The News Caravan

Tag: Chicagos

  • Chicago’s mayor urges Texas governor not to ship more migrants

    Chicago’s mayor urges Texas governor not to ship more migrants

    [ad_1]

    chicago mayor 92935

    The transporting of migrants from the Southwest to cities led by Democrats — some have been dropped off at Vice President Kamala Harris’ residence in Washington — has become a hot button issue, particularly when migrants show up in communities that have not had prior warnings about when they would arrive. New York Mayor Eric Adams has been particularly outspoken about the hardships his city is facing, though he has also been sharply critical of President Joe Biden for not dealing with the situation at the border.

    Officials in border states have blamed the Biden administration for the influx of migrants and said they are trying to distribute the burden of having to accommodate all these people. In discussing sending migrants to Washington in 2022, Abbott said: “We are sending them to the United States capital, where the Biden administration will be able to more immediately address the needs of the people that they are allowing to come across our border.”

    Abbott’s press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Lightfoot’s note.

    In her letter, Lightfoot complained that some migrants have arrived “in dire need of food, water, and clothing” and echoed criticism that these migrants are being used as political pawns.

    “I know by your actions that you either do not see or do not care about the trauma these migrants have already faced and continue to suffer under the humanitarian crisis you have created,” she wrote. “But I beseech you anyway: treat these individuals with the respect and dignity that they deserve.”

    Lightfoot recently lost her bid for a second term, finishing third in the election Feb. 28 out of nine declared candidates. Cook County Board Commissioner Brandon Johnson, who subsequently defeated Paul Vallas in a runoff, is to be sworn in as mayor May 15.

    [ad_2]
    #Chicagos #mayor #urges #Texas #governor #ship #migrants
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • Inside Chicago’s intense, behind-the-scenes effort to secure the DNC

    Inside Chicago’s intense, behind-the-scenes effort to secure the DNC

    [ad_1]

    biden 73500

    Another official noted a letter sent by labor leaders from New York that implored Biden to choose a labor town, owing to his emotional ties and political connections to the union movement.

    Chicago labor leaders sent a letter of their own. The larger Chicago team felt increasingly confident about its chances through last week. But they knew it was a done deal when Biden and Gov. JB Pritzker spoke early Tuesday, when the Illinois Democrat played up the president’s love of the country’s iconic cities.

    “Chicago is your kind of town and we’re going to throw a huge party for you,” Pritzker said, according to a person close to the Chicago bid who was granted anonymity to discuss the conversation candidly.

    Biden gave him the news on the call, after which the Democratic National Committee put out an announcement saying the city would host delegates and convention-goers Aug. 19-22, 2024.

    The announcement was a coup for Pritzker and Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), who is vice chair of the Democratic National Committee and early on nudged Chicago Democrats to try for the convention. But it also revealed some of the thinking inside 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., where Biden is eyeing both reelection and a memorable convention after having had to skip the festivities in Milwaukee during the pandemic in 2020.

    Biden had struggled with deciding which of the three cities to pick, even quipping to confidants at one point about why Democrats couldn’t simply hold the confab in Philadelphia, according to a person familiar with the exchange. Philadelphia had not actually applied to host the convention, though it did enjoy one strategic advantage over the other cities: a proximity to Biden’s cherished Delaware.

    Privately, Biden thought of Atlanta as a smart strategic choice, noting that it was a swing state that could propel him to another term if he ran again. He had already moved Georgia up in the Democratic primary calendar.

    But his views were at odds with those in the party who convinced his team, which conceded that Atlanta simply didn’t make sense logistically. Though the city is increasingly powering Democrats to victory in some key races, it is still nestled in a conservative Southern state, with a six-week abortion ban in place.

    Georgia is also a right-to-work state and has few unionized hotels compared with Chicago. Another party official noted it would be easier for Biden and the convention committee to work with Pritzker compared with Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, who is increasingly eyeing a national profile (Democrats had been working more with Atlanta’s mayor, rather than with Kemp).

    Still, Illinois and Chicago elected officials were fearful that Biden’s sentimentality about Atlanta would win out. And so they and their neighbors made a full-court press of their own. When the DNC came to Chicago to discuss the city’s bid, they happened to be there during Lollapalooza’s kickoff. Mayor Lori Lightfoot took them to watch Metallica warm up in an empty Grant Park.

