New compromise in works for police oversight
It’s the latest delay in the long-running effort between the city and activists
Grassroots police activists and Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Friday they will keep negotiating on a deal to establish civilian oversight of the Chicago Police Department, the latest delay in the long-running effort.
After years of often acrimonious negotiations, the two sides announced just before aldermen were set to again consider their competing plans that they would instead spend the next few days trying again to agree on a single proposal.
South Side Ald. Roderick Sawyer, 6th, a co-sponsor of the grassroots effort, struck an optimistic tone in asking the Public Safety Committee to wait until next week.
“We’re going to be working through the weekend to get what we will believe to be, still, the most comprehensive ordinance in the United States of America, as relates to police oversight,” Sawyer said.
Northwest Side Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, 35th, another co-sponsor of the grassroots plan, said the two sides “are closer than we’ve ever been before.”
“But there’s still a lot of ground to cover,” he said.
The competing ordinances the mayor and activists submitted diverged on how much power citizens would have over the department.
The Empowering Communities for Public Safety coalition plan calls for a public referendum on creating a civilian board with the power to remove the police superintendent. Supporters tried unsuccessfully in the Public Safety Committee last month to remove that language to make the full package more palatable to more aldermen.
They also want a civilian board with the authority to hire and fire the head of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, set Police Department policy and present a vote of no-confidence in the police superintendent to the City Council.
Lightfoot’s current ordinance gives the civilian board much less power and more of an advisory role.
A potentially serious sticking point in a deal is Lightfoot wanting the power to veto police policy decisions adopted by a civilian oversight board.
Overriding the mayoral veto would require a two-thirds City Council vote, according to the compromise language, a tough hurdle to clear and one that could still be a deal breaker for members of the grassroots coalition who want to give Chicago residents much more power over the department.
But with their separate ordinances failing to gain enough traction in the increasingly fractious council, Lightfoot and the ECPS coalition will continue to work on it.
Lightfoot put out a statement Friday reiterating her commitment to “passing a comprehensive, effective, and workable form of civilian oversight,” and said she’s encouraged by the current status of negotiations.
“Recently, there has been significant progress made between relevant stakeholders and I look forward to continuing the conversation over the weekend in an effort to reach consensus on a path forward.,” the mayor said.
The Public Safety Committee recessed until 5 p.m. Tuesday. If a police oversight ordinance passes the committee, the full council could consider it Wednesday morning.
Any deal will face significant pushback. Southwest Side Ald. Raymond Lopez, 15th, said asking the committee to consider such a monumental piece of legislation within hours of the full council convening next week to potentially pass it “is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
And Northwest Side Ald. Nick Sposato, 36th, said he’s worried a new version the mayor and activists agree upon this weekend will contain significant changes aldermen will have little time to digest before the committee reconvenes. Sposato argues there’s already enough Police Department oversight.
With trust between activists
and the Lightfoot administration in short supply and several different aldermanic factions pushing their own agendas on the controversial issue, the agreement could still fall apart.
But a negotiated package could be the best chance to pass something after several false starts in the council.
The proposed deal comes after both Lightfoot’s ordinance and the grassroots ordinance stalled in the Public Safety Committee last month.
Supporters of each withdrew their plans then rather than see them get defeated, as Sposato and other conservative, pro-police aldermen pledged to vote against both,
progressives opposed the mayor’s idea and Lightfoot allies came out against the grassroots proposal.
The mayor, meanwhile, needs to show some progress on the issue. She pledged to present a civilian oversight plan within 100 days of taking office in 2019 but then backed off on that deadline, saying it was more important to get it right.
Even if the committee votes in favor of the compromise version, opponents could use a parliamentary maneuver to temporarily block it from a council vote.
“Recently, there has been significant progress made between relevant stakeholders and I look forward to continuing the conversation over the weekend in an effort to reach consensus on a path forward.”
— Mayor Lori Lightfoot