Today, Explained - City Limits: Blame the mayor

Episode Date: April 4, 2023

Chicagoans feel unsafe, and many blame Mayor Lori Lightfoot. The two Democrats on the ballot to replace her have starkly different views on what the city should do next. WBEZ’s Patrick Smith and Mariah Woelfel explain. This episode was produced by Miles Bryan, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Patrick Boyd with help from Paul Robert Mounsey, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained Help keep this show and all of Vox's journalism free by making a gift to Vox today: bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Chicago elects a new mayor today. The city decided they were done with Lori Lightfoot, and they're now looking at two polar opposite replacements. And these two candidates have got two polar opposite strategies for dealing with crime, which is the biggest issue at play in this race. Protecting you has to be the mayor's top priority. And on my watch, it will be.

My plan? Invest in our neighborhoods by making wealthy corporations pay their fair share. Whatever happens, Chicago's choice to reject its current mayor says a lot about how big city politics around crime is changing. I think that big city mayors or candidates to be big city mayors in Democrat cities, which is almost all big cities, are not going to be able to sort of toe the line or go middle of the road on police reform and crime the way that Mayor Lightfoot has done and the way that she did to get herself elected in the first place. That's coming up on Today Explained.

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Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Today Explained, Sean Ramos from here with Patrick Smith from WBEZ in Chicago. And Patrick is here to help us understand why Lori Lightfoot is not on the ballot in Chicago today. Because she lost and she lost really badly. Stunning defeat for Mayor Lightfoot who got just over 16% of the vote. While the polls indicated this could be a possibility,

still a lot of very, very disappointed and shocked supporters. She placed third in a runoff a few weeks ago. Chicago has this method of electing mayors where if nobody gets more than 50% of the vote, the top two candidates go to a runoff. I at least thought, I'm not saying that everybody did, but I certainly thought that Lightfoot was at least going to get to the runoff. I mean, she's the incumbent.

We had this huge number of candidates. Usually name recognition alone is going to get you into a top two slot. Instead, it was kind of an embarrassing loss for her. First Chicago mayor in decades to lose reelection, a sign that she is just deeply unpopular in the city. I will be rooting and praying for our next mayor to deliver for the people of the city for years to come. And why is she so deeply unpopular? Well, I think there are a couple reasons. I do think, you know, I'm not a political reporter, I'm not a political analyst, but I don't think it takes a genius to say that she was just not a great politician when she got into office. She alienated people, she alienated allies, she was resistant to any sort of criticism

or questioning of her. But I think the biggest reason is that crime numbers are horrible here in Chicago and people blame her for that. I want to better understand that, Patrick. I want to understand why they didn't think she was doing a good job on crime. But let's start with how she came into office and what she promised she would do on crime because crime has been a perennial issue in Chicago in recent years, right? Lightfoot, she's a former federal prosecutor, but the way she got into the public eye, she came from Chicago's police accountability infrastructure. The head of Chicago Police Board is assigned another task. Lori Lightfoot is on the newly formed Task Force on Police Accountability.

She used to help punish, or honestly, mostly not punish, officers who were accused of wrongdoing. We had one of the many sort of famous police shootings here, a killing of a young man named Laquan McDonald. Lightfoot helped write the report

after that killing where she said, The perception among a significant number of African-American and people of color in the city is that they are not treated with respect by the police because of their race. Now, that perception becomes reality. And in order for the police department to move forward, to really get back to the essence of community policing. They've got to deal with that reality. And that was what really got her into the public eye, was being kind of the face of police reform in Chicago. And I think when she ran, she represented where we were as a city and where we were as a country on police reform, which was an acknowledgement that there were serious

problems with policing. There was a history of racism and abuse. But also, I think, a general feeling that we knew what we needed to do to fix it, that we had the tools to fix it, and that we were going down the path of reform. Hmm. Okay. So she comes into office with sort of an edict from the people to fix policing, to bring down crime, though crime isn't maybe the number one issue. How does she handle it? The pandemic hits. And at first, things are going swimmingly. Lightfoot is like a COVID folk hero, basically. Here's what's up. If I make this shot,

you got to stay home. She's telling people make this shot, you got to stay home. She's telling people to mask up, telling people to stay home. She shoots. She scores. There's some kind of weird publicity stunts where she, like, goes with a camera crew to yell at kids who are hanging out outside at the beach and stuff like that. You want to take this virus back to your house

