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Chicago is the third-largest city in the United States. Home to more than 2.7 million people, it is battling some of the same crises as other major urban centers in the country: declining population, poorly performing public schools, high crime, and a growing pension crisis. On April 7, Chicago voters went to the polls to participate in the first mayoral runoff since the city moved to nonpartisan mayoral elections in 1999. The battle was framed as an internal Democratic Party struggle that pitted Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a centrist, against progressive Cook County commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia. After the votes were tallied, Emanuel won re-election by a comfortable 56-44% margin, but doing so cost millions of dollars and the fact that the election went to a runoff, especially after Emanuel’s biggest challengers dropped out of the race prior to the first round of voting, was deemed as a blow to Emanuel’s political reputation. Emanuel must now deal with the city’s economic problems, its teachers’ union, and a city council that is growing more progressive. His success in doing so may determine whether he is able to achieve higher national office in the future.
Since “state and local issues” are an important facet of United States Extemp at the National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) National Tournament, this topic brief will provide a summary of the major issues in the Chicago election, explain why Emanuel was able to win, and then analyze the fiscal challenges Emanuel will face over his next term.
Readers are also encouraged to use the links below and in the related R&D to bolster their files about this topic.
A Summary of the Chicago Mayoral Election
Rahm Emanuel became the Mayor of Chicago in February 2011 when he defeated five other candidates with 55% of the vote. Before taking the position, Emanuel served as senior advisor to President Bill Clinton between 1993 and 1998 and then served three terms in the House of Representatives, where he took the seat of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich in 2003. While in the House, Emanuel acquired a reputation for partisanship and he was quite vindictive toward politicians that crossed him or the Democratic Party. While in the House, he also chaired the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), which The Atlantic explains on April 6 saw him play a sizable role in the party’s victories in the 2006 midterm elections. In 2009, Emanuel left the House to serve as President Barack Obama’s chief of staff. The Atlantic writes that he was not a favorite of progressives in these roles, who believed that Emanuel favored business-friendly candidates within the party. He was also criticized by the left for questioning whether President Obama should push for healthcare reform during his first term.
After taking office as mayor, Emanuel alienated several of the city’s special interests. African Americans, a sizable Chicago voting base, grew angry over the city’s rising homicide rate. They also criticized Emanuel’s decision to close fifty-three public schools to limit city expenditures. Emanuel justified this by saying that the schools targeted for closure had too much excess capacity, so eliminating them would allow the city to save costs via consolidation. However, many of the schools that were closed were in low-income areas and parents protested that their neighborhood schools were being taken away. Despite being an ally of the President, who remains popular in Chicago, Politico reports on April 7 that Emanuel only had an approval rating of 26% among African Americans last summer. The school closings also antagonized the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), which also criticized Emanuel for not adequately funding arts programs and trying to privatize elements of the city’s education system. The CTU conducted a brief strike, the first that the city had seen in twenty-five years, in the summer of 2012.
However, all of this is not to suggest that Emanuel’s first term was a complete failure. Politico writes on April 8 that when Emanuel took over in 2011 that he inherited a city that had fiscal problems, a high crime rate, poor public schools, and declining city infrastructure. To fix these issues, Emanuel entered into negotiations with city workers to reduce some of their pension benefits. He also successfully managed to lengthen the city’s public school day and its calendar, which was the shortest in the country prior to him taking office. Emanuel also established a full-day kindergarten program. To strengthen the city’s college system he worked with corporate leaders to improve job programs and, USA Today notes on April 7, he proposed a plan earlier this year that would provide free community college to students in the Chicago Public School system that earned a “B” average. Furthermore, his relationship with President Obama allowed the city to receive federal support for infrastructure improvements. In the face of progressive protests, he also successfully pushed for an increase in the minimum wage to $10.50 an hour by July 1, 2016.
Despite having a long list of accomplishments, Emanuel proved unable to articulate a strong case for re-election as the first round of voting approached in February. However, he benefitted from the fact that two of his strongest challengers refused to run against him. Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, an African-American female, was deemed as a possible candidate that could defeat Emanuel (Cook County is the county that Chicago is located in and it is the second-largest county in the United States). Preckwinkle used to represent Chicago’s fourth ward and she was critical of Emanuel during his first term, arguing that he was trying to offload some city services on the county and that he needed to do more to combat crime. She was also a critic of his decision to close public schools, which she said were part of a scheme to offer more charter schools that would not be as accountable to the public. However, although polls showed that Preckwinkle would enjoy sizable support against Emanuel – one poll taken by The Illinois Observer in March 2014 showed that she could win 40% of the vote – she decided in July not to enter the race. CTU President Karen Lewis then explored running against Emanuel, seeking to rally organized labor and other progressive forces against him. Like Preckwinkle, test polls taken by The Chicago Tribune in the summer showed that she could win. However, Lewis was forced to drop out of the race in October after she was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor.
With the absence of two powerful candidates it appeared that Emanuel’s re-election might go smoothly, but Lewis and other progressives enlisted Cook County Commissioner Jesus G. “Chuy” Garcia to run against him. Garcia was born in Mexico and moved to Chicago as a young child with his family in 1965. He possessed a career of community activism on healthcare and education issues and leftists hoped that would appeal to Chicago’s growing Latino demographic (Latinos are 12% of the city’s population). If elected, Garcia would have become the first Latino mayor in Chicago history. Recognized by his trademark mustache, Garcia quickly garnered the support of labor unions such as the CTU and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). He also received the endorsement of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, feminist Gloria Steinem, and California Representative Maxine Waters. During the campaign, he emphasized his support for a stronger police presence in the city, while also campaigning for an elected school board and the elimination of the city’s red-light cameras. Chicago residents hate the cameras, with The Boston Herald on April 7 writing that residents believe that they are discriminatory and are a convenient excuse for the city to generate revenue instead of helping public safety.
When the first round of voting took place on February 24, Emanuel failed to win more than fifty percent of the vote, thereby necessitating a runoff election, which was the first time a runoff would be held since Chicago moved to nonpartisan mayoral races in 1999. In the first round of voting, Emanuel received 46% of the vote, with Garcia placing second with 34%. African-American businessman Willie Wilson was the third place finisher with 11%. Emanuel and Garcia were placed into a runoff election since they were the top two vote getters and the runoff would be held six weeks later on April 7.
During the runoff, Emanuel chose to focus on Garcia’s inexperience, especially on fixing the city’s fiscal issues. Emanuel noted that the city would need to reach an agreement in the future with police officers and fire fighters, as the city will soon need to make a payment of more than $500 million for their pensions. He also explained that new negotiations are scheduled with the CTU, which could lead to another strike. The city’s fiscal picture, especially its $20 billion in unfunded pension liabilities – the worst in the nation – factored into all three televised debates between the candidates. According to The Economist on April 11, Garcia stumbled when he said in the final debate that he would need to audit the city’s books before announcing a definitive plan on whether tax increases would be needed. In fact, during the campaign the only tax increase that Garcia mentioned was imposing a luxury tax “on expensive jewelry and fancy cars.” Emanuel’s supporters seized on this to claim that Garcia did not have a solution for the city’s growing fiscal crisis and they explained that the Mayor’s ties with the White House and newly elected Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner, a Republican, would be of significant benefit to the city.
Emanuel’s campaign was also aided by a sizable war chest. Chicago Magazine explains on April 8 that Emanuel had $23 million at his disposal during the campaign, which was nearly four times as much as Garcia. National Public Radio writes on April 7 that much of Rahm’s campaign cash came from wealthy individuals and business interests, with $800,000 coming from a handful of donors during the closing stretch of the campaign. Politico adds in the article previously cited from April 8 that Emanuel received funds from a “golden Rolodex of donors” that included Google’s Eric Schmidt, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Chicago Magazine noted that the Emanuel campaign put this cash to good use by running television ads from November through the runoff, airing more than twenty different advertisements more than 7,000 times. The New York Times on April 7 reports that these ads saw Emanuel admit mistakes during his first term, especially his tendency to speak to people more than listen to them. He said that he could improve and change, just like he hoped Chicago would change under his second term. Political observers believed that these ads inhibited Garcia’s momentum by allowing Emanuel to rebut the stereotypical profile of him as a hardened politico that never admits that they are wrong. The Chicago Tribune writes on April 9 that Jon Stewart blasted the ads on “The Daily Show,” comparing them to Domino’s advertisements where the company admitted that their product was not very good and promised to do better. The funding also allowed Emanuel to swamp Garcia’s operation throughout the city at the local level, as U.S. News & World Report writes on April 6 that the Emanuel camp had seventeen different campaign locations across the city that could put volunteers to work for twelve hours a day. In contrast, Garcia’s operation had to rely a great deal on local enthusiasm and 5,000 volunteers to canvas the city’s neighborhoods.
Explaining Emanuel’s Victory
Although progressives hoped that Garcia would become Chicago’s version of Bill de Blasio, a far-left politician that won New York City’s mayoral election in 2013, they ended up disappointed as the runoff played out. Garcia was never able to make significant inroads with Emanuel’s voters. When polls closed, Emanuel was re-elected by a 56-44% margin, a rout by most standards, but the margin masks the fact that Emanuel did have to fight for his political life over the last six weeks and being sent into a runoff was a sign that voters were not satisfied with the direction that he was taking the city.
Aside from the funding disparity between his campaign and Garcia’s, observers think that most Chicago voters decided to re-elect Emanuel because although they disapproved of parts of his governing style he was less of an unknown commodity. Chicago voters know that their city needs to do more to fix its crime problem and they are aware of its growing financial issues, but they were more willing to go with the candidate that already had a record of tackling some of those problems. As previously explained, Emanuel’s first term saw him work to reduce some of the city’s expenditures. Some of this put him into conflict with the larger Cook County Board, but he nevertheless attempted to alleviate some of the city’s fiscal situation. Garcia’s inability to articulate a detailed plan for how to deal with the city’s pension crisis, its creditors, or balance its budget while still providing social services likely unnerved some voters. The New York Times article that was previously cited from April 7 explains that exit polls showed that 25% of Chicago voters thought city finances were an important issue and those who saw this as their number one concern voted for Emanuel over Garcia by a 2:1 margin.
Garcia also made some poor decisions during his campaign, the biggest of which was his inability to rally African-American voters, who constitute more than 38% of the city’s population. Despite being endorsed by the Reverend Jesse Jackson and Willie Wilson, who placed third in the first round of voting, Garcia never won the trust of black voters. This was despite the fact that African Americans and Latinos live on the South and West sides of Chicago, which are the most impoverished areas of the city. Garcia hoped to build a black-Latino alliance, similar to what Harold Washington used in 1983 to become Chicago’s first black mayor, but this may not have materialized for three reasons. First, Politico explains on April 8 that Garcia never actively campaigned in black wards during the election and some of his campaign promises turned off black voters. For example, Garcia argued for the hiring of 1,000 police officers to fight crime, but this was not a popular suggestion in the aftermath of Ferguson and other recently reported incidents of police brutality against black suspects. Second, Emanuel enjoyed the support of President Obama, who made a pitch for Emanuel during throughout the campaign. And the third and arguably biggest reason was that Emanuel secured the support of African-American activists, who used their grassroots organizations for his campaign. The Chicago Sun-Times explains on April 8 that veterans of Washington’s 1983 political organization such as former alderman Dorothy Tillman, community activist Eddie Reed, and Conrad Worrill, who is the director of the Jacob Carruthers Center for Inner City Studies at Northeastern Illinois University, lent their support to Emanuel based on his promises to improve neighborhood schools, deliver more jobs to blacks through city contracts, and work to establish a trauma center on the South Side. The denial of these experienced minds and organizations to Garcia allowed Emanuel to build his level of African-American support by 14.5% between the first round of voting and the runoff. If that support had switched, Garcia may have been able to pull off an upset.
Organized labor tried to bring Garcia to the finish line as well, but it could not get him there on its own. In fact, Emanuel successfully managed to split union households, with exit polls showing that both sides of the race enjoyed equal union support. While Garcia had the CTU and SEIU backing his campaign, Emanuel was endorsed by more than fifteen unions, which included the International Union of Bricklayers & Allies Craft Workers, the Iron Workers District Council, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the International Union of Operating Engineers, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and the Sheet Metal Workers International Union. By enjoying union support, Emanuel was able to counter Garcia’s narrative that he only stood for the “one percent.” It also thwarted a narrative that The Hill discusses on April 9 whereby Emanuel could not connect with regular people because he was only interested in advancing himself.
Emanuel’s victory will cause progressive forces within the Democratic Party to reconsider their campaign strategy. The Atlantic explains on April 6 that progressive candidates have had some success, such as Elizabeth Warren defeating Scott Brown for a Senate seat in Massachusetts in 2012 and de Blasio’s win in New York City. However, progressives have also flamed out in campaigns over the last two decades. In 2006, Ned Lamont used progressive anger about the Iraq War to defeat Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman in the Democratic primary, but ended up losing the general election when Lieberman ran as an independent. Also, progressive forces failed to get Zephyr Teachout elected as the Governor of New York, with Teachout being soundly defeated by incumbent Andrew Cuomo. However, even in defeat, progressive forces said that they won a victory. The Chicago Sun-Times writes on April 8 that progressive aldermen should increase their caucus on the City Council by at least six members and The Nation reports on April 8 that issues such as affordable housing and the minimum wage will have to be dealt with during Emanuel’s next term. In addition, The Chicago Sun-Times explains on April 9 that during the first round of voting in February voters approved of a referendum allowing for an elected school board, something that Emanuel opposed. Therefore, progressives think that they are winning the long game and will soon have a mayor that supports their interests, possibly in 2019.
Solving Chicago’s Fiscal Crisis: Emanuel’s Second Term
The biggest challenge that Emanuel will face in his second term is resolving the city’s public pension crisis. As noted earlier in this brief, Chicago has an underfunded pension deficit of $20 billion, a problem that has been made worse by the city’s declining population and its politicians habit of putting off the crisis with short-term fixes. The Economist explains that the city could be heading toward bankruptcy if it does not fix its fiscal problems as Moody’s, a credit ratings agency, downgraded the city’s debt two months ago to two levels about junk status. This matters because a lower rating means that investors will demand more money in interest, thereby forcing the city to divert needed funds away from other projects. Chicago’s unfunded pension liabilities look even worse if those of the city’s Board of Education are factored in. Reuters notes on April 8 that unfunded pension liabilities for the entire municipality may be as high as $35 billion and the city must pay $550 million in increased pension payments for firefighters and police officers by the end of the year. Emanuel will have to negotiate with these unions to try to modify pension agreements. Otherwise, the city will have to make the payment and face a stark choice between raising taxes, selling public assets, and/or reducing services to residents in order to fix the problem.
To deal with the pension crisis, Emanuel has floated some solutions. According to Reuters, he has proposed a city-run casino that would bring in an estimated $1 billion over the next decade. He has also requested the imposition of a service tax on the jobs done by lawyers and other professionals. This service tax would amount to a sales tax on service transactions. However, the Illinois state legislature has to approve of these ideas and there are doubts that such approval would be given. Extempers need to recognize that Illinois goes Democrat in national contests largely because of Cook County. If the rest of the state had it their way, the state would be painted in Republican red. Illinois residents complain that Chicago and Cook County already get too much attention and Governor Rauner, expressing the frustration of these voters, is already on record saying that he will not approve of a casino plan or a service tax unless Chicago undergoes significant fiscal restructuring. Furthermore, Illinois state law does not allow municipalities to file for bankruptcy, something that the state would need to modify for Chicago. Chicago would wish for them to do so because if the city could declare bankruptcy, Reuters explains that would give it leverage with its creditors. Therefore, Emanuel is going to have to do some negotiating in Springfield to improve the city’s fiscal picture.
Critics of Emanuel argue that his solutions do not go far enough for the city. They reason that a sizable property tax increase is necessary in order to generate the revenue needed to maintain the city’s pension obligations and other services. However, Emanuel has been reluctant to approach this idea, probably fearing that a sizable property tax would lead to the flight of middle-class and upper-class individuals to surrounding states. Other voices want Emanuel to privatize some city assets such as Chicago Midway Airport, but Emanuel already tried this idea in 2013 before backing off when there were few bids for the airport that he found satisfactory.
The New York Times explains on April 8 that the pension situation is more complicated by the city’s looming negotiations with the CTU. It is unclear how negotiations will proceed considering that the union tried to oust Emanuel and some are expecting another strike. Emanuel is likely to seek concessions from the CTU to offset the CPS’s $1 billion budget deficit and $9 billion pension shortfall. However, the CTU has not shown an appetite for this and is demanding more compensation for its members, especially after Emanuel lengthened the school calendar and school day. The city’s creditors will also be paying attention to these negotiations because if Emanuel puts off hard decisions with the union or caves into demands that exacerbate the city’s situation, they may take that as a sign that the city’s leadership is not serious about resolving its fiscal problems.
What Emanuel and other city leaders hope for most is some type of bailout from the federal government or Illinois. Illinois is arguably out due to Rauner’s pledges to tighten the state’s budget, as Illinois faces its own budgetary and pension problems on a statewide level. The Christian Science Monitor writes on April 8 that a federal bailout is also doubtful because other localities and states have their own problems. For example, if Chicago is going to be bailed out, why not Detroit, Los Angeles, and other major municipalities that are going through their own fiscal crises? The same could be said of other states such as California and Illinois that some financial analysts warn could ignite the next financial crisis if they were to collapse. Therefore, the message to Emanuel from this is not to expect outside aid because it will likely not arrive. Chicago solutions for Chicago problems will therefore have to be in order.
As Emanuel enters his second term he will have to show Chicago voters that he was humbled from the runoff and can govern more patiently. However, he will have to make tough decisions on the city’s finances, thereby bringing him back into open conflict with Cook County, progressives, and teachers’ unions, and making his second term arguably more difficult than his first.