On the eve of Wednesday’s showdown vote in the City Council, a mayoral ally says Lightfoot’s only alternative could be the first mayoral veto since Richard M. Daley’s 2006 veto of the big-box minimum wage ordinance
Fifteen years ago, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley vetoed an ordinance that would have required Walmart and other big-box retailers to pay employees at least $13 an hour by 2010.
Daley’s first-ever veto stood after a bitterly-divided City Council failed to muster the 34 votes needed to override.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot may face a similar decision after a showdown vote Wednesday on whether to rename Outer Lake Shore Drive in honor of Jean Baptiste Point DuSable.
A mayoral ally, who asked to remain anonymous, acknowledged Tuesday that the aldermen sponsoring the ordinance — Sophia King (4th) and David Moore (17th) — have the 26 votes needed to rename the Outer Drive in honor of DuSable, a Black man of Haitian descent who was Chicago’s first non-indigenous settler.
Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd) has argued the poll he commissioned showing only 32% support for the renaming had “more than four” aldermen reconsidering their votes, potentially denying proponents the 26 votes they need.
But the mayoral ally predicted that, barring a last-minute shift, the renaming ordinance would pass, putting Lightfoot in a political box.
Either she vetoes the ordinance, convinced that 34 aldermen won’t vote to override.
Or she swallows hard and accepts the name change, even though she fears it will confuse first-responders, be a costly inconvenience for business owners and high-rise residents and make it more difficult to market Chicago.
“Right now, they have the votes to pass it. … [It’s tough] to convince those folks to not vote for it. They don’t see what’s the big deal of voting for it. … Nobody wants to be seen as a racist,” the mayoral ally said.
“The mayor says it’s a bad idea and she’ll have at least the political force to veto it if they only have a slight majority when they pass it. … She’s African American. If anybody should veto something or could veto something, it would be her.”
A mayoral veto is not without political risk.
It would further test Lightfoot’s already strained relationship with aldermen and mark a clean break from a Black Caucus united in supporting the name change.
That’s the same Black Caucus whose members Lightfoot famously warned, “Don’t ask me for s--t” when it comes to choosing projects for her $3.7 billion capital plan if they dared to vote against her 2021 city budget.
But the mayoral ally argued that Lightfoot needs to flex her veto muscle if the Council defies her on Wednesday.
“She needs to show strength. That this is not racial. This is not something the city should be prioritizing. A lot of healing has taken place. Juneteenth just got passed on the federal level. There’s other things that are happening. This is not gonna solve anything,” the alderman said.
“You’ve got to take risky moves. Look at Daley when he vetoed the big-box ordinance. That was risky. But he did it and he was much stronger for it. She’ll be stronger for it, too. She’ll be seen as somebody who stood her ground on something that was non-racial.”
Moore characterized the 34-vote threshold as “challenging, but not impossible” to overcome.
But he doesn’t believe an override will be necessary.
“I just don’t think she would. I don’t think that she would want to make this issue her first veto. I don’t think she would want to ignore the voices of the people,” he said.
“Her point about equity and inclusion. Everything she spoke about — even Saturday regarding Juneteenth — if those are the elements she says she believes in, then I have no doubt she would not veto it.”
King could not be reached for comment.
In an email to the Sun-Times, King previously had argued that “another way” to interpret the Hopkins poll is that “69 percent of people strongly support or don’t know their position” on the name change “or that African-American and Latino wards [that make up the majority of this city] strongly support” the renaming.
“This is after a lot of misinformation and confusion. Imagine if there wasn’t that,” King wrote.
Earlier this month, King told the Sun-Times Lightfoot’s $40 million offer to complete DuSable Park, establish an annual “DuSable Festival,” rename the downtown Riverwalk in honor of DuSable and install monuments, sculptures and educational exhibits was no substitute for a name change.
“To come up with $45 million to not rename Outer Lake Shore Drive … is kind of insulting. It smacks of some of the same historical barriers. … It really highlights the inequity in this city. As a black woman — and she’s a black woman, too — I expect her to understand that more than most,” King said.
King argued that Chicago will be “even more marketable” if Outer Drive if renamed for DuSable.
“In this day of Black reckoning and really trying to understand our history and stand up to all of the racial barriers of the past, this would be a great time to say that Chicago is a diverse city and we celebrate diversity and we understand that it only makes us stronger,” King said.
“And oh, by the way, this was our founder, who just happened to be Black.”
from Chicago Sun-Times - All https://ift.tt/3j78JR8
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