The upcoming election is dominating our attention, our conversations and our media feeds. In addition to anxieties over outcomes, we are concerned about our role as the electorate in national decision-making. Will states interfere by invalidating early ballots? Will Congress obstruct certification of the Electoral College? Will the next president ultimately be determined not by voters, but by the Supreme Court? Across America, we are concerned about the balance of power.
We have the same concern about Chicago itself.
The essence of democracy is that power is vested in the people. Elections are the most obvious way in which we exercise our political capacity by installing people in office for terms of set duration. However, during those terms, “the people” retain that power and responsibility to ensure that those they’ve elected execute the will of the people. All four of us are veteran community organizers, who know that the voice of the people needs to be united and amplified to speak truth to political power to assure it is exercised properly.
Throughout Chicago, the people are raising their voices about a host of issues. We fear those voices are going unheard and not just because of political expediency. A fundamental flaw in the design of our city allows the voice of the people to be ignored.
The U.S. Constitution sets forth the boundaries for our national balance of power. We have no such framing document for our city. Chicago is a municipality without a charter — the city version of a constitution. Unlike peer cities, we have no framing document that serves as a higher law to be obeyed. Instead, we have a labyrinthian municipal code that is, in many respects, unenforceable, leaving our City Council without co-equal powers with our mayor.
And, as we are painfully witnessing, the lack of checks and balances of power in Chicago has put us in a number of dangerous situations.
Take the ShotSpotter situation. This technology, a rare public safety initiative supported by police Superintendent Larry Snelling and the majority of community groups, is disfavored by the mayor and the small percentage of Chicagoans who brought him to power. Despite massive community outcry, and a City Council vote of 33-14 to keep ShotSpotter, the mayor refused to renew the contract of a demonstrably lifesaving technology.
The mayor said the City Council’s vote violates Chicago’s separation of powers, since only the mayor has contract authority. Maybe so, but we in the community — the people — see a different picture: A preponderance of Chicagoans from all parts of the city want ShotSpotter. Our elected officials, spanning a wide swath of wards, voiced our concern in City Hall. In terminating ShotSpotter, it seems the will of the people was ignored.
Thoughts about intentional disregard of the will and needs of the people lead us to the mess at Chicago Public Schools. The looming budget crisis for the public education of our youth is becoming another unfortunate example of power unchecked. The problem extends much further than City Hall disagreeing with CPS’ budget-balancing methods. The mayor-appointed Chicago Board of Education approved a budget plan, only to face strong criticism from the very mayor who selected the board. Rather than being equal partners in power working out the difficulties together, something unprecedented occurred: The entire school board resigned in one afternoon, after months of being pressured by City Hall for having responsibly performed its fiduciary duties to the people.
Just weeks before Chicago elects school members for the first time on the way to a fully elected and accountable school board, one person, with no check or balance, gets to determine the majority of those sitting on the transitional board and therefore controls every decision it makes. Legal? Technically, yes. Principled? No. Democratic? It doesn’t feel that way. This is a moment of concern for representative democracy that is every bit as frightening locally as we worry about nationally. Maybe more so — every day squandered is a day our children are deprived of the best outcomes they deserve and we must provide if they and this city are to thrive.
If, as we witnessed, even the City Council lacks the power to hold the mayor accountable, it might seem as if we as citizens — taxpaying citizens — of Chicago have almost zero capacity to effect civic change. However, two paths lie in front of us to pave a way to a better, more democratic future for our city.
First, we can — and we must — continue to raise our voices about crucial matters of public concern such as needed tools for public safety and existential questions about debt and taxation. We can do this by organizing through our houses of faith, community groups and many more organizations uniting individuals to give voice to our concerns.
Secondly, we must — and we can — work toward changing the fundamental flaw of our city governance. We need to work toward creating a city charter that will create a fundamental balance of power between the one mayor elected by all Chicagoans and the 50 members of the City Council who represent our neighborhoods. The Civic Federation has laid out a path we all should pursue to bring this balance to our city.
In these weeks focused on a big election, may we remember that our roles in maintaining the balance of power, and preserving our voices as individuals, is the real work in which we must engage, starting Nov. 6.
Chicago faith leaders Rabbi Seth Limmer, the Rev. Otis Moss III, the Rev. Ciera Bates-Chamberlain and the Rev. Michael Pfleger joined the Tribune’s opinion section in summer 2022 for a series of columns on potential solutions to Chicago’s chronic gun violence problem. The column continues on an occasional basis.
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