Council may be headed for showdown vote on IG
It looks like a divided City Council may be headed for a showdown vote next week over the thorny issues of ethics and oversight.
Ald. Michele Smith (43rd) said Wednesday she has gathered signatures from 26 aldermen— enough to force a vote on her stalled ordinance empowering Inspector General Joe Ferguson to investigate aldermen and their employees.
A signature on a parliamentary procedure known as “Rule 41” does not guarantee 26 votes on the ordinance vehemently opposed by the City Council’s two most powerful aldermen, Finance Committee Chairman Edward Burke (14th) and Budget Committee Chairman Carrie Austin (34th).
But Smith believes the votes will hold.
“This is the most aldermen on a Rule 41 that’s ever been filed. We’re ready to move forward on ethics reform. It means we have a Council that’s ready to lead at a time when the public is demanding accountability from their public officials,” said Smith, a former federal prosecutor.
“The majority of aldermen are expressing their opinion that they would prefer and are prepared to have the City Council subject to the same standards of ethics and scrutiny as every other city employee.”
Despite the 26 signatures gathered by Smith, Ald. Pat O’Connor (40th), Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s City Council floor leader, said aldermen dead set against empowering Ferguson hope to present a candidate to the City Council next week to replace Legislative Inspector General Faisal Khan, whose tumultuous fouryear term ended in November.
Khan persuaded the FBI to seize and secure his investigative records in November, then closed his office with parting shots at Emanuel and the City Council.
He argued that the system was “rigged from Day One” and that his office was “designed to fail intentionally” by a City Council that doesn’t want “any type of oversight at all.” Khan argued that the “proper and immediate solution” was to abolish his office and transfer oversight power to Joe Ferguson. He noted that 35 aldermen co-signed that ordinance before the election and that it was time to “hold their feet to the fire.”
A few weeks later, Ferguson made his case, but he was singing to the choir.
Burke and Austin boycotted Ferguson’s pitch. They remain adamantly opposed to Ferguson..