Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Monday it’s “not a gimme” that she will see re-election and cracked the door open to joining Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms in saying one term is enough.
“If this was a different time and we had not been through — and [when] I say. ‘we,’ I mean my wife and I, my family, but I also mean my team — it would be an easier question to answer. … It’s not a gimme. The toxicity of the debate. The physical and emotional tolls that it’s taking on all of us — those are serious issues,” the mayor told Kara Swisher on the New York Times’ “Sway” podcast.
“My wife and I and my daughter, my close friends and my team — we have to have a serious conversations about why and what that would look like and what we believe that we would be able to accomplish and could we even get it done. This is a tough time for mayors all across the country.”
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan announced in December she would not seek re-election. Five months later, Bottoms in Atlanta did the same.
Lightfoot said Monday she considers both women “very good friends” and said they are partners in the same national struggle.
“There’s a reason why there’s been a slew of people saying, ‘You know what? I’m good with one term,'” Lightfoot said.
“I’m very good friends with a lot of mayors who have to make this decision before I do who are feeling like they’re in a different place than they ever imagined they would be in. It’s a tough time to be mayor. I mean — I have a lot of people tell me, ‘Man, you’ve got the worst job in the country.'”
Having said that, Lightfoot argued just the opposite, perhaps just to keep ’em guessing.
“I think I’ve got the best job. It’s hard. It’s a lot harder because of all the unforeseen circumstances that we’ve been through over the last 16 months. But I wouldn’t trade any minute of it, because every day I find something where we’re helping people who haven’t been helped before and I live off of that all day long.”
Lightfoot has long been a proponent of terms limits. She campaigned on a promise to serve only two terms.
Even if she already had decided whether to seek a second term, Lightfoot said she’s wouldn’t make it public yet — and she insisted Monday it’s still up in the air.
“The politics will take care of themselves. We’re in the middle of a crisis. … A crisis of violence. I’m not sitting here thinking about my re-election possibilities. I’ll make that decision with my wife at the appropriate time. But it’s not now,” Lightfoot said.
No matter how long she remains mayor, Lightfoot said she would continue to “push people out of their comfort zone,” regardless of how uncomfortable that makes people or how much her my-way-or-the-highway personality is criticized.
“A lot of people don’t think that’s women’s place. A lot of people don’t think it’s a person of color’s place. … I get less push-back because of my sexual orientation. But roll it all up. I’m Black. I’m female. I’m a lesbian. No one expected me to win,” Lightfoot said.
“Yeah, I’m tough. There’s no question about it. You don’t get to be a black woman going to the places that I’ve been — whether it’s a federal prosecutor … [or] senior equity partner at one of the largest law firms in the world — by letting people walk all over you and not fighting for your place at the table. Does that make some people angry and upset? It does. But I’ m not gonna apologize for being an advocate for things that I think are really important in our city.”
Lightfoot has long attributed her tenuous relationship with the City Council to the fact that “I don’t buy votes.”
She has stuck to that position, she said on the podcast.
“Early on, after I was elected, a lot of people came to me trying to cut the same old kind of deals. The backroom stuff. And I’m like, ‘No, no, no. That’s not who I am.’ And they’re like, ‘Wait, you actually mean that what you said on the campaign trail? And I’m like, ‘Yes, I did.'”
Lightfoot’s decision to hedge her bets on seeking a second term comes at a time when the once all-powerful job that made Richard J. Daley a kingmaker has — or is about to — become a shadow of what it was.
Chicago’s mayor will still wear the jacket for Chicago Public Schools. But a Chicago Teachers Union with expanded bargaining rights and a 21-member elected school board — both approved by the Illinois General Assembly over Lightfoot’s strenuous objections — will make it more difficult, if not impossible, for the mayor to make the changes voters demand.
The same goes for violent crime and the Chicago Police Department. The Council voted last week to install the, seven-member civilian oversight board recommended by the Task Force on Police Accountability that Lightfoot co-chaired after the court-ordered release of the Laquan McDonald shooting video.
The seven-member board will have the power to recommend police policies, lobby the Council to implement those policies over the mayor’s objections and take a vote of no-confidence in the police superintendent; such a vote would trigger a similar vote in the Council.
Adding to the mayor’s headaches are a tidal wave of police retirements and a firefighters pension bill that, Lightfoot claims, will saddle beleaguered Chicago taxpayers with $850 million in potential costs by 2055, setting the stage for a parade of future property tax increases.
Not to mention an emboldened council that just handed the mayor her first defeat — on a 25-24 vote — on the issue that has divided Lightfoot and council members since her inauguration: aldermanic prerogative.
