* Crain’s…

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is moving to jump-start his proposal to raise Chicago’s minimum wage to $13 an hour, fearing that the Illinois General Assembly may be about to pre-empt the city’s ability to do so.

The mayor has called a special City Council meeting for Tuesday, Dec. 2, to vote on his proposed ordinance. The council’s Committee on Workforce Development and Audit will consider the plan a day earlier. Approval is expected even though some aldermen are urging an even higher figure of $15 an hour.

“We have decided to proceed [this] week because of the possibility that there may be an attempt to pre-empt the Chicago ordinance,” said Kelley Quinn, the mayor’s spokeswoman. “Taking this step first is the best way to prevent that from happening.”

The move comes as Mr. Emanuel, who has had trouble connecting with some low-income or minority voters, runs for re-election on Feb. 24.

Under the mayor’s proposal, the wage increase would be phased in, starting roughly seven months from now. It would hit $10 an hour by July 1 and $11 within three years. Thereafter, it would go up $1 per year to eventually reach $13 an hour.

* Sun-Times…

City officials hope to pass an ordinance that, in part, mirrors a state bill sponsored by Sen. Kimberly Lightford (D- Maywood).

By 2017, both the city and state would move to $11.

But in Chicago, in 2018, the wage would go up $1 — to end up in 2019 at $13, city officials said.

Lightford said she’s confident her bill will pass in Springfield next week.

But she wasn’t sure Friday what Chicago’s ordinance will mean if her bill passes and is signed by Gov. Pat Quinn.

“I just don’t know if the city can say … we can move ours higher and the state can’t do anything about it,” Lightford said.

* 19th Ward Ald. Matt O’Shea is not happy with the idea…

You don’t need a Nobel Prize in economics to realize a higher minimum wage on the Chicago side of the city limits will drive businesses to the suburbs. A downtown clothing outlet with a captive and affluent customer base might be able to survive employee costs that are 30 to 50 percent higher than a similar store in a far-away suburban mall, but what about a store that operates in a neighborhood on the city’s border? Just like the downtown store, that neighborhood business would have to raise prices to pay its work force a higher Chicago wage. But unlike downtown, the neighborhood store’s customer-base would have plenty of lower-priced options in nearby suburbs, some of which could be reached by literally walking across the street. As such, if we raise the Chicago minimum wage higher than neighboring municipalities, we should be prepared to watch businesses and millions of dollars in tax revenue cross the street, too.

Numbers I’ve seen show that 20 percent of the city’s businesses are clustered around the city’s edges.

* Meanwhile, speaking of hizzoner’s reelection…

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has received $400,000 in political donations that he was able to keep only because the state’s campaign contribution limits were eliminated through the actions of an obscure candidate who threatened to run, but didn’t.

The contribution limits were lifted for everyone in the Chicago mayoral race last month after frequent local candidate William J. Kelly filed paperwork in October showing he gave his own campaign $100,000. Under state law, once a candidate in a local race contributes $100,000 to his or her own campaign within one year of an election, the state contribution caps no longer apply.

But Kelly didn’t file the necessary petition signatures by Monday’s deadline to appear on the ballot. Nonetheless, the lifting of the campaign limits remains in place.

* And…

With City Hall as a backdrop, Cook County Clerk David Orr stood with mayoral contender Jesus “Chuy” Garcia on Sunday and anointed him as the progressive alternative to Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his top-down style.

He “is humble, which is unusual for a politician,” Orr said when he was asked why Garcia — who is also a Cook County commissioner — would be a better mayor than Emanuel. He’s “someone who will listen to people, someone who understands.”

Then Orr tweaked the mayor, who has an enormous fundraising advantage over Garcia but who Chicagoans have expressed dissatisfaction with in public opinion polls.

“The mayor, with millions, has a hard time getting signatures on his petitions. Chuy Garcia in three weeks time, spending no money — all volunteers — got 60-some thousand,” Orr said. “In another week, they probably would have gotten 90,000.”

…Adding… Related…

* Minimum wage poses predicament for service agencies

* Sam Toia: Restaurateurs want Illinois minimum wage increase that’s fair and reasonable