School board fracas highlights Chicago mayor’s turbulent tenure

CHICAGO — Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson was catapulted into office as an outsider vowing to shake up the city’s notoriously combustible politics. But nearly two years into his term, he’s increasingly isolated and has alienated even some of his ideological allies as he battles to implement his progressive agenda.

The most glaring recent example is the unfolding controversy over his strong-arm effort to overhaul the city’s school board. Its seven members rejected Johnson’s call to fire the schools’ CEO — who had rebuffed his request to take out a short-term, high-interest loan to fix a budget shortfall — and they resigned en masse.

Johnson aggressively defended his tenure in an interview with POLITICO on Friday from London, where he’s focused on economic development and attending a Chicago Bears game in the city.

“There are people who might have some trepidation around how bold our vision is,” Johnson said, pointing to big investments in affordable housing, among a list of accomplishments. "There are individuals that are having a tough time adjusting. But for the masses in the city of Chicago, they're very much aligned with the vision.”

The school board dustup is only the latest drama from the fifth floor of City Hall. Before that, Johnson reshuffled 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’s clashed repeatedly with the City Council over his drive to eliminate the use of controversial gun detection technology. And he failed at getting his first and second choices approved to chair the council’s powerful zoning committee.

All that came ahead of the mayor delaying the release of 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 they bristle at how he’s been trying to accomplish it. His unilateral moves to remake the school board, in particular, have antagonized city officials like Alderman Bill Conway.

“I appreciate that Mayor Johnson is a principled man, 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 hit to win the Chicago mayor’s race.

He came up the ranks as an activist, even leading a hunger strike to keep a South Side school open. He was backed by the teachers union to become a county commissioner and then, a few years later, CTU anointed him as its candidate for mayor.

But Johnson’s challenges started as soon as he was sworn into office, when Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott started sending busloads of migrants to Chicago to call attention to national immigration problems.

Johnson embraced Chicago’s reputation as a welcoming place for immigrants, devoting significant resources, along with the state and county, to provide housing and other services to the new arrivals. But some Black Chicagoans felt slighted — why was the mayor willing to find housing for migrants, they asked, when there were many in their own community needing help?

The migrant crisis also created tensions with Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, when 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 struggling neighborhoods in this diverse city that has nearly the same populations of Black, Latino and white residents. And he has been methodical in trying to hire Black staffers for key positions.

But the mayor’s focus on boosting opportunities for Black residents has also sparked criticism.

“As much as he wants to deal with legitimate problems affecting the African American community, you can’t do that if that's all you focus on,” said Bill Singer, a former alderman and veteran City Hall observer. “You’ve got to focus on the entire city and you’ve got to focus on things where the entire support structure of the city is working with you. And right now it’s not.”

Johnson dismisses such criticisms, arguing his administration’s efforts benefit the whole city, including programs he says have led to lower crime rates, bond investments that boost small businesses and expand affordable housing, and plans for a $1 billion corporate investment in a quantum computing campus.

“I made a commitment to do things differently, and I'm going to do that,” Johnson said. “If people have issues with Black young men being the highest group of individuals enrolling in community colleges, these are the same individuals perhaps that did not care when those young Black boys were in schools that were being disinvested and closed.”

Recent tensions between the mayor and the City Council echo the turbulence of the 1980s, when Mayor Harold Washington was scrutinized by a group of council members at every turn. But there’s a notable difference: Washington’s opponents were a narrow group of white aldermen, while Johnson is facing pushback from all sides, including some progressive allies and Black council members.

“He is absolutely right to bring attention to areas of the city that have been long neglected and disenfranchised, but he needs to bring City Council along with him,” said Constance Mixon, a political science professor at Elmhurst University and co-editor of the book “Twenty-First Century Chicago.” “He can't do it himself.”

Johnson was propelled into office with the support of progressives and minority communities who wanted a change from a system that they say is dominated by white corporate elites. For decades, every Chicago mayor has been connected 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 got her start working for the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s 1988 presidential campaign, mentioning former mayors Rahm Emanuel and Lori Lightfoot, as well as Paul Vallas, who Johnson defeated in last year’s mayoral contest. “This was a chance to slay 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 gunfire detection system approved during Emanuel’s administration is the best way to protect their gun-riddled neighborhoods. Johnson has vowed to end the contract with the company, arguing as many progressives have that it is merely a surveillance tool that does little to solve crimes.

But some Black communities — and their City Council members — credit the tool with saving lives. ShotSpotter identifies gunfire so police and paramedics can get to the crime scene quicker.

The mayor stuck by his campaign promise nonetheless and has nixed the program, prompting his opponents to weigh a legal challenge.

But Johnson’s biggest challenges are over finances and the school system. The city faces a nearly $1 billion shortfall and the Chicago Public Schools system is grappling with mounting debt.

It’s a financial storm that the mayor hopes to skirt. He’s attempting to divert a school workers’ pension payment from the city to Chicago Public Schools, and he wants the schools to take out a $300 million short-term, high-interest loan to pay for it.

When Pedro Martinez, the school board CEO, rejected that idea, Johnson grew frustrated that his hand-picked board didn’t back him up. All seven ultimately stepped down — an astonishing move given the board is also in the middle of contract negotiations with the powerful teachers union.

The upheaval comes just weeks ahead of 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 consist of 21 members — 10 elected and 11 appointed by the mayor — so he can fire Martinez and meet CTU’s contract requests.

Many elected officials and civic leaders have warned against taking out a loan, and they worry firing Martinez would be a mistake, especially given that schools appear to be improving under his watch.

Johnson earlier this week compared those who have complained about the city’s financial challenges to Confederate slave owners, a reference that has angered civic leaders who also run businesses in town.

“They said it would be fiscally irresponsible for this country to liberate Black people,” the mayor said. “And now you have detractors making the same argument of the Confederacy when it comes to public education in this system.”

The controversy threatens Johnson’s ability to manage going forward — 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 get reelected to a second term.

“There needs to be an understanding that the legislative and executive are co-equal branches, and this tension and chest-bumping about whose authority is what isn't helpful,” said Alderman Andre Vasquez, who is a co-chair of the council’s progressive caucus.

Singer, the veteran alderman who has long studied Chicago City Hall, said the city will get through the latest turbulence.

“The bones are great. The institutions are great. They're not going away. But the city will shrink more than it's already shrunk if this continues,” said Singer. “I think it can survive another couple of years of [Johnson], but not a second term.”

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