    Later in the process, Midwestern governors and other elected officials, along with Midwest state Democratic Party chairs and union leaders sent letters to Biden urging him to pick Chicago. They also talked to his team directly, underscoring how critical the Midwest region had been to him in 2020.

    “The Midwest is key to a victory in 2024, and there is no city better positioned to reach those voters than Chicago,” Duckworth said in a statement. She had privately appealed to Biden with this message, too.

    But even those pitches were coated with the type of odes to history that organizers believed were critical for winning Biden over.

    “Chicago is an engine for progress. Chicago proudly represents millions of Democratic voters and is an historic Democratic stronghold. Given Detroit already won the honor of hosting the 2024 NFL Draft, it would be right to share in the victories with a nearly as great Midwestern city,” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer wrote in her personal letter.

    There was concern, however, about Chicago’s persistent problem with violent crime. Statistics showed it was declining but still higher than pre-pandemic levels, making it an issue in the recent mayor’s race and a concern that it could put Democrats in a hot spot for their handling of it.

    What ended up helping Chicago, according to a person close to the city’s bid, were two recent Democratic wins on the issue of abortion. The first was for a state Supreme Court election in Wisconsin, which will likely help block an 1840s abortion ban on the books. The second was Whitmer repealing the state’s 1931 abortion ban. Each affirmed that progressive politics continues to have a strong foothold in the Midwest.

    “It was the Blue Wall,” the person said.

    Money mattered, too. Pritzker, who has been integral in pushing for Chicago, assured that the DNC would not go into debt holding a Chicago convention, which was a problem in 2012 when the convention in Charlotte, N.C., ended up millions in the red.

    The Illinois governor, who self-financed his past two elections, enlisted his sister, former Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, businessman Michael Sacks, Cubs co-owner Laura Ricketts and Illinois AFL-CIO President Tim Drea to help fund Chicago’s effort. Jerry Reinsdorf and Rocky Wirtz, who head the Chicago Bulls and Chicago Blackhawks, respectively, also were part of Chicago’s pitch to the DNC. Both teams play at the United Center, where the convention will be held. It’s the same location as the 1996 Democratic Convention.

    “We are ready for a repeat performance,” they said in a joint statement.

    Still, as the time approached for Biden to make a decision, he and other party officials were holding out for one last domino to fall: the Chicago mayor’s race on April 4. Those close to Biden say there was some internal hand-wringing about hosting the convention if mayoral candidate Paul Vallas, who had previous ties to Republicans and had been publicly critical of prominent Democrats, won. It wouldn’t have been a deal-breaker, according to a person involved in the talks, but it could have been a complicating factor.

    When Brandon Johnson emerged with a clear victory in an April 4 runoff election, it further cemented the city’s reputation as a union town (Johnson is a former organizer with the Chicago Teachers Union) and put Chicago’s DNC bid in the driver’s seat.

    Johnson himself talked directly to Biden in recent days about the convention during a private call in which the president congratulated the new mayor.

    “We pulled out all the stops,” said Lightfoot. “Anybody who had a connection in the White House, in the president’s orbit, we were in their ear saying ‘Chicago, Chicago, Chicago.’”

    [ad_2]
    #Chicagos #intense #behindthescenes #effort #secure #DNC
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • The final hours of Chicago’s too-close-to-call mayoral runoff

    The final hours of Chicago’s too-close-to-call mayoral runoff

    [ad_1]

    aptopix election 2023 chicago mayor 09729

    Here’s a rundown of the two candidates and the factors that could decide the race, from Tuesday’s POLITICO Illinois Playbook:

    How they’d approach crime: Vallas wants to increase the Chicago Police Department by 2,000, while Johnson wants to improve social service programs to address what he sees as the root causes of crime.

    What they agree on: They both support keeping Lightfoot’s Invest South/West program for economic development on the Sound and West sides.

    Their union labels: Johnson is backed by the liberal Chicago Teachers Union, and Vallas is supported by the conservative Fraternal Order of Police. Vallas has accepted donations from conservative donors, while Johnson’s campaign is backed almost solely by teachers’ unions and organizations.

