. Tom Tunney (44), Duncan, Daley, Pawar, Chico.

Per Ted McClelland in Chicago Magazine: Cook County Commissioner Bridget Gainer, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, Chance the Rapper, Lisa Madigan, Gutierrez, Duncan, Summers, Jarett, Preckwinkle.

Past coverage:

Top mayoral contenders bank $9.2 million — here’s where the cash is coming from
Mayoral hopeful Vallas hired firm behind mystery texts, but says poll was conducted by ‘independent firm’

Mayor Rahm Emanuel called on an old friend from the Obama Administration to head up a new task force focused on transportation, while five new candidates for mayor and City Council surfaced.

A proposal to create a registry of Chicago murals failed to advance Thursday, after aldermen agreed the plan designed to prevent graffiti-removal crews from wiping them out could backfire.

A plan to transform the former Harold L. Ickes Homes public housing development in the South Loop into a new mixed-income neighborhood advanced Thursday after a brief but emotional hearing before the City Council’s Zoning Committee.

Plans to transform the former Harold L. Ickes Homes public housing development in the South Loop into a new mixed-income neighborhood are set to be considered Thursday by the City Council’s Zoning Committee.

Nearly a year after Chicago Inspector General Joseph Ferguson first determined city officials were not doing enough to help those who do not speak English get access to city services, officials in the mayor’s office have only “partially” corrected the issues, according to follow-up audit released Thursday.

With petition-passing season set to start Tuesday, three new candidates announced plans to challenge incumbent aldermen in the 3rd, 4th and 48th wards.

An effort by city health officials to find the best ways to help teens avoid unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases will be restarted after a judge reversed a Trump administration move to end an Obama-era program, costing the city $2 million.

The packed field of candidates lining up to take on Mayor Rahm Emanuel is set to grow, as public policy consultant Amara Enyia prepares to launch another bid for the 5th floor of City Hall. In addition, community activist Jedidiah Brown created a campaign committee with state elections officials and prepared to announce his plans.

Mayoral candidate Lori Lightfoot’s proposal to ban aldermen from working as working as land-use, zoning or real estate attorneys picked up an endorsement from Fritz Kaegi, who is set to take over in 2019 as Cook County assessor.

ProPublica Illinois reporter Mick Dumke looks at the state’s political issues and personalities in this occasional column.



Like so many others, Stan Skoko was outraged by what he’d seen of the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where TV cameras captured images of officers beating protesters with nightsticks, kicking them and throwing them into police wagons as tear gas floated over Michigan Avenue.

So Skoko, a commissioner in Clackamas County, Oregon, near Portland, fired off a note on his office letterhead to Mayor Richard J. Daley. But unlike the withering criticism from reporters and TV anchors covering the street clashes, Skoko wanted to let the mayor know he and the Chicago police had done a great job.

“Congratulations on the manner in which you handled the ridiculous demonstrations by certain persons of questionable intelligence in your City during the recent Democratic Convention,” Skoko wrote. “My only criticism of your action is you were too lenient.”

Fifty years ago this week, violence outside the convention and infighting within it captured the country’s attention, becoming an enduring sign of the political and cultural battles of the era, even for those of us who were born later.

But from the vantage point of 2018, it’s quite clear those divisions didn’t end with the 1960s. Neither did the practice of politicians exploiting public anxieties for their own gain and undercutting the civil rights of minorities and dissenters, to the applause of many citizens. Reactionary politics and attacks on the truth itself are again disturbingly common.

Last week, I paid a visit to the special collections library at the University of Illinois at Chicago, which houses a rich archive of papers from Daley’s decadeslong political career. Among boxes of records from 1968 are scores of letters from people like Skoko, who cheered the mayor’s crackdown and blamed the whole convention debacle on biased or fictionalized reporting from the media.

The facts of what happened are more complicated.

Most protesters in Chicago that week were peaceful, though some provoked officers by screaming epithets or throwing “rocks, sticks, bathroom tiles and even human feces,” according to the official federal report on the convention melees, released late in 1968.

But, the report concluded: “The nature of the response was unrestrained and indiscriminate police violence on many occasions, particularly at night. That violence was made all the more shocking by the fact that it was often inflicted upon persons who had broken no law, disobeyed no order, made no threat. … Newsmen and photographers were singled out for assault.”

Still, in the days and weeks after the convention, supporters of Daley and the police rallied to their defense, as the letters to City Hall show.

“The seven members of my family are in complete agreement with the actions of the Chicago Police Department,” South Side resident James Boyle wrote the mayor. “The mouthings of the New York television bunch made me sick. There must be some way to refute the propaganda that they broadcast during and after the confrontation of our police and the out of town hooligans.”

Lest the mayor think he was merely angling for a patronage job, Boyle added, “Neither I, nor my wife, are city workers, or are in any way dependent upon the Democratic organization for our livelihood.”

In fact, many of Daley’s fans noted that they weren’t Democrats at all.

“Just a note from a Republican to tell you I support you 1000% in your great effort to maintain law and order in our city,” Illinois state Rep. Henry Hyde wrote on Aug. 29, 1968 — three decades before he would lead the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in the U.S. House of Representatives. “God bless you and our courageous policemen!”

Col. C.G. Dietrich of San Francisco told the mayor: “Your treatment of the yippies, hippies, junkies, hoodlums, bums, and other scum during the recent convention was perfect. ... I noted with delight that the police devoted some richly deserved attention to the prime provocateurs — the press.”

A number of Southerners also commended Daley, some sharing their views that black and Jewish people were behind both the disorder in Chicago and the civil rights movement in their home states.

“I have seen an affidavit stating that ‘Beatniks’ were paid fifteen dollars per day, food and lodging,” wrote E. L. Culbreth, a North Carolina lawyer. He added that protesters were also offered all the interracial sex they wanted — though he used a racial slur — “to don priestly clothes and join the march from Selma to Montgomery.”

Letters praising Daley poured into City Hall from all over — from a rancher in Wyoming; federal judges in Nebraska and Pennsylvania; Local 471 of the Milk Drivers & Dairy Employees Union in Minneapolis; the mayors of the Texas cities of Centerville and Amarillo; and the leader of the Shannon Rovers Irish Pipe Band of Chicago. The head of the musicians blasted the media and promised the mayor, “We will do whatever we can as individuals and as a band to keep Chicago where it should be.”

A number of clergy also gave their blessing to the mayor and the police, including a Catholic priest at St. Nicholas Church in north suburban Evanston.

“The mayor showed the patience of Christ in his dealing with an ungrateful people,” wrote the priest, Father Kenneth, whose last name was illegible in the letter.

At the time, Daley claimed he received tens of thousands of letters, the vast majority of them from supporters. I only came across a few from critics in the UIC archives. One was sent by a convention delegate from Washington, D.C., who predicted the mayor’s tactics would be rejected at the polls.

“The Democratic party can ill afford to be ‘soft on fascism’ under Mayor Daley’s personal notion of ‘law and order,’” wrote the delegate, Channing Phillips.

Sure enough, the Democrats, divided internally over Vietnam, protesters and varying notions of “law and order,” lost the presidential election that fall as well as seats in Congress.

Daley remained in power until his death in 1976, the archetype of the old-school political strongman who ruled as he saw fit.

In a statement to the media after the convention, a copy of which is also in the archives, Daley created his own narrative about how he handled the protests, blasting the “terrorists” he accused of trying to “paralyze” Chicago.

“In the heat of emotion and riot some policemen may have overreacted,” Daley said, “but to judge the entire police force by the alleged action of a few would be just as unfair as to judge our entire younger generation by the actions of this mob.”

Five decades later, both in Chicago and around the country, we’re engaged in a new season of protests, debates over police reform, and looming elections — while political leaders try to shape their own versions of truth.

The race to replace 47th Ward Ald. Ameya Pawar now features 11 candidates, with the addition of Lincoln Square real estate broker Stephen Hood. In the 38th Ward, Ald. Nicholas Sposato drew his first challenger — while mayoral candidate Lori Lightfoot releases a nine-point government that would ban aldermen from working as land use, zoning or real estate attorneys.

The top four fundraisers in Chicago’s mayoral race alone have received a combined $9.2 million in donations since Oct. 1.

While Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s lopsided fundraising advantage — $7.8 million since October — skews the data, more than half of the fundraising dollars come from outside the city, according to filings with the Illinois State Board of Elections.

On Friday, Gov. Bruce Rauner vetoed HB5342, which allows aldermen who served as firefighters to elect to receive a firefighter pension rather than a municipal employee pension upon retirement.

Next Tuesday marks the first day petition sheets may be circulated for the February 26, 2019 election, meaning filings are ramping up. Three new candidates filed paperwork over the weekend, while Gov. Bruce Rauner vetoed a bill aimed at giving firefighters-turned-aldermen some pension clarity and an admired Springfield reporter turned in her press credentials for a PR gig.