Gov. Bruce Rauner used the last few strokes of his gubernatorial pen to veto a bill designed to clear up confusion about how vacancies of the president of the county board would be filled.

An effort to create two new tax-increment financing districts that would generate $1.6 billion advanced Friday, despite fierce protests designed to derail the effort pushed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Stacy Davis Gates sat down for The Daily Line’s Aldercast podcast on Dec. 21 — the calm before the storm. It was weeks before Ald. Ed Burke’s (14) attempted extortion charge and its links to CTU’s endorsed candidate, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle.



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It was before before television ads began rolling in the mayoral race, while several ballot challenges to mayoral candidates were still pending, and before reporters needed a flowchart to map who was attacking whom on what day.

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Gates, a former high school social studies teacher at Englewood, Clemente and Mason Community Links, previously served as the union’s political director and helped organize the CORE takeover of CTU with former President Karen Lewis in 2010.

The wide-ranging interview touches on Preckwinkle, the union’s next contract, strikes at the city’s charter schools, the union’s increased focus on affordable housing, turning political tides on an elected school board, and Davis’ own experience as a black woman in labor.

The Chicago Teachers Union released its endorsement of Preckwinkle and several aldermanic candidates on Dec. 5. It was one of the most anticipated endorsements of the 2019 cycle, even before Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced he would not run for re-election.

Combined with SEIU’s endorsement the same day as her September mayoral announcement, it meant Preckwinkle had the most substantial labor muscle of any candidate. Labor’s money, foot soldiers and communications arms would help counter the millions of dollars that fellow candidates Gery Chico and Bill Daley were raising, and any trade and construction union backing that other candidates might consolidate.

In the weeks since, CTU has served as an attack dog for Preckwinkle, including attempting to quell some of the Burke furor by releasing a nearly month-old poll showing Preckwinkle in the lead, albeit with just 18 percent of the vote in a crowded field and 19 percent of voters undecided.  

Six key takeaways from the interview:

• On Toni Preckwinkle – “I think that Toni Preckwinkle is a reflection of black women who have had to be in politics before their time matured. I’ve had a very personal experience in politics and labor as a black woman, and I can tell you that in 2018 the experiences that I’m having, I can only imagine what they were for her in the 80s and the 90s and the early 2000s. I’m afraid to peek under that hood… Toni Preckwinkle, quite frankly, is both a victim and a product of the legacy of sexism and racism in politics. The fact that she is at the peak, where she stands now, is a testament to her resilience. That’s the story I hope some reporter begins to tell along the way, because that’s what is inspiring to me as a mother raising children in this city is how she has overcome. What sacrifice did that take?”
  


• On the union’s endorsement of Ald. Marty Quinn after his handling of charges of sexual harassment by his brother, Kevin Quinn – “We’re never going to be okay with the objectification of women. I’m a woman. I know what it feels like to work in politics and labor, for that matter, as a woman. It’s not the most friendly space all the time, it’s not always the most comfortable space… Our endorsement has three different levels, and on every level, Ald. Quinn received it. He spoke to our [political action committee] very candidly about who he is as a leader in that space and that he has a brother, he loves him, and he was wrong.”
  


• On what aldermen should be doing on affordable housing – “You see John Arena up in the 45th Ward taking a lot of heat for doing something that Pat Dowell should be doing in the 3rd Ward or that Sophia King should be leading in the 4th ward, and that is affordable housing, to be perfectly honest with you. He’s taking heat for that. You get a white guy from the Northwest Side of Chicago taking an extraordinary amount of heat for saying the housing needs to be affordable and actually exposing that we think affordable housing is about poor black people instead of people who have been marginalized by the loss of the public sector.”
  


• On the need for an elected school board – “Those who need the education make themselves available for it, have to receive it in the ways in which the dominant elite class provides it, and that concept is absolutely racist. The continual absence of an elected school board in the city of Chicago says that democracy only matters for those who have money… I think [Gov. JB Pritzker] has to make good on [an elected school board]. And if he doesn’t, then he’s cloaking for that same very racist, colonial way of looking at stuff. He said it on the campaign trail over and over again. It’s my hope that he can compel the Senate president to finally play ball. The bill has passed the House twice, overwhelming majorities each time.”
  


