Two walks down memory lane
Monday, Apr 6, 2026 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Tribune…
Redfield says this session’s resistance is a sign of both changing political dynamics — the withering of Chicago’s political machine has given mayors since Richard M. Daley less political control over the City Council and state legislators — and Johnson’s failure to “bring people on board” in a time of tight city and state budgets.
“If you don’t understand and you don’t respect the guardrails and the mechanics of the process, then you’re putting yourself in a bad situation,” Redfield said. “You’ve got to operate from positions of strength and all I see from Springfield is the mayor taking an awful lot of heat and pushback on doing some pretty basic things within the City Council that, you know, mayors named Daley didn’t have those problems.”
Yeah, they had other problems instead.
* Ralph Martire writing in the Sun-Times…
See, although the pension fund is underfunded today, that wasn’t always the case. As recently as 2001, the pension was fully funded. However, then-Mayor Richard M. Daley, who had an aversion to increasing property taxes for political reasons and who also controlled the management of CPS, had CPS zero-fund its pensions for a decade. Ten years, no contribution. So that naturally engendered a huge unfunded liability.
During that 10-year hiatus, revenue that should’ve covered CPS pensions was instead diverted to fund educational expenses. That irresponsible fiscal maneuver benefited city taxpayers because CPS received a higher level of funding for education than what they were paying for in taxes. Folks living in other parts of Illinois didn’t benefit one whit from this mayoral largess.
You really should read all of Ralph’s op-ed, by the way. We’ll revisit it later this week.
- Jack in Chatham - Monday, Apr 6, 26 @ 11:00 am:
It should be remembered that Mayor Daley got this maneuver room with a deal with Governor Edgar.
- Rory - Monday, Apr 6, 26 @ 11:01 am:
Plus ça change…
- low level - Monday, Apr 6, 26 @ 11:22 am:
No one is afraid of this mayor. At all. He makes Mike Bilandic look strong. That is not good.
- Three Dimensional Checkers - Monday, Apr 6, 26 @ 11:24 am:
I have absolutely zero sympathy for Mayor Johnson. When he won in 2023, everyone thought he would be the more collaborative Mayor as opposed to Mayor Lightfoot’s absolutist style. Instead of following through, Mayor Johnson choose the “it’s my turn to be the Daley” path. Everything that has happened since is 100 percent his fault and the result of his decision in office.
- DuPage Saint - Monday, Apr 6, 26 @ 11:40 am:
I think Richard M Daley probably did more fiscal harm to the city than any other mayor ever and basically every mayor since has been dealing with his poor fiscal management.
- JS Mill - Monday, Apr 6, 26 @ 11:47 am:
= had CPS zero-fund its pensions for a decade. Ten years, no contribution. So that naturally engendered a huge unfunded liability.
During that 10-year hiatus, revenue that should’ve covered CPS pensions was instead diverted to fund educational expenses. That irresponsible fiscal maneuver benefited city taxpayers because CPS received a higher level of funding for education than what they were paying for in taxes. Folks living in other parts of Illinois didn’t benefit one whit from this mayoral largess.=
I wish people had some sense of history. They just don’t. Sometimes it feels like if it didn’t happen in the las month or so, it isn’t in the collective memory. Maybe that is the old history teacher in me. And I get this bit of history would not be in the memory of anyone that wasn’t in at least in their 20’s when it started. BUt when CPS complains about funding from the state, I know the really special deals that they have received in the last 30 years and how it diverted money from the rest of the state schools. I also appreciate the fiscal engine that Chicago has been for the state, so I am not a “Chicago hater” like a lot of people are in rural Illinois and even to some extent the suburbs. There will always be a push and pull politically and economically between those three groups in our very diverse state.
But when you are mayor you should know the history and how the process works. In my estimation that means Johnson either hasn’t taken the time to educate himself, or isn’t intellectually mature enough and just wants what he wants without putting in the work. That doesn’t mean he cannot assertively advocate for Chicago, that is in fact his job. He has been even less effective than his predecessor which was a pretty low bar. I agree 100% with @low level, for those of us who can remember poor Michael Bilandic, spot in in the fact that it is not good.
- Rich Miller - Monday, Apr 6, 26 @ 12:31 pm:
===and basically every mayor since has been dealing with his poor fiscal management. ===
Agreed.
This is what happens when somebody accumulates massive power and influence.
- ZC - Monday, Apr 6, 26 @ 12:41 pm:
>> basically every mayor since has been dealing with his poor fiscal management.
And with the Chicago Tribune through much of this time period constantly calling him a great fiscal steward (Translation: he didn’t raise property taxes hardly ever).
- Chrissie - Monday, Apr 6, 26 @ 1:07 pm:
And yet Chicago is still a great city. Imagine what it could be if we had better schools, better transit and cleaner and safer streets.
