Emanuel and Lightfoot City Councils: Chicago City Council Report #12 June 12, 2019 – May 18, 2021
1 Emanuel and Lightfoot City Councils: Chicago City Council Report #12 June 12, 2019 – May 18, 2021 Authored By: Dick Simpson Marco Rosaire Rossi Thomas J. Gradel With Acknowlegements To: Chi Hack Night UIC Institute for Policy and Civic Engagement University of Illinois at Chicago Department of Political Science May 18, 2021 2 Lori Lightfoot, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and a partner in a prestigious high- powered law firm, was sworn into office on May 20, 2019 as Mayor of the City of Chicago. A few weeks earlier, Lightfoot overwhelmingly carried all 50 Chicago wards and defeated former Alderman and Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle, Sworn in the same day were 50 aldermen. As voting members of the City Council, they, together with Mayor Lightfoot, would govern Chicago, the third largest city in the nation. This new council included a dozen freshman aldermen, seven of whom defeated incumbents. Among these twelve were five women, three African Americans, five Latinos, two members who identified as LGBT, five members of the Democratic Socialists of America, and one independent. The public and the news media questioned how the new Mayor and the City Council would work together. Would the Council continue to be a "Rubber Stamp," and agree to everything the Mayor wanted? Or would it be "Council Wars" all over again? For much of Chicago's history since the mid-1950s, the Council has been a Rubber Stamp. That was true under the 43 years dominated by Mayors Richard J. and Richard M. Daley. It was mostly true under Mayors Michael Bilandic, Jane Byrne, and Rahm Emanuel.
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