• On CPS CEO Dr. Janice Jackson – “If I’m honest with you about how I see a CEO in Chicago Public Schools, I don’t. This district has been under mayoral control. At the beginning of our discussion I had to remember who the person was when [former CPS CEO Arne Duncan] left. It’s a revolving door, it has nothing to do with those people. The mayor’s in charge of public schools in Chicago and has been since 1995. That’s the beginning, middle, and end of that story.”
  


• On Chicago’s population loss – “Since 1987 there’s been this serious assault on the public sector, especially teachers in this city,” Gates said. “At that same time you’ve seen this decline of black middle class in this city. Chicago was black teacher mecca, and what we understand now is in the same neighborhoods that are losing population are the same schools that have been closed, are the same spaces where the middle class black people have been pushed out of here. So you have to wonder if city policy has been to push black people clean out of the city.”   

A challenger in the 43rd Ward won the backing of former Ald. Dick Simpson, who is now a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a frequent supporter of good-government reforms. On Friday, a new political action committee will endorse a slate of young candidates.

With a hearing set for Friday, Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown vowed to keep fighting and win a spot on next month’s ballot after elections officials found she did not collect at least 12,500 signatures. Meanwhile, candidates Bill Daley and Gery Chico focused on the Chicago Public Schools, earning criticism from the Chicago Teachers Union, and Toni Preckwinkle found herself under fire for touting her role in exposing the murder of Laquan McDonald by a police officer.

City attorneys will head back to court Friday to ask a judge to issue an order allowing inspectors into R. Kelly’s Near West Side studio after a complaint, and Ald. Ricardo Muñoz (22) spurned calls to resign from his City Council seat.

Ald. Ed Burke (14) notified officials 121 times from 2009-18 that he had abstained from voting on measures in order to comply with the city’s Ethics Ordinance — six times more than any other alderman, according to disclosures compiled by the Chicago Board of Ethics.

Nearly a dozen aldermanic candidates rallied at City Hall Wednesday in an effort to breathe new life into a measure that would put the Chicago Police Department under the control of an elected board of civilians, while former U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez backed Ald. Ameya Pawar (47) in the race for treasurer and Toni Preckwinkle released her first ad buy focused on what her campaign said in a statement was her “pivotal role in the Laquan McDonald investigation.”

Nearly a dozen aldermanic candidates and mayoral candidate Lori Lightfoot signed on to a package of ethics reforms Tuesday as the flood of good-government proposals continued to flow in the wake of the federal charge filed against Ald. Ed Burke (14).

Lincoln Yards will not include a 20,000-seat soccer stadium or a Live Nation-owned entertainment complex — but it could be fueled by an $800 million subsidy under a plan announced by 2nd Ward Ald. Brian Hopkins.

Aldermen who use social media like Twitter and Facebook to communicate with constituents and city residents should not block people from following their accounts or delete comments critical of them or their positions, according to an advisory opinion from the Chicago Board of Ethics.

Chicago is on the wrong track, according to a poll from the Chicago Teachers Union, and mayoral candidate Susana Mendoza has second thoughts about a plan that would have increased property taxes for the wealthiest Chicagoans. Meanwhile, the aftershocks of the earthquake caused by the criminal charges facing Ald. Ed Burke (14) continued to rumble through City Hall.

Mayoral candidate Toni Preckwinkle’s Cook County board president re-election campaign committee may have committed a “possible inadvertent technical infraction” involving a $10,000 contribution from one of the restaurant owners Ald. Ed Burke is accused of attempting to extort, a lawyer for Preckwinkle told state officials.

Mayoral candidate Susana Mendoza won the backing of the LiUNA Chicago Laborers’ District Council, and banked a hefty contribution. The nearly dozen mayoral candidates on the ballot will fan out across the city Tuesday as the campaign heats up.

Few of the aldermen who packed City Hall to try to turn the whirlwind surrounding Ald. Ed Burke (14) to their advantage would list themselves among Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s allies.

But the circus-like atmosphere that featured four back-to-back press conferences, props, one alderman heckling another and an offer to settle a dispute over the City Council’s rules proves yet again the truth of one of Emanuel’s most famous remarks: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.”

First up in front of the cameras and reporters to attempt just that feat was Ald. Joe Moore (49), an independent alderman during the Daley years who has been a close ally of Emanuel.

According to Moore, the city should:

• Ban outside employment for aldermen


• expand Inspector General Joseph Ferguson’s power to audit all City Council operations and give him power to enforce his subpoenas


• create a small-donor public-financing system for aldermen and mayor, treasurer and clerk.


• Live stream all City Council committee meetings and record and publish them electronically.

Ald. Brendan Reilly (42) introduced a measure (R2018-510) in May to live stream Council Committee meetings. It has yet to get a hearing.

Moore, who voted with Emanuel 98 percent of the time according to a report from former Ald. Dick Simpson, who is now a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, had a two-word response when asked why it took the criminal charges filed against Burke to spur him to act.

“Human nature,” Moore said. “When you have something as monumental as the most powerful member of the City Council facing a very serious criminal indictment, that will give people the courage to change.”

But that wasn’t good enough for 10th Ward Ald. Susan Sadlowski-Garza, who was waiting with several other members of the Progressive Caucus for their turn in the spotlight to denounce Burke, the mayor and their allies.

Sadlowski-Garza yelled out that Moore had refused to sign on to the measure (O2018-9408) introduced by the Progressive Caucus last month to move the city’s $100 million workers’ compensation fund from the Finance Committee to the Law Department.

“We are not a jump on the bandwagon, all of the sudden having these epiphanies wanting to change things when the same alderman that stands behind the microphone and says he is now for these ideas last month and the month before pushed us away and didn’t want to be any part of it,” Sadlowski-Garza said when it was her turn in front of the cameras.

The measure to strip Burke of control of the worker’s compensation fund ran into the same wall that all of the Progressive Caucus’ efforts for reform have hit thanks to opposition from Burke and the mayor.

Accompanied by Alds. Michele Smith (43) and Deb Mell (33), the Progressive Caucus called for the enforcement of Rule 36, which gives aldermen the right to pick their own committee chairs — not the mayor — but hasn’t been implemented in decades.

Ald. Pat O’Connor (40) — an ally of the mayor — replaced Burke Friday as chairman of the Finance Committee after Burke filed his resignation with City Clerk Anna Valencia.

That is “utterly ridiculous,” said Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35), adding O’Connor does not have the “moral authority” to lead the Finance Committee.

O’Connor is a member of the City Council’s “go-along-to-get-along” or “rubber stamp” caucus, Ramirez-Rosa said.

Instead, Progressive Caucus chairman Ald. Scott Waguespack (32) should head the committee, said Ramirez-Rosa and Ald. John Arena (45).

In addition, Arena said he planned to introduce a measure Jan. 23 to overhaul Rule 14, which allows an aldermen to abstain from votes involving matter they believe presents a conflict of interest. The expanded rule would require the alderman invoking Rule 14 to file a detailed explanation of the conflict with the City Clerk to be published online, according to the proposal.


The revised rule would also prohibit the alderman from participating in committee hearings on the matter. If the alderman is the chairman of the committee considering the matter, he or she may not be present for the debate or preside over the hearing, according to the proposal.

The Progressive Caucus has also called for expanding Inspector General Joseph Ferguson’s power, and an independent audit of the workers’ compensation fund. Emanuel announced such an audit Sunday.

Once the aldermen wrapped up, mayoral candidates Willie WIlson and Paul Vallas’ took turns trying to capitalize on Burke’s woes.

Wilson said he would not allow aldermen to pick the chairs of the committees, a move his adviser and former alderman and state Sen. Rickey “Hollywood” Hendon likened to “opening the door of your house to a burglar.”

That drew an angry retort from Arena who yelled out, “That’s insulting.”

Hendon minced no words in his reply.

“I did not interrupt you, alderman,” Hendon said. “If you want to interrupt me, I can meet you outside and you can say anything you want.”

Wilson said he would convene an advisory committee of citizens to weigh his choices for chairmanships, Hendon said.

Chicago aldermen are “two-timing people, they’re backstabbers, they ain’t no good,” Wilson said.

Wilson called for Preckwinkle to resign as Cook County Board president — and to drop out of the race. Fellow candidate Bob Fioretti made the same demand last week.

With Wilson finished, mayoral candidate Paul Vallas stepped to the microphones brandishing a broom, symbolizing his push for a “clean sweep.”

Vallas said Preckwinkle, Susana Mendoza, Gery Chico and Bill Daley should all drop out of the race for mayor because of their ties to Burke.

Vallas mocked rival Daley, who proposed reducing the size of the City Council from 50 members to 15 Monday.

“After the horses have left the barn, he’s now shutting the door?” Vallas asked.

Aldermen should rotate the City Council committee chairmanships to prevent certain aldermen from accumulating too much power, Vallas said. “Change begins at the top… Sweep the bums out.”