- City Zen - Monday, Apr 6, 26 @ 1:10 pm:
==revenue that should’ve covered CPS pensions was instead diverted to fund educational expenses.==
Also known as salaries and salary increases. Don’t suppose there will be a multi year salary freeze to balance things out?
- The Farm Grad - Monday, Apr 6, 26 @ 1:15 pm:
“When he won in 2023, everyone thought he would be the more collaborative”
Hard to be collaborative when the sitting Governor slaps your city with an 11B unfunded liability, then deliberately denies your attempt to finance it with progressive revenue resources.
Re Daley. Emphatically Agree. When Texas privatized Highway 288, it included a clause (termination for convenience) which provided that the municipality had the right to buy back the highway at below market price if the original terms allowed the PE firm to generate a return above a certain threshold.
Daley could have included such a clause in the parking meter contract, but didn’t
- TNR - Monday, Apr 6, 26 @ 1:33 pm:
I agree that Daley deserves tons of criticism for the city’s debt problems. But if I’m not mistaken, that pension holiday was actually embedded in the School Reform Amendatory Act of 1995. So too was a provision that eliminated the separate Chicago teachers pension property tax levy, which until then kept CPS from co-mingling pension and operations revenue.
This was the same law that gave the mayor control of the schools. It was a Republican initiative (during their two years of total control in Springfield) that was opposed by the Chicago delegation in the legislature. The Chicago Teachers pension was more than 100 percent funded at the time, so the thinking was to give the newly formed school board some financial flexibility by eliminating and suspending statutory requirements related to employer pension contributions. Needless to say, a horrible mistake.
Point being, Daley had plenty of help from Springfield in screwing this up.
- Candy Dogood - Monday, Apr 6, 26 @ 1:34 pm:
I can’t wait until the Overton Window moves enough that we can start being more accurate about what our past “great” Mayors, Governors, and other elected officials left us to deal with.
We’ll need to come up with a fancy academic term for policies that intentionally screw over governments, taxpayers, and civic institutions by the time the political figure doing it is in the grave.
Something fun like — “By refusing to pay for capital maintenance the city began running Daley Deficits.”
“By borrowing to pay for operating expenses, they Edgarized the budget.”
- Three Dimensional Checkers - Monday, Apr 6, 26 @ 1:42 pm:
===Hard to be collaborative when the sitting Governor slaps your city with an 11B unfunded liability, then deliberately denies your attempt to finance it with progressive revenue resources.===
You mean Sen. Martwick’s bill that became a law? Yeah, nothing the Mayor could ever do about that one.
Propaganda and nostalgia. Do not run for Mayor if you do not want to honestly deal with the City’s financial problems.
- Rich Miller - Monday, Apr 6, 26 @ 1:44 pm:
===Do not run for Mayor if you do not want to honestly deal with the City’s financial problems===
The last one who did that was Harold Washington.
- Leatherneck - Monday, Apr 6, 26 @ 2:34 pm:
=He makes Mike Bilandic look strong.=
I can’t imagine what would happen if next winter was one of those late 70s-style winters.
- Juvenal - Monday, Apr 6, 26 @ 3:06 pm:
1) Paul Vallas led efforts to divert $1.5 billion from the CPS pension system to fund operations. Depending on the day of the week, Vallas is either running for mayor or school board president. He has disqualified himself from both jobs.
2) It is absolutely true that the decline of patronage has impacted the power structure at City Hall, but that cuts both ways. Reilly was backed by several alderman but the four wards he won, including his own, netted him only about 2000 votes.
Compare that to the 47th ward, which led the city in Democratic turnout thanks to the contested Congressional race. Reilly lost Matt Martin and Paul Rosenfeld’s ward 75-25, by 8K votes.
So, while Johnson does not have patronage muscle, his city hall foes have certainly seen their influence decline. Reilly barely won his own ward.
Johnson is absolutely right that neither he nor Lightfoot were afforded the deference Rahm and Daley benefitted from. That has atleast something to do with race.
It also has to do with Rahm raising a mountain of money that he could use just as effectively as patronage workers. And it also has to do with Daley toiling for years to build relationships within the wards, especially through outreach to Black ministers and through the creation of astroturf advisory boards and neighborhood groups to do his bidding.
Johnson and Lightfoot wrongly believed “Da Mayor” was a hereditary title, felt disrespected, and instead of looking in the mirror and adjusting their game plan to build the necessary bridges, started setting bridges on fire.
- Ducky - Monday, Apr 6, 26 @ 3:31 pm:
Shrug. City leaders have long used financial giveaways to woo voters and keep power. The current Mayor is learning what happens when you no longer have that tool available. It only gets harder from here. The city can’t afford “no property tax increase” promises, free money social program rewards, or sweetheart contracts for preferred unions.
- Regular democrat - Monday, Apr 6, 26 @ 3:43 pm:
This is an old story presented and written with an eye towards putting it in laymen’s terms. Everyone who reads it will walk away much better informed. I predict Paul Vallas will have a retort but lets stick with Mr Matire version. Well done