The Worst Mayor in America

 

After Lori Lightfoot was voted out of the mayor’s seat in Chicago following her calamitous tenure, I dearly hoped that the residents of Chicago had come to their senses about progressive mayors and would vote for someone who had some understanding of fiscal responsibility and the role of a big city mayor.

It was not to be.

The mayoralty of Brandon Johnson has been, to say the least, a disaster. Witnessing his rejection by boards, committees and the residents of Chicago, Johnson continues to double down on failing policies. How did he get himself into such a mess?

He began his professional career as a teacher, but realized he could get more done from a political position:

First, he was elected to the county board, with the help of the board president, herself a former history teacher. Then he decided to run for mayor. The [teachers’] union endorsed him. It donated $2 million to his campaign and sent out its army of door knockers to spread the word about him. In an upset, the hip young teacher won, against an opponent with a better-known name who outspent him 2-1.

Once Johnson linked up with the teachers’ union (CTU), his future was bright. Johnson and the union are joined at the hip.

How bad has Johnson’s governance been?

He’s decided to control the Chicago Board of Education, due to his dispute with the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) CEO Pedro Martinez:

According to published reports, the current board had backed Martinez in a dispute with Johnson over the CPS budget and contract negotiations with the Chicago Teachers Union – for which Johnson was once an organizer, and was a major financial supporter of his campaign for mayor.

Martinez is opposing high-interest loans the mayor wants CPS to take out to support teacher raises being negotiated with the CTU, at a time when CPS is facing a $500 million deficit for the 2025 contract year. The board did not include the loan in the approved CPS budget for the 2024-25 school year.

Johnson demanded that Martinez resign, and Martinez refused. Instead, Johnson has reconfigured the Board of Education. In place of Johnson selecting all the board members, he will be able to select eleven of them, and ten will be elected by the citizens. Since Martinez is refusing to leave, Johnson can simply tell the citizens that he chose to fire him.

Easy.

The entire Chicago Board of Education will resign later in the month as a protest against his actions against Martinez.

Johnson seems to be incapable of contradicting his patrons on the CTU, and the price tag just keeps getting larger and larger.

But the list of his irresponsible decisions doesn’t end there. Here’s a sampling:

  • He approved a 20% raise for the Chicago Police Department over four years, and added $1.06 billion to the police pension fund’s total liability;
  • He refuses to allow the question of whether Chicago should be a sanctuary city to go before the voters. Meanwhile, Chicago has been deluged with illegal immigrants;
  • He’s added a $500,000 snowplowing pilot program and $400,000 to fund a vice mayor’s office;
  • His actions have led to the warning of a downgrade of the city’s pension fund;
  • He claims that he’s having regular discussions on progressive ideas with Gov. Pritzker’s office, which the Governor denies’
  • He asked for a $300 million tax hike, which the City Council refused; later they also rejected a $68.5 million property tax hike that he requested;
  • He insists that those who criticize him are racist.
  • He broke a City Council tie, 23-23 for a resolution that called for an immediate unconditional cease-fire in the Gaza Strip. Refusing to hold Hamas responsible at all for their role in the conflict was not well-received;
  • Although he originally supported the movement to defund the police, he’s finally realizing that doesn’t solve their violent crime problem:

After months of stating that Chicago can’t ‘police its way’ out of its violent-crime disease, Johnson finally crossed the first threshold to getting a handle on this mayhem, and that was to point the finger of blame where it belongs — at criminals, not some systemic conspiracy. Better policing isn’t all that’s needed, but it surely is a critical component.

Mayor Johnson is deeply enmeshed in his own “blame game” and false optimism: he says the state’s reduction of the city’s property tax revenue is to blame; he blames the Chicago Board of Education for not passing tax legislation for the public schools. He’s presented no plan for the taxes he was trying to raise—$100 million—for housing the homeless. He’s lost the support of the business community. And he insists on wearing “rose-colored glasses”:

But at his news conference after the council meeting, Johnson refused to accept an alarmist view of the future. He also would not say what his Plan B would be should this progressive revenue not come through in time for the 2026 budget cycle.

‘How about we just focus on what we want?’ Johnson said when asked whether he’s ruled out trying to pass a future property tax hike, after aldermen threw his latest attempt back in his face.

‘I want you all to stay positive, OK, because the people of Chicago and the state of Illinois really require that. Look, I know it’s easy to go back and forth about this tax versus this tax, but people have sold the people of Chicago out for too long, and they have kowtowed to the interests of the ultrarich.’

Keep your chin up, Mayor Johnson, and just keep blaming your predecessors and the ultrarich. We’ll see where that gets you in the next election.