and get your mama's? Let's move on. Okay. Which was weird, but for the most part, people like her sort of no-nonsense approach. They're telling people, Stay home, save lives. And for crime, I mean, crime largely goes away at the beginning of the pandemic. I think people maybe forget that because now the story is that pandemic hit and violent crime spikes. But actually we had this long period where most people were at home and not doing anything. And so naturally crime went down. Police made a lot fewer arrests here in Chicago. I remember doing a story, a guy who had his machete wieldwielding neighbor threatened him. And he called the cops, and the cops, like, gave the guy a warning and sent him on his way because they were told not to make arrests unless they absolutely had to

because otherwise they'd be spreading COVID. I mean, if you remember at the time, everybody was terrified of getting COVID, and the police were among them, and people liked that cops weren't really doing anything. Of course, summer 2020, we get George Floyd's murder at the hands of police, protests around the country. How does that go down in Chicago? So here in Chicago, like elsewhere, we had these mass protests. Demonstrators marching through the loop, speaking out on the death of George Floyd.

Everybody was out. Governor J.B. Pritzker, the Illinois governor, he was out marching. Being Black in America cannot be a death sentence. But it is. The progressives, the lefties who felt that police reform was going in the right direction think, oh my God, things are so much worse than we realized.

We have to make more dramatic changes than we thought we did to fix this. Then here in Chicago, like in a lot of cities, especially at night, there was mass looting, mass destruction. Chaos in downtown Chicago this morning. Looting and rioting leads to arrests stretching from Michigan Avenue to the South Loop.

Police cars were set on fire. Store windows were smashed up. Things were stolen. It happened largely downtown here in Chicago and then in poorer black neighborhoods in Chicago on the south and west sides. So crime spikes. Crime spikes, shooting spike. Here in Chicago, you know, I talked to people who work on the west side who said gangs were using sort of this mayhem as an opportunity to go out and settle scores because like the police couldn't

respond to shootings. That I think was the inflection point for people who thought everything was okay with crime and violence too. Like they thought everything was okay and then boom, everything spikes again. How does Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot respond? Well, I think her response is pretty emblematic of kind of her whole deal. She tries to have it both ways. Early on in the protest, she does these very public condemnations of police officers. Like, I remember one officer who gave the middle finger to protesters,

things like that. She's saying, this is inappropriate. And in my view, that person needs to be immediately stripped of their police powers and they should start the process for firing him. But then she really rejects claims by protesters that police officers were violent during protests. She says, no, no, that didn't

happen. She also raised bridges downtown over the Chicago River to try to prevent people from getting in and out of downtown when there was all the mayhem and destruction. I make no apologies that I'm always going to make the tough but necessary choice if it means protecting our people. And her response to the spike in violent crime is really kind of like old school policing. And honestly, when I say old school, I mean mostly outdated stuff that people have largely rejected. Like every couple of weeks, a new group of like jump out boys from the police department who are going to go raid the hot corners. They're going to go arrest drug dealers. They're going to lock everybody up on the street.

It's a very traditional and honestly, it feels kind of PR driven response to the violence, which is we're going to throw a bunch of cops at it and we're going to be we're going to be hard on these criminals. And how does it go over? It does not go over well. All the people who are protesting about police reform, as you might imagine, do not respond well to the idea of more police and more aggressive policing. And Lightfoot's initial response to the police protest where she, you know, said the protesters had some good points, where she said that officers who were disrespectful to protesters should be punished. It turns the cops and their supporters against her, too. You know, she increased the police budget, but we actually lost officers because so many were leaving the department.

There were definitely claims of sort of a blue flu of police officers pulling back or slow walking their job. We saw that nationally, but I do think it's important to say that police officers, and I think that extends then to their family members and people who know them. And there are parts of the city that really identify as sort of police officer neighborhoods, and they really turned on Lightfoot. Okay. So it sounds like Lightfoot doesn't make anyone happy. She increases policing, doesn't solve the problem, makes a lot of people mad. But does she make people feel more safe?

Because as we discussed in our last episode, sometimes perception of crime is the name of the game. It does not make people feel more safe. In 2021, we have an increase, not just of shootings and murders, we also have an increase in carjackings which are the sort of crimes that make people who might otherwise feel kind of safe and secure feel very unsafe because it's like who the hell knows you know i could be going out i could be

driving around in my neighborhood and somebody could come stick a gun in my face now it just happens anywhere any time of day morning night the carjackings, the street crime, like it's just way worse. There's also, I mean, on TV all the time are videos of the looting and the destruction from downtown. That sticks in people's heads. And it's hard to convince people we've got order and we've got this under control when what they're seeing all the time are these images of chaos and disorder. And, you know, I do think, and this is something Lightfoot has pointed to a lot, I think Lightfoot's identity as a Black lesbian woman makes it so that the sort of people who might otherwise respond really well to a traditional tough-on-crime approach, for some reason, are not, you know, taking it the same way when it comes from Mayor Lightfoot.

