USA TODAY International Edition
Chicago’s Emanuel works on a comeback
Brassknuckles politician is racking up some wins after a tough year
Nearly 11 months after CHICAGO hitting his political rock bottom, Rahm Emanuel is showing signs of life.
The mayor’s standing with Chicago residents was battered after the court- ordered release last November of video of the police shooting death of 17- year- old Laquan McDonald.
His bad situation was exacerbated by violent crime skyrocketing in the nation’s third- largest city, with Chicago recording more than 500 murders already this year — more than New York and Los Angeles combined. And it didn’t help that the city, with nearly $ 34 billion in unfunded liabilities to its various pension systems, has seen its financial situation erode as it holds one of the worst credit ratings of big municipalities in the country.
But all of a sudden Emanuel is catching some breaks.
Last week, Emanuel sealed a last- minute, four- year contract with the Chicago Teachers Union that helped him avert a strike. He got the union to agree that for future hires the city would end the longtime practice of contributing 7% of teachers’ salaries to their pension.
The breakthrough with the union followed the Standard & Poor’s credit agency upgrading Chicago’s dismal financial out-
look. S& P raised its outlook from negative to stable after the city pushed through a 29.5% tax on water and sewer tax bills to help stabilize one of the four pensions.
Hours after striking the deal with the teachers union last week, Emanuel unveiled a $ 9.8 billion budget that was free of any major tax hike and was praised as a “good- news budget for the city” by the head of the Civic Federation, the Chicago government watchdog.
“Five years ago, Chicago was on the financial brink,” Emanuel declared in his budget address, which had hints of a politician eyeing a third term. “Today, Chicago is back on solid ground.”
The signs of a political rebound for Emanuel, who declined requests for comment, comes as the city next month will mark the anniversary of the release of the chilling McDonald video, which set off weeks of protest in the city and spurred a Justice Department investigation, the firing of police superintendent Garry McCarthy and Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez being voted out of office.
Emanuel, like McCarthy and Alvarez, faced calls for his resignation as his popularity cratered, but he vowed to stay on to overhaul the department.
After announcing plans late last month to bolster the city police department by 970 sworn officers and offering mentoring to more than 7,000 young men in the city’s most violent neighborhoods, Emanuel saw his approval rating surge to 44%, according to a poll conducted by the Chicagobased firm Victory Research.
Although he’s still under water with voters more than two years ahead of the next election — he has not yet said whether he’ll seek re- election in 2019 — the poll marks a significant shift in political fortune for the mayor who saw his approval rating sink to 18% in a poll conducted by the Chicago firm Ogden & Fry in December.
Since the video’s release, the Emanuel administration has made it police department policy to release all police shooting videos within 60 to 90 days of an incident.
Earlier this month, the administration proposed a new use of force policy for officers, and recently launched mandatory de- escalation training for cops as part of an effort to re- duce incidents when deadly force is used.
The City Council also approved an Emanuel- backed proposal to create an agency — the Civilian Office of Police Accountability — to replace the muchmaligned agency currently charged with investigating police shootings and allegations of major misconduct by cops.
Some critics of the mayor say his standing in the African- American and Latino communities, which collectively account for about two- thirds of the city’s population, remains woefully low.
“In spite of the strike being averted, in spite of the steps being taken toward reform in the police department, there’s been disinvestment in the neighborhoods that has and continues to drive the violence,” said Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, a Cook County commissioner who lost to Emanuel in a runoff election for mayor last year. “Until he’s addressed that issue meaningfully, he’s going to have problems in the African- American and Latino communities.
“The city’s changed significantly. People’s mind- set and awareness have been heightened.”