CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — The race for Chicago mayor split the City Council when it came to endorsements, with many old school and more conservative alderpersons backing Paul Vallas, while many progressives lined up behind Brandon Johnson.
It’s fair to ask whether such endorsements were for the good of the city or the good of the alderpeople, WBBM Political analyst Robin Robinson said.
“If you’re really trying to be credible, you endorse the person you actually think will do the best job — not the person you think will win,” Robinson said. “Politics would say, ‘Endorse the person who will win.’ Hopefully we have public servants, and not just politicians.”
Erin Hegarty, Political Reporter for The Daily Line, says it probably wasn’t about angling for Council Committee chairmanships. The City Council has already approved a line up of Council chairmanships, which used to be given out by the Mayor.
“If you’re a new mayor and you’re going to hold a grudge against people who didn’t vote for you, that’s the first step in demonstrating that grudge: Not giving someone a committee chairmanship,” Hegarty said.
For some City Council members, chairmanships might have taken an immediate backseat to simply surviving the runoff election.
So the new mayor might be unable to exact such retribution, even if he wanted to.
Three of the four alderpersons appointed by Mayor Lori Lightfoot over the past year were forced into runoffs. One of them, Anabel Abarca, lost outright in February. It looks like the other three will survive.
Veteran Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29th), though, who chairs the all-important Public Safety Committee, is only a few hundred votes ahead of challenger CB Johnson — with mail-in votes still being counted.
Hegarty said she was stumped over why Taliaferro’s race was so close. She wondered if it had something to do with the fact that Taliaferro ran for a judgeship in 2022 and lost that election.
Robinson, though, brought up a basic rule in politics: While many people talk about the power of incumbency, there's also the burden of incumbency.
“[If] you have a record, you’ve had enough time to make some people mad,” Robinson said.
Hegarty and Robinson were guests on Sunday’s “At Issue” program, which focused on providing a look behind the headlines in the elections for Chicago mayor and the City Council.
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