City Council members violated their state constitutional oaths by denying Chicago police officers accused of the most serious wrongdoing the right to bypass the Police Board, risking a costly court challenge the city is destined to lose, an independent arbitrator warned Thursday.
Independent arbitrator Edwin Benn had already affirmed and reaffirmed that state law guarantees Chicago police officers recommended for firing, or for suspensions of over one year, the right to take their cases to an arbitrator who might be more sympathetic and would hold proceedings behind closed doors.
Thursday’s second reaffirmation was no surprise and sends the matter back to the City Council for a second vote.
But the tone of Benn’s second reaffirmation was unexpected.
He harshly criticized Mayor Brandon Johnson and the 33 alderpersons who rejected the earlier ruling at the mayor’s behest. Benn also issued what he called a “last-ditch plea” for them to reconsider. Otherwise, he wrote, they risk litigation that “may well go on for years” with “no possibility” of the city prevailing.
Benn compared their core arguments — that arbitration is “just not right,” that the process occurs “behind closed doors” and that there is “distrust” and “indeed a disdain” of the police — to Donald Trump’s “Big Lie” that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged.”
The rule of law “is not a request or a cafeteria selection process for the City to choose which State of Illinois laws should apply and which should not. Compliance with the Rule of Law is an obligation,” the arbitrator wrote.
If you could pick and choose, then every Chicagoan could “opt to not pay taxes, fees, fines, comply with City ordinances, state and federal laws, etc. which they similarly believe are not ‘just’ or `right’. In a democracy, that is not how it works.”
Benn noted the Workers’ Rights Amendment to the state constitution specifically states: “No law shall be passed that interferes with, negates or diminishes the rights of employees to organize and bargain collectively over their wages, hours and other terms and conditions of employment.”
That amendment, he said, is a “constitutional protection of the statutory right to final and binding arbitration.”
Last month’s Council vote rejecting the arbitrator’s ruling delivered a symbolic, but temporary message expressing commitment to police reform and accountability.
Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara responded back then by predicting what happened Thursday — that Benn would reaffirm his earlier ruling and send the matter back to the Council to vote again. He warned a second Council rejection would set the stage for a lawsuit the city was destined to lose.
Catanzara could not be reached for immediate comment on Thursday’s ruling. Neither could the city’s chief labor negotiator, Jim Franczek.
Benn laid out an an eight-point argument for why the city was destined to lose the court fight. He then urged the Council to accept the ruling, now that the political statement had been made — a statement based on what he called “misinformation, untruths and half-truths about the arbitration process ... repeated over and over” until they have “now become fact.”
“If you voted to reject to make a protest, your point has been made. Now please don’t throw away potentially large sums of taxpayers’ money that could be used better elsewhere than on a legal fight you cannot win which you are undertaking to make a point you have already resoundingly made,” he wrote.
“The law is clear — and you took an oath to support that law. If you don’t like the results coming from the Rule of Law, then seek to change the law,” Benn added.
Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th) predicted that the Council would ignore Benn’s warning for a second time, but he acknowledged it would be preferable for the Council to lobby to change state law, placing officers in a “separate category” held to a higher standard.
Meanwhile, Vasquez said, the Council simply must reaffirm its commitment to police reform and accountability.
“No other union has the ability to shoot, kill, arrest or contain. It’s why we have a Police Board. It’s why we have COPA,” Vasquez said, referring to the Civilian Office of Police Accountability. “We lose an average of $100 million every single year due to police misconduct settlements because we don’t have enough accountability.”
Ald. Nick Sposato (38th), one of the police union’s staunchest Council supporters, said he hopes his colleagues reconsider, swallow hard and accept the ruling.
“They had a job to do by saying, ‘We stood up to this. We did what we could do.’ [And they could easily say], ‘Now, we’re gonna have to stand down,’” Sposato said.
“I have nothing to base it off of other than they’re not that dumb of a people,” Sposato added. “They know what they did. And a couple of my colleagues said, ‘I only voted against this for political reasons. I don’t think we could win this. But politically, it’s suicide for me.’”