[originally published December 30, 2024 in American Thinker]

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  1. Kevin Schulte Member
    Kevin Schulte
    @KevinSchulte

    I don’t assume Chicago elections are fair , or any blue city for that matter .  TPTB pick who wins in these places . 

    • #1
  2. namlliT noD Member
    namlliT noD
    @DonTillman

    Susan Quinn:

    After Lori Lightfoot was voted out of the mayor’s seat in Chicago following her calamitous tenure, I dearly hoped that the residents of Chicago had come to their senses about progressive mayors and would vote for someone who had some understanding of fiscal responsibility and the role of a big-city mayor.

    It was not to be.

    Question: Was there a Republican, or even a non-progressive, candidate running against him?

    • #2
  3. Susan Quinn Member
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    namlliT noD (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn:

    After Lori Lightfoot was voted out of the mayor’s seat in Chicago following her calamitous tenure, I dearly hoped that the residents of Chicago had come to their senses about progressive mayors and would vote for someone who had some understanding of fiscal responsibility and the role of a big-city mayor.

    It was not to be.

    Question: Was there a Republican, or even a non-progressive, candidate running against him?

    From Vox.com–

    In a surprise victory for progressive organizing and the future of police reform efforts, Chicago voters elected underdog former education organizer Brandon Johnson as mayor, beating back moderate Democrat Paul Vallas, according to the Associated Press. Johnson beat Vallas, a centrist former budget and public schools chief, despite Vallas’s tough-on-crime messaging, which resonated with moderates and white voters.

    • #3
  4. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    namlliT noD (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn:

    After Lori Lightfoot was voted out of the mayor’s seat in Chicago following her calamitous tenure, I dearly hoped that the residents of Chicago had come to their senses about progressive mayors and would vote for someone who had some understanding of fiscal responsibility and the role of a big-city mayor.

    It was not to be.

    Question: Was there a Republican, or even a non-progressive, candidate running against him?

    Paul Vallas, former superintendent of the Chicago Public Schools and for his sins a Democrat. Vallas made something of a splash by being in favor of charter schools and other privatization-friendly programs while superintendent.  Chicago has a “nonpartisan” mayoral election. If the winner doesn’t get a majority, the top two face off. Vallas won that round without said majority. Lori came in an abysmal third. The runoff was won by Brandon Johnson in a completely fair, ethical, above-board election untainted by even a whiff of skullduggery and if you believe that, I have some flood plain prime riverside property to sell you.

    Chicago City Council meetings have been attended by a growing number of people curiously dressed in red. Protestors who have been invoking the names of Pam Biondi and Kash Patel.

    • #4
  5. Susan Quinn Member
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Percival (View Comment):

    Paul Vallas, former superintendent of the Chicago Public Schools and for his sins a Democrat. Vallas made something of a splash by being in favor of charter schools and other privatization-friendly programs while superintendent.  Chicago has a “nonpartisan” mayoral election. If the winner doesn’t get a majority, the top two face off. Vallas won that round without said majority. Lori came in an abysmal third. The runoff was won by Brandon Johnson in a completely fair, ethical, above-board election untainted by even a whiff of skullduggery and if you believe that, I have some flood plain prime riverside property to sell you.

    Chicago City Council meetings have been attended by a growing number of people curiously dressed in red. Protestors who have been invoking the names of Pam Biondi and Kash Patel.

    Thanks for clarifying and elaborating, Percival. So maybe there is still hope for the future? I sure hope so!

    • #5
  6. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):
    Thanks for clarifying and elaborating, Percival. So maybe there is still hope for the future? I sure hope so!

    Graffito in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago about 6 blocks from the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr Academy of Social Justice a few weeks after the shooting in Butler.

    • #6
  7. Eustace C. Scrubb Member
    Eustace C. Scrubb
    @EustaceCScrubb

    Now don’t make Mayor Karen Bass feel overlooked…

    • #7
  8. Rodin Moderator
    Rodin
    @Rodin

    When I saw the headline I thought it would be about Karen Bass. But Johnson is deserving of the colonoscopy in the OP. Truth is, many Blue Cities can lay claim at various times and usually for the same reason: people are made to pay more and get less, and all options to getting what you pay for are foreclosed. And too often the price is your safety, security, livelihood or your very life.

    • #8
  9. Susan Quinn Member
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Rodin (View Comment):

    When I saw the headline I thought it would be about Karen Bass. But Johnson is deserving of the colonoscopy in the OP. Truth is, many Blue Cities can lay claim at various times and usually for the same reason: people are made to pay more and get less, and all options to getting what you pay for are foreclosed. And too often the price is your safety, security, livelihood or your very life.

    Actually I thought someone might mention another horrible mayor (like Bass), but so far, no one has. There’s still time!

    • #9
  10. Juliana Member
    Juliana
    @Juliana

    Brandon Johnson was only a teacher for four years before he took leave from the school district to work for the union in 2011. He the moved on to politics, but is still on leave. He is a tool of the Chicago Teachers Union and is trying to appease their demands that they are very, very highly paid. In addition there is to be no contraction of staff or school buildings. There are at least several schools designed for hundreds of students that are servicing less than 100. The teachers union will not let these buildings be closed and staff either be relocated or laid off. The waste is incredible. I believe I have read that the head of the Chicago teachers lives in Indiana, which is where she sends her son to private school.

    If you are interested in the nonsense going on in Chicago check out http://secondcitycop.blogspot.com.  It will provide info on crime and politics from a cop’s perspective.

    • #10
  11. Susan Quinn Member
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Juliana (View Comment):

    Brandon Johnson was only a teacher for four years before he took leave from the school district to work for the union in 2011. He the moved on to politics, but is still on leave. He is a tool of the Chicago Teachers Union and is trying to appease their demands that they are very, very highly paid. In addition there is to be no contraction of staff or school buildings. There are at least several schools designed for hundreds of students that are servicing less than 100. The teachers union will not let these buildings be closed and staff either be relocated or laid off. The waste is incredible. I believe I have read that the head of the Chicago teachers lives in Indiana, which is where she sends her son to private school.

    If you are interested in the nonsense going on in Chicago check out http://secondcitycop.blogspot.com. It will provide info on crime and politics from a cop’s perspective.

    What a disaster! Thanks for filling in the picture, Juliana

    • #11
  12. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Juliana (View Comment):

    Brandon Johnson was only a teacher for four years before he took leave from the school district to work for the union in 2011. He the moved on to politics, but is still on leave. He is a tool of the Chicago Teachers Union and is trying to appease their demands that they are very, very highly paid. In addition there is to be no contraction of staff or school buildings. There are at least several schools designed for hundreds of students that are servicing less than 100. The teachers union will not let these buildings be closed and staff either be relocated or laid off. The waste is incredible. I believe I have read that the head of the Chicago teachers lives in Indiana, which is where she sends her son to private school.

    If you are interested in the nonsense going on in Chicago check out http://secondcitycop.blogspot.com. It will provide info on crime and politics from a cop’s perspective.

    Well, yeah. You don’t expect her to entrust the education of her kids to the knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers in her union, do you?

    • #12
  13. Susan Quinn Member
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Percival (View Comment):
    Well, yeah. You don’t expect her to entrust the education of her kids to the knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers in her union, do you?

    Funny how that works…

    • #13
  14. Rōnin Coolidge
    Rōnin
    @Ronin

    Stein’s Law, formulated by economist Herbert Stein: “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.”

    See also Detroit Michigan and Los Angeles California.

     

    • #14
  15. GlennAmurgis Coolidge
    GlennAmurgis
    @GlennAmurgis

    I don’t feel sorry for Chicago – they keep voting these fools in office

    • #15
  16. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    GlennAmurgis (View Comment):

    I don’t feel sorry for Chicago – they keep voting these fools in office

    So did Los Angeles.

    • #16
  17. Ray Gunner Coolidge
    Ray Gunner
    @RayGunner

    When voter turnout is low, the politically active will have an outsized effect, and no entity is more politically active than the teachers’ union.   Voter turnout in Johnson’s election was less than 39% and he barely won.  That means only 2 out of 10 eligible Chicago voters actually cast a ballot for Johnson.  Most Chicagoans didn’t vote at all, which is their fault.

    IOW, be careful who you don’t vote for. 

    • #17
  18. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Ray Gunner (View Comment):

    When voter turnout is low, the politically active will have an outsized effect, and no entity is more politically active than the teachers’ union. Voter turnout in Johnson’s election was less than 39% and he barely won. That means only 2 out of 10 eligible Chicago voters actually cast a ballot for Johnson. Most Chicagoans didn’t vote at all, which is their fault.

    IOW, be careful who you don’t vote for.

    Even aside from teachers union members, a lot of people’s evaluation of a candidate would start and stop at “person of color.”

    • #18
  19. Susan Quinn Member
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Ray Gunner (View Comment):
    IOW, be careful who you don’t vote for. 

    Well said!

    • #19
  20. Saxonburg Member
    Saxonburg
    @Saxonburg

    So glad to hear that yet another City Council in the US voted for a cease-fire in Gaza.  How many US cities is that now?

    The pressure on Israel must be intense.

    • #20
  21. Old Bathos Member
    Old Bathos
    @OldBathos

    Tough competition in that category. 

    • #21
  22. Red Herring Coolidge
    Red Herring
    @EHerring

    I have no sympathy for voters who never learn from their mistakes.

    • #22
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