CHICAGO -- Days before he was sworn in as Chicago’s mayor in 2011, Rahm Emanuel unveiled a series of goals from his transition team, including plans for the first 100 days.
Lori Lightfoot similarly held a pre-inaugural news conference in 2019 detailing her transition committee’s recommendations and her aspirations for the administration to come.
Since winning the April 4 election to become Chicago mayor, Brandon Johnson has taken a much different approach to the change from candidate to mayor.
Like Emanuel and Lightfoot, Johnson followed the traditional model of calling together experts from across the city to recommend the best way forward.
But unlike his predecessors, Johnson has not rushed to make personnel changes or even unveil his transition report until this week, nearly two months into his term in office. At a news conference Thursday, Johnson and his team unveiled a series of recommendations that will set the stage for what he hopes is a model of progressive governance across the country.
Transition committee reports are usually aspirational documents. But the report serves as a model of the administration’s goals, setting benchmarks for critics and supporters alike to evaluate success.
With at least 100 transition team members and supporters behind her, Johnson’s transition co-chair Barbara Ransby opened up Thursday’s program by highlighting the “Black feminist framework of intersectionality” that guided the team.
“We can transform this city into a place that is great for everyone who lives here — no matter their ZIP code, skin color, income, gender, immigration status, sexual orientation, incarceration status,” she said, to cheers from the group.
Ransby continued with a nod to Johnson’s inaugural address that called on tapping into the “soul of Chicago”: “Hope is ascending — if we recommit ourselves today to working with Mayor Johnson and fighting for the soul of the city and building bridges required to realize a more just and radically inclusive Chicago.”
The report’s recommendations included a litany of progressive policy positions, from creating a Department of Neighborhood Equity and Repair, which would assign an “equity score” to all city programs, to bringing back the now-defunct Department of Environment with focus on environmental justice. Johnson’s team also committed once again to ending the city’s contract with ShotSpotter, a gunfire detection technology whose usefulness and accuracy have been questioned.
The committee affirmed two proposals championed by progressive activists and Johnson: Treatment Not Trauma and Bring Chicago Home, which would instill a citywide non-police response to mental health crises and raise the real estate transfer tax on high-end sales to fund homelessness services, respectively. For Bring Chicago Home, the transition committee recommended going through the state legislature to change the levy versus holding a citywide referendum during the next election, while the Treatment Not Trauma plan was seen as a “long term” goal.
But there was much the report left out, too. Most of Johnson’s “tax the rich” proposals that served a central tenet of his campaign did not make it into the recommendations beyond a broad mandate to “make our tax system more equitable.” For example, his proposals during the mayoral race to bring back an employee head tax for companies, tax jet fuel or levy tolls on securities trading were not included.
Johnson’s vows not to raise property taxes also appeared watered down, with the transition document only discussing the need for overall relief and reform, thus “ensuring that the wealthy pay their fair share.”
“We discussed specifics of the mayor’s tax policy and tax incentives for corporations but did not reach consensus,” the report says under “Bridges left to build” section. “Ultimately, we reached agreement that the mayor should work to grow the tax base and reduce the reliance on property taxes.”
To some, the Johnson transition committee’s unusually slow process raises broader concerns about the administration’s pace in its early days and questions about its organization. The new mayor has not rushed to fill some key positions and other priorities have gone unfulfilled.
Johnson didn’t announce a corporation counsel until about three weeks into his administration, for instance. Emanuel and Lightfoot were also both quick to overhaul the Board of Education: Lightfoot announced days into her term she would replace all members, while her predecessor didn’t even wait until he got into office to name a new board and Chicago Public Schools CEO, though Emanuel had more time because he was elected in a single round of voting. Johnson made no move to shake up the school board until this week.
And while Johnson has defended his pace, his administration notably announced there would be no questions taken or interviews granted at his transition report unveiling.
The mayor has addressed early criticisms of his tenure, including his administration’s response to the ongoing migrant humanitarian crisis as well as summer gun violence, by stressing that he has only just assumed the role and says his was the shortest transition period in Chicago history.
During a May news conference shortly after being inaugurated, Johnson answered a question about his apparent lack of a plan for the migrants by turning to his senior aide and asking, “How many days has it been again, Jason? Nine, 10 days?” Last month, he addressed the same topic by prefacing that he had then been mayor for 37 days.
Some officials caution that an unhurried pace isn’t necessarily a red flag.
Ald. Brian Hopkins, 2nd, said he surmises the late rollout of the transition report was because the fledgling administration must work through existential questions of its direction after running on Chicago’s most anti-establishmentarian platform in decades.
Will the progressive-minded Johnson indeed barnstorm the “politics of old,” as he often phrased it on the campaign trail, or will he show restraint? His appointments thus far have straddled that ideological divide; Hopkins himself was appointed chair of a new public safety committee in City Council despite supporting Johnson’s runoff opponent Paul Vallas.
“I think we’re all anxiously awaiting that report and arguably, it’s a little bit behind schedule,” Hopkins told the Tribune ahead of the document’s debut. “But I assume that’s because there were some things that needed to be worked out. You know, the mayor said all along he wanted an inclusive and diverse team, which means you’re going to have conflicting viewpoints.”
During the runoff, Johnson said he would fire the city’s public health commissioner, Dr. Allison Arwady, who clashed with the Chicago Teachers Union and other progressive mayoral allies over school reopening plans during the COVID-19 pandemic. But Johnson has yet to make changes to the department. Longtime City Hall staff grumble about the pace of decision making as Lightfoot-era cabinet heads have stayed on in quasi-probationary positions that some observers have compared to the “90 Day Fiancé” reality show.
City Hall is considering who would replace Arwady, with one potential option being Eric Reinhart, a physician who is an outspoken critic of the way public health systems currently operate.
Public health is among a litany of challenges Johnson inherited, perhaps none greater than crime.
Thursday, Kathryn Bocanegra, chair of the public safety transition committee, began her speech with the recognition “that many people who commit violence are survivors of it.” To that, the city must “chart a new path” that works with both police and youth, she said.
“To have a safer, healthier Chicago, we must get at the root causes, stop cycles of violence and prioritize healing from the trauma,” Bocanegra said. “The recommendations acknowledge that some communities are disproportionately impacted by violence, and these inequities are rooted in structural racism.”
After the nearly dozen subcommittees finished introducing their reports, Johnson took the microphone and nodded to the decadeslong movement that propelled him to this moment — a moment that he argued should not be squandered by rushing his agenda.
“Now, for those who are asking why it took so long, I don’t think it needs an explanation,” Johnson said. “But it’s because the people of Chicago are worth the time and effort and the deliberation to finally get it right. We have to get it right for no one else but for our young people.”
Like the speakers before him, Johnson did not detail many tangible proposals from the bundle of recommendations in the report beyond Treatment Not Trauma and Bring Chicago Home. Mostly, he and his team members spoke broadly on unifying the city and celebrating its diversity.
“It represents democracy when everyone literally has a seat at the table, no matter your community, how rich or how poor you are,” Johnson said about the symbolism behind the transition report book he held on stage. “... It’s not easy, but we have proven otherwise that there’s not a task too big for the city of Chicago to face head on. We don’t flinch under pressure. We take it straight on and we’re going to make sure that this city lives up to it.”
Past mayors have not fully realized, and sometimes directly undermined, the vision they set out when they took office.
Hopkins, who has served as aldermen under three mayors, noted that for now he applauds what appears to be a new administration “taking a little bit longer to make sure you get it right.”
“You know what? It takes time,” Hopkins said. “It takes time to identify and recruit those key individuals that you want to put in those key positions. He may not have fully appreciated that as Candidate Johnson. He gets it now as Mayor Johnson.”
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