Chicago
Chicago is the third largest city in the United States. It is also the largest city in the state of Illinois.
History
TODO: learn earlier history!
In 1915, Republican William Thompson was elected mayor. He was openly affiliated with Al Capone and enabled his reign of terror. Black voters were credited with his narrow re-election in 1919. In July, Eugene Williams was murdered on the 29th Street beach; white street gangs then launched a reign of terror known as the 1919 race riot.
1923 was a reformist year. The city council was redistricted and restructured; single member districts with uniform terms replaced the staggered elections of multi-member districts. Democrat William Dever was elected mayor. Capone was forced to flee Chicago, although he easily seized control of Cicero through violence. "On election day, three people were killed, several were kidnapped, many were beaten, and Capone's candidates won." (p. 34). In 1927 however, Thompson was returned over Dever; Capone returned, too.
The Cook County Democratic Committee had historically been dominated by the ethnic Irish plurality. Anton Cermak constructed a multi-ethnic coalition to take control of the party, and won the county board presidency in 1931. Very shortly after, he was elected mayor over Thompson. Cermak is credited with building the political machine that would dominate Chicago for the next half-century. In 1933 however, an assassin aiming for Roosevelt killed Cermak instead. Ed Kelly became mayor and Pat Nash became party chair, effectively re-establishing Irish control over that machine. Note that Kelly was specifically from the neighborhood of Bridgeport. Nash died in 1943, leaving Kelly in unified leadership for several years.
Jacob Arvey, a Democratic alderman and prominent Jewish leader, was made chair in 1946. He coerced Kelly to step aside for the 1947 election, and picked Martin J. Kennelly (also of Bridgeport) instead. Even as Republican candidates swept the city council, Kennelly held the mayoral race. Arvey also picked Douglas for the U.S. senatorial race and Stevenson for the gubernatorial race, both in 1948. Days before the November 1950 elