Emanuel says Burke’s political future up to voters in 14th Ward
Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Friday refused to weigh in on whether Ald. Ed Burke should step down from representing his ward or give up his Finance Committee chairmanship a day after federal agents raided the alderman’s government offices, saying it’s too early to know exactly what the dramatic episode means.
On the question of whether Burke should run for a 13th full term in February or retire from the council after agents pulled boxes and computers from his City Hall and Southwest Side offices Thursday, the mayor said that’s up to his constituents.
“We live in a country of laws. They haven’t even charged him,” Emanuel said after a downtown jobs announcement. “And so, all I would say is, the decision of what happens in the 14th Ward are to the voters of the 14th Ward. And I think that’s where you should respect that process, in that basis. You don’t need me to guess about what are the implications.”
And Emanuel would not say whether he thinks Burke should continue to run the key City Council Finance Committee — a post from which he derives much of his power — with a federal cloud hanging over him.
“You’re all getting ahead of yourself,” said Emanuel, who will leave office in May. “My goal, and my job, is to focus on the future of the city of Chicago. I have six-plus months remaining.”
But the mayor acknowledged the significance of the raids, in which agents covered the windows of Burke’s offices in paper and spent hours inside before emerging with the materials. But Emanuel said he didn’t know what they were looking for.
“It’s obviously significant,” Emanuel said. “You have a lot of questions. I have a lot of questions. What I don’t do is literally play guesswork on this. They’re going to do their job. I have my job to do.
“The fact is, they’re in his office, you know what that means,” he added. “What it means legally and what it means politically are different things. And the voters of the 14th Ward and the neighborhoods he has represented will make a decision about him.”
Emanuel and Burke have had a sometimes rocky relationship. Burke supported Gery Chico over Emanuel in the 2011 mayoral race.
While running for his first term, Emanuel said that “shared sacrifice” in tough economic times could lead to a cut in Burke’s police security detail. When Emanuel got elected, he decreased the size of Burke’s detail, but let Burke remain Finance Committee chairman.