Well, what can other Democrats running other American cities learn from this sort of parable of Lori Lightfoot? Her story will soon be past tense, but a lot of Democrats are still in charge. What can they take away from this? I would be hesitant to take too many big takeaways because I do think she was kind of a uniquely flawed politician when she got into office. But I think think she was kind of a uniquely flawed politician when she got into office. But I think that absolutely you can see a lesson from her that Democratic mayors in big cities are not going to be able to sort of have it both ways when it comes to policing and crime, at least rhetorically. It's not going to be possible to be this sort of middle

of the road, yes, we need police, but we need reform to kind of person. Lightfoot came in at a time when everybody really wanted somebody who could say, the problems are bad, but we know the solutions. And now people are either want you to deny the problems altogether, or they want somebody who's going to come in and say, we need to completely change the way we address violent crime, the way we address crime. Lightfoot tried to have it both ways and it got her elected. So I understand why she would sort of look at it like, well, wait, why wouldn't that get me reelected? But something fundamentally changed over those four years, I think. And we became more polarized as an electorate in Chicago. And I think that represents how people are nationally. Patrick Smith reports on criminal justice at WBEZ Public Radio in Chicago.

The replacements, Paul Vallis and Brandon Johnson, in a minute on Today Explained. Support for Today Explained comes from Ramp. Ramp is the corporate card and spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. Ramp says they give finance teams unprecedented control and insight into company spend. With Ramp, you're able to issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense reporting so you can stop wasting time at the end of every month. And now you can get $250 when you join Ramp. You can go to ramp.com slash explained, ramp.com slash explained, r-a-m-p.com. Ramp.com. Cards issued by Sutton Bank.

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Visit connectsontario.ca. Today, Explain is back. Patrick Smith is gone, but we have one of his colleagues here, Mariah Wolfel, who reports on city government at WBEZ in Chicago. Mariah, we just heard from Patrick about how voters in Chicago were fairly united in rejecting Mayor Lori Lightfoot. Are they united around a replacement candidate? No, they are not united. Things are tense here in Chicago. Brandon Johnson and Paul Vallis are neck and neck in the polls.

This is a close competitive contest. A new poll shows the race in a dead heat. But with a significant number of voters undecided, both candidates in this final week hoping to finish strong. People are painting this as a high-stakes election, laying out the future of violence reduction in the city, the future of public schools, the future of the economy. Candidates for mayor clashed over the familiar topics of police, education and taxes.

Everything is on the line here. And you have two candidates who are basically at the opposite end of the spectrum on all of those issues. The top one being crime. Who are the two candidates? You have Paul Vallis, who is a former public administrator. He's the tough on crime candidate backed by the Chicago Police Union. And we will have a safe Chicago. We will make Chicago the safest city in America. And then you have Brandon Johnson, who is the more progressive choice.

He is a Chicago Teachers Union organizer and a local county commissioner. You deserve a better, stronger, safer Chicago. A city where you can thrive regardless of who you love or how much money you have in your bank account. Let's talk a bit more about these candidates. Let's start with Paul Vallis. What's his deal? So Paul Vallis is a lifelong policy administrator. He's white. He's 69 years old. His first big job was leading the Chicago public schools in the 90s. And then he kind of launched this career as kind of the Mr. Fix-It of school systems. Chicago with 414,000 students. And Philadelphia with 172,000. Bringing in charter schools really as a solution. Well, I'm a believer in schools having the freedom

and autonomy to make decisions that are in the best interest of the children. And so I support charter schools because charter schools are a vehicle for achieving that type of freedom. He's also run for election several times and has lost three different elections, one for Illinois governor. The first election he ever ran for was for the state's top job. And then most recently, his unsuccessful run for mayor in 2019. So he sounds kind of like a bit washed up. How did he reemerge in this current race? Well, I think Paul Vallis kind of saw this opportunity in that crime worsened as it did in across other cities during the pandemic in Chicago. It's crept into wealthier areas of the city as well. And so there's a lot of people who want to see a mayor take that on as the forefront issue, take a very regimented approach to fixing crime. He comes from a family