    Their Achilles’ heels: Johnson has been quoted saying he wants to defund the police, though he has since walked back his comments. And Vallas has been critical in the past of high-profile Democrats in his own party.

    The problem for moderates: “Voters are making a choice between the conservative status quo like the Richard Daley era, or a progressive in Johnson,” political consultant and former alderman Dick Simpson said. It’s causing some existential angst among voters who might have backed Lightfoot or Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia in the first round of the election.

    It’s historic: Simpson says the race is different than most any other mayoral race Chicago has ever seen. “Going back to 1871, there’s been a split between machine candidates and reform candidates. What’s different this time is that the choice is between conservative status quo and progressive.”

    Black and white voters: Simpson and other political watchers say the African American vote will be essential for both candidates. Johnson must get 80 percent of the Black vote to win, and Vallas needs above 20 percent for him to make it over the finish line. The numbers are pretty much reversed for white voters.

    Latino vote is more complicated: Garcia has backed Johnson, but many Latino voters have aligned with Vallas over his focus on fighting crime.

    We may not know tonight who wins. Polls close at 8 p.m. Eastern/7 p.m. Central. Polling is showing the race within the margin of error, which means there may not be clear winner until mail-in ballots are counted. Johnson, for example, went up a few points after the night of the primary thanks to mail-in-ballots, which were tallied later.

    [ad_2]
    #final #hours #Chicagos #tooclosetocall #mayoral #runoff
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • Chicago’s bitter election is now a nasty runoff

    Chicago’s bitter election is now a nasty runoff

    [ad_1]

    “It’s going to be nasty,” Democratic state Rep. Kam Buckner, who also ran for mayor, said in an interview. “People will pick sides — people with a history when it comes to racial sensitivity. There will be a lot of talk about race and class and schools and crime.”

    Although Washington made history as the city’s first Black mayor, it was a hard-fought campaign of rising Black leadership met with political tribalism, freewheeling racism and a sense on both sides that failure had winner-take-all consequences. It won’t be as toxic in 2023 as it was in 1983 but there’s a general sense of the city’s potential to stumble backward.

    “It’s a different turn. I wouldn’t say we’ve moved beyond it,” said Larry Luster, a consultant who has worked on campaigns for Democrats Sen. Dick Durbin and Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul. “It’s not as aggressive and outward as it was during the Harold Washington era. People try to say things in a more civil way but a lot of times those undertones are still there.”

    There are also forces that see an opportunity for proxy conflict since the differences are so stark.

    Voters didn’t pit Lightfoot into a runoff against former public schools chief Paul Vallas from her right, nor did they set her against Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson from her left. Instead, the two Democratic men facing off are as diametrically opposed on policy as any of Lightfoot’s challengers can be — a reflection itself of how divided the city is.

    Vallas, who is white, ran for mayor in 2019 and believes in school choice, has been chastised by his rivals throughout this cycle for claiming years ago he was a Republican, despite his many statements since of being a lifelong Democrat. Running a campaign almost singularly focused on public safety and winning the endorsement of Chicago’s conservative police union only cemented the views of his critics.

    Johnson, who is Black, is a Cook County commissioner, a former schoolteacher and has been a paid organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union, which has funded a large part of his campaign. He’s been on the record saying he supports the “defund the police” movement, too.

    “This isn’t a six month campaign. So things will be fast and furious on TV, digital, mail and field,” said political consultant Becky Carroll, who has worked on national and state-level campaigns, including for former President Barack Obama and Gov. JB Pritzker. “Will things get ratcheted up? I can’t imagine they won’t because a lot is at stake.”

    The weeks leading up to the Feb. 28 election were pretty messy but what’s so jarring is how different the 2019 campaign played out — an open race after two-term Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel didn’t seek reelection.

    There were 14 candidates in the general election then and Lightfoot was the top vote-getter before she swept all 50 of the city’s wards in the runoff against Cook County Board Chair Toni Preckwinkle.

    “We had two strong, accomplished women who appealed to much of the same electorate,” Carroll said.

    That is not the case this time.

    Neither Vallas nor Johnson are soft spoken and Johnson was quick to take a swing Tuesday.

    “We’re going to finally retire this tale of two cities,” he told his supporters on election night, evoking Chicago’s longstanding racial and economic divisions. “Paul Vallas is the author of the tale of two cities.”

