The top 10 Chicago political stories of '17

2017年12月22日星期五

The top 10 Chicago political stories of '17

Topspin

Thursday, we offered our take on the Top 10 Illinois politics and government stories of 2017. Today, we tackle the Chicago political world.

1. U.S. Justice Department report rips Chicago Police Department for using excessive force, lack of discipline, bad training. Just as the Obama administration was coming to an end, his Justice Department issued its report that painted the picture of a department flawed from top to bottom. Officers are poorly trained and quick to turn to excessive and even deadly force, most often against blacks and Latino residents, without facing consequences, the report found. It was perhaps the most damning, sweeping critique ever of a Police Department that had major problems for decades.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel quickly agreed to enter into a court-enforced consent decree with Obama's Justice Department, but that fell apart after Donald Trump took office. Emanuel tried to negotiate an-out-of-court agreement with Trump's administration, drawing sharp criticism from police reform experts and Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, who called it "ludicrous" to negotiate police reforms with a White House that did not favor constitutional policing. Emanuel deflected the criticism by blaming Trump's DOJ for not wanting a consent decree.

By August, Madigan sued City Hall to force a consent decree. Madigan's office and the Emanuel administration are in negotiations on what police reforms that court agreement would require.

2. Soda tax saga. The biggest story at the Cook County Building has its roots in November 2016, when Board President Toni Preckwinkle broke an 8-8 tie to approve a penny-an-ounce pop tax to balance her budget.

But a long implementation period meant the tax wasn't supposed to take effect until July 1, 2017. Big Soda sued to delay that an additional month and raised the pressure with a multimillion-dollar repeal attempt.

Faced with a major backlash and with an election year just ahead, in November the County Board overwhelmingly voted to repeal the pop tax. Along the way, Preckwinkle's popularity took a hit. Now she faces a Democratic challenger, former Ald. Bob Fioretti, in the March 20 primary.

3. Cook County property assessment system broken. The Chicago Tribune published a groundbreaking series in June that found Assessor Joe Berrios presided over an assessment system riddled with errors that punished the poor while giving wealthy homeowners a break.

Earlier this month, a separate analysis by ProPublica Illinois and the Tribune found that Berrios failed at one of his most important responsibilities — estimating the value of commercial and industrial properties. The analysis revealed that the errors created deep inequities, punishing small businesses while cutting a break to owners of high-value properties and helping fuel a cottage industry of politically powerful tax attorneys. That meant homeowners were forced to carry an additional and unnecessary burden, paying more in property taxes than they would have otherwise.

Now Berrios faces two challengers in the Democratic primary as he fights for his political life. You can read all the installments and follow-up stories from "The Tax Divide" project, including Berrios' defense of his tenure, here.

4. U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez doesn't seek re-election. Mere hours after filing his re-election paperwork, word spread that the longtime Northwest Side congressman would drop out instead of running for a 14th term in Congress.

He said he planned to spend time rebuilding hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico and would tour the country to talk about the need for immigration reform. As media speculation grew about a potential presidential run in 2020, he told the Tribune "I haven't decided to run."

Gutierrez endorsed County Commissioner Jesus "Chuy" Garcia as his successor, but the Democratic field quickly grew crowded. The contest, which includes Chicago Aldermen Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, Raymond Lopez and Proco "Joe" Moreno, is still evolving as various factions in Chicago Latino politics seek to cut deals on races for state legislature and County Board.

5. CPS CEO Forrest Claypool resigns amid ethics questions. Claypool had been in politics and government since the 1980s, serving two mayors in high-profile administrative jobs with a stint on the County Board in between. Emanuel picked him to run the financially troubled Chicago Public Schools in 2015, and Claypool became embroiled in a beef with the district's inspector general.

IG Nicholas Schuler got the last laugh earlier this month, accusing Claypool of orchestrating a "full-blown cover-up" in which he "repeatedly lied" during an ethics investigation involving the top CPS attorney.

CPS released the report on a Thursday, and by Friday afternoon Claypool was gone. Emanuel praised his longtime friend during a four-star City Hall sendoff not normally reserved for those who leave the building amid a scandal.

"I hope that when this chapter of my career is written, people will say, 'Even good men can make stupid mistakes,' " Claypool said.

He did not, however, specify what those stupid mistakes were.

6. Emanuel raises taxes for sixth time in seven years. The mayor's budget passed the City Council with ease, the 47-3 tally resembling a college football score between a powerhouse and a patsy. (He bested his average budget vote of 45 in favor and four against.)

The 2018 spending plan continued a string of tax and fee hikes that have marked all but one of the mayor's seven budgets. Next year, the 911 fee on phones goes up $1.10 per line per month, Uber and Lyft rides increase by 15 cents, and amusement taxes on concerts, movies and comedy shows at 1,500-plus venues rise from 5 percent to 9 percent.

And thanks to previous decisions at City Hall and CPS, the typical homeowner will have to pay $174 more in taxes next year. About $97 of that increase can be chalked up to property tax hikes.

All told, the average family will be paying $1,813 more a year in taxes and fees to the city and schools than they did before Emanuel took office in 2011 once all of the mayor's tax and fee increases take full effect.

7. Lobbying in Emanuel's personal emails. Under pressure from open records lawsuits, Mayor Emanuel released a trove of emails in which he conducted public business on his personal email. In March, a Tribune review of those 2,696 pages of emails found that Emanuel's personal email accounts had served as a private avenue of influence where lobbyists, corporate executive and campaign donors sought action from — or access to — the mayor or city officials but did not register as a lobbyist or report their contact to the city's ethics board as required by law.

The Tribune found 26 potential violations of the lobbying law, and the reporting led the Emanuel-appointed ethics board to consider 28 cases tied to Emanuel's personal emails. As the board ramped up its work tied to Emanuel's emails, it already had issued a record $90,000 fine to former Uber executive David Plouffe for illegally lobbying Emanuel on the city's ride-sharing ordinance.

Uber, though, paid the fine for Plouffe. As Emanuel's ethics board looked at the other cases, the mayor slammed the city's ethics ordinance as too broad and suggested the city's definition of a lobbyist should be redefined. Emanuel criticized the law, though his own hand-picked ethics task force had updated it, including the definition of a lobbyist, after he took office in 2011.

The ethics board ultimately decided to issue smaller fines and vacate some cases after the mayor's criticisms — including walking back $2,500 in fines it had issued against two of the mayor's friends and an alderman's husband after the panel found they had illegally lobbied Emanuel. Ultimately, of the 28 cases the ethics board considered, it found violations and issued fines in only five of those cases.

8. Racist email scandal engulfs Emanuel's Water Department. Word surfaced in mid-May, as Water Commissioner Barrett Murphy abruptly resigned his $170,000-a-year job despite his status as a friend of the mayor. Two other top department managers also suddenly resigned.

The reason? An inspector general investigation into racist and sexist email messages sent at the department. A Tribune open records request revealed that a former Water Department superintendent used his work email to distribute anti-Obama polemics, with some of his messages veering into racially insensitive, anti-Islamic and sexist territory.

City emails newly obtained by the Tribune cast light on the scope and offensiveness of racist, sexist and anti-gay slurs by politically connected supervisors at the top levels of the Chicago water department.

Another batch of emails showed that an image of a Ku Klux Klan "scarecrow" amid a watermelon field, a picture of a naked woman on a beach and off-color comments about gay people found their way into inboxes between early 2013 and April 2017.

9. Obama gives farewell speech in Chicago. Days before he would turn over the reins of power to Donald Trump, President Barack Obama returned to his home base of Chicago for his farewell speech.

He pledged to an estimated 18,000 gathered at McCormick Place that his social and civic activism would continue as a citizen.

"I first came to Chicago when I was in my early 20s and I was still trying to figure out who I was, still searching for a purpose in my life," Obama said in the nationally broadcast speech.

"And it was in a neighborhood not far from here where I began working with church groups in the shadows of closed steel mills. It was on these streets where I witnessed the power of faith and the quiet dignity of working people in the face of struggle and loss," Obama said. "Now, this is where I learned that change only happens when ordinary people get involved, and they get engaged, and come together to demand it."

Obama returned to Chicago for a few more public events. In April, he lifted the veil on his retirement at a University of Chicago forum, engaging students with a message calling on them to use empathy and listen to those with whom they disagree. In May, he unveiled the design for his presidential center in Jackson Park. And earlier this month, he did Emanuel a solid by putting in a brief appearance at the mayor's climate summit.

10. Cook County Clerk David Orr caps four-decade political career. It had been rumored for a while, and Orr announced in June he would not seek an eighth term running the office that deals with elections, birth certificates and property tax rates.

Mayor for one historical week, alderman for a dozen years and county clerk for nearly 30, he opted to end a career in politics on his own terms. The decision allowed him to avoid a potentially messy primary challenge (voters last year decided to merge the clerk and recorder of deeds offices).

An ally of the late Mayor Harold Washington, Orr became interim mayor after his friend died the day before Thanksgiving in 1987. A bruising battle to succeed Washington culminated with hours of closed-door negotiations with thousands of protesters outside City Hall and hundreds more inside. At one point, in the anteroom to council chambers, Orr stood on a chair to tell reporters, "This city is in control."

What's on tap

*Mayor Emanuel has no public schedule.

*Gov. Bruce Rauner has no public schedule.

*Democratic governor candidate Chris Kennedy will hold a gun violence campaign event outside Stroger Hospital.

*Programming note: The Morning Spin will take a holiday break, returning Jan. 2 with a look at political story lines to watch in the coming year.

From the notebook

*Big Griffin donation: Gov. Rauner's campaign on Thursday reported a $2.5 million political contribution from Illinois' wealthiest person, records show.

The donation from billionaire hedge fund founder Ken Griffin adds to the $20 million he gave the governor in May.

Griffin, the founder and CEO of Citadel, has been Rauner's largest donor outside of the governor himself. It was almost exactly one year ago that the governor reported putting $50 million into his campaign fund.

*Franken farewell: U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin joined Democratic colleagues Thursday in a tribute to U.S. Sen. Al Franken, even as the Minnesotan is resigning Jan. 2 after a number of sexual harassment complaints from women.

Speaking from the Senate floor, Durbin called Franken a "personal friend" for more than two decades.

"He's been a credit to the United States Senate: a passionate advocate for his home state of Minnesota, a defender of our Constitution and a determined fighter for justice," Durbin said. "He became a better senator every year."

Durbin said he was sorry Franken was leaving under "these circumstances" and that every person has moments they wish they could erase and words they wish they could take back.

Durbin recalled meeting Franken for the first time at a fundraiser in tiny Makanda, where then-Sen. Paul Simon lived. On "Saturday Night Live," Franken lampooned Simon during his unsuccessful 1988 bid for the Democratic nomination for the White House.

Now, Franken is leaving the Senate under a cloud, accused of groping and kissing women.

Durbin, alluding to Franken's willingness to raise campaign cash for Democrats, said: "He never failed to pack a bag, catch a plane and spend another night away from his family to help each and every one of us." (Katherine Skiba)

*Quick spins: The Republican victims rights advocate who accused a Democratic state Sen. Ira Silverstein of sexual harassment posted on Facebook that she's dropping her campaign for Illinois House. Denise Rotheimer filed to run in the Lake County district now held by Democratic state Rep. Sam Yingling. ... Sol Flores has gotten the endorsement of the women's political advocacy group EMILY's List in her bid for the Democratic nomination to replace U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez in the 4th Congressional District.

*On the "Sunday Spin": Chicago Tribune reporter Rick Pearson's guests include Brian Bernardoni, the senior director of government affairs and public policy for the Chicago Association of Realtors, and Eric Elk, director of strategic planning, communications and lobbying for Fulcrum Illinois, a subsidiary of the Illinois Manufacturers Association. The "Sunday Spin" airs from 7 to 9 a.m. on WGN-AM 720.

What we're writing

*Berrios slow to adopt anti-patronage reforms, and taxpayers pay price.

*Legislature's new watchdog to keep looking into 10 ethics cases, drops 17 others.

*Five suburban counties suing drug companies over opioid epidemic.

*Logan Square tongue nailed to a tree could be sending a message.

*Community leaders skeptical about new Obama center garage design.

*How suburban parents leaving their kids home alone for more than a week changed state law.

*Joliet officials decline to name park after Semaj Crosby.

*Illinois drops from the fifth-largest state to No. 6.

What we're reading

*Restaurant workers at O'Hare airport walk off the job on peak travel day.

*Chicago police say Facebook did not cooperate in drug and gun-running probe.