of first responders. His wife was a suburban cop. And then in 2021, you know, he's kind of in between jobs. Unemployed? Sorry. Yeah. Try to use a euphemism there, but it's before he's announced that he's going to run for mayor. The city is negotiating a contract with the Fraternal Order of Police, Chicago's largest police union. It's a controversial union with a controversial leader. And they can't broker a deal with Mayor Lightfoot for a new contract because they had a very tense relationship with Lightfoot. And so Vallis comes in. Candidate for mayor Paul Vallis says he's proud to have won the endorsement of the local fraternal order of police union. The president of the union is political firebrand John Catanzaro Jr. In the wake of the endorsement of Vallis, Mayor Lightfoot cited Catanzaro's support for former President Trump and other controversial conservative interests. She taunted in a tweet, so much for being a lifelong Democrat, Paul Vallis. So Vallis is the tough-on-crime Democrat. What's his opponent like? You said

this Brandon Johnson's a little more progressive? Johnson grew up in the Burbs. He comes from a large family. He's Black. He's 47, and his dad's a pastor. He was a social studies middle school teacher for a few years. But really, his main career is as a lobbyist and an organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union. The next mayor's first term will include negotiating a new contract with the Chicago Teachers Union. For the past decade, Johnson has been a paid organizer for the CTU, supporting strikes and COVID school closures. Johnson comes from this union that has very progressive ideas about where they want to see the city go.

They have a theory and a message that children and their families need to be supported by poverty reduction services, by having fully funded schools, economic opportunity, and really pushing resources out to neighborhoods that have gotten ignored for a long time. And once you start to solve those issues, the city's crime problem will start to wane. Safety is directly tied to our ability to provide economic security. And if we're not committed to that, then we're not serious about having safe, thriving, healthy communities. When it comes to policing, Johnson has gotten a lot of pushback for previous support of the Defund the Police movement.

He's said previously in 2020, before he was a mayoral candidate, that defunding the police is a, quote, actual real political goal. But he's really had to distance himself from those past statements. Do you acknowledge making those recorded and documented statements, yes or no? I'm not going to defund the police. He's gotten attacked by Valis. And as Chicagoans have a real fear of crime right now and want to see a candidate seriously address it with the police, as well as other strategies.

But his main campaign idea on policing is that we need to hire a ton more detectives to solve crime. But he also wants to raise taxes and other revenue to pay for, you know, programs to address root causes. Okay, so two very distinct choices here for voters in Chicago. A tough-on-crime, a progressive-on-crime candidate. Are voters lining up behind one candidate or another right now? Well, I think you kind of have to look at the areas of support from the general election in March to kind of get an idea of who's backing both of these candidates. In those election results, you see really wealthier areas of the city backing Vallis, as well as areas of the city

with lots of first responders behind Vallis. And so those are areas of the city that are less affected by crime. And then when you look at Brandon Johnson's area of support, he really has younger white and younger Latino voters on his side, and those tend to be in areas that are more progressive, you know, liberal areas of the city. When you look at the areas of the city that are most affected by crime, where the majority of Black and brown Chicagoans live, those areas went in large swaths for Mayor Lori Lightfoot. There's about 90,000 people who voted for Lightfoot. She won a majority in most of the majority Black wards in Chicago. And so, you know, immediately after that first day after the general election,

Paul Vallis and Brandon Johnson are working really hard to swoop up those voters. And it's really hard to say where they're going to go because Lightfoot wasn't, you know, an extreme on one side or the other as kind of Vallis and Johnson are. And so I think her voting base is a little bit more nuanced. There are people that care about crime. There are people that care about addressing the root causes of crime. And so we kind of have to see where they're going to split between Johnson and a fork in the road where you're going to go with either who would be the city's most progressive mayor in history, I think,

or you're going to go with a more status quo, someone who's backed by, you know, people who have worked to elect Democratic machine politicians in the past and who's backed by, you know, a wealthy Republican donor establishment. I mean, it's the story of a lot of the congressional races I've covered, that it's a referendum on the future of the Democratic Party between a more radical progressive left and a larger tent moderate Democratic Party. party. Mariah Wolfel, like her colleague Patrick Smith, a reporter at WBEZ in Chicago, find their work and follow the election results at WBEZ.org. Our show today was produced by Miles Bryan. It was edited by Matthew Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard,

and mixed by Patrick Boyd with help from Paul Robert Mouncey. That is a wrap on our series on American cities. If you missed any coverage on doom loops or public transit or crime, visit the Today Explained feed and look for shows that start with city limits in the title. 감사합니다.