    He also used the speech to accuse Vallas of being supported by “January 6 insurrectionists” — a move Ald. Raymond Lopez, who made an early bid for mayor before dropping out weeks ago, called “outrageous” and an indication of where the race is going.

    Vallas and Johnson have powerful bases, which is why they made it into the runoff. But they’re separated by less than 70,000 votes after an election where tens of thousands of people fueled Lightfoot’s third-place finish, and nearly 149,000 Chicagoans backed one of the other six candidates.

    More broadly, for a city where demographics split fairly evenly between white, Black and Latino residents, it’s also not clear how groups of Latino voters shift in the runoff.

    Johnson will try to win over voters in majority Black wards that overwhelmingly supported Lightfoot. And he’ll also be looking to progressives — the Lakefront liberals — on the city’s North Side who backed Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia’s ill-fated campaign in the first round of voting.

    Vallas, meanwhile, spent the days before the Feb. 28 election calling fellow candidates asking for their support ahead of the runoff. He hopes to land supporters of Willie Wilson, a Black businessman and perennial candidate for office who, like Vallas, has courted conservative voters.

    “You’ve got folks who are going to bring out the charter, school-choice reform contingent versus public sector unions and neighborhood schools sectors,” said Buckner, the state lawmaker. “They’ll put a lot of money in this space. We have a Gen-Xer versus a Baby Boomer, and that will bring out another group of folks in this race.”

    [ad_2]
    #Chicagos #bitter #election #nasty #runoff
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • Inside the messy one-issue contest for Chicago’s top job

    Inside the messy one-issue contest for Chicago’s top job

    [ad_1]

    “The boiling point didn’t start with Floyd’s killing, but it was a boiling point of social unrest,” said Teny Gross, founder of the nonpartisan Institute for Nonviolent Chicago. “Those things, it was a pretty big blow to trust in governmental institutions.”

    Lightfoot, like many Democratic mayors across the country, is now trying to communicate an alternative to defunding the police — a slogan popularized after Floyd’s killing — that moderates and progressives can live with.

    “What we’ve tried to do is go back to common sense, which is recognizing that you need officers, and you need violence prevention and there’s not going to be one or the other,” said Kansas City, Mo., Mayor Quinton Lucas, a Democrat who chairs the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Criminal and Social Justice Committee.

    Lucas, who has discussed policing and public safety with Lightfoot, sees it as a “problem on both sides” of the Democratic Party — left-leaning “defunders” and right-leaning Democrats who eat up “Fox News criticisms that are inaccurate and fetishize violent crime.”

    Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey also opposes defunding police as his city searches for more solutions.

    “We have to dropkick ideological lines just to figure out what works,” Frey said in an interview. “Granted, most big cities, including myself, are staunch Democrats, but purity tests for right or left don’t get the job done.”

    Lightfoot’s top rivals, Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García, who ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2015, and former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas, have both vowed to hire more cops and oust Police Superintendent David Brown if they win the Feb. 28 race and the likely April 4 runoff.

    Vallas, who is backed by the city’s conservative and confrontational police union, has proposed a 14-point plan that centers on rebuilding the police force. He blames Chicago’s crime problem in part on “the abandonment of a community based policing strategy,” he said in an interview.

    García’s public safety plan doesn’t differ all that much from what Lightfoot has already put into place. But he criticizes the city for not meeting all the goals set out by the federal consent decree.

    “It shouldn’t have taken four years to get that done,” he said in an interview. He wants officers “to get out of their cars and knock on doors and rebuild trust. Trust is critical to getting the department back on track.”

    And candidate Brandon Johnson, who is backed by the powerful Chicago Teachers Union, won’t say “defund” but he would like to see the agency’s resources moved to other areas, especially publicly funded mental health centers.

    “It’s about treatment not trauma,” he said in an interview, echoing his campaign speeches.

    The mayor has so far stood behind her police chief but she, too, wants to see more new recruits — particularly among people of color. Lightfoot is banking on the recent opening of a police training center to further that goal and she’s directed more money and personnel to the South and West sides.

    [ad_2]
    #messy #oneissue #contest #Chicagos #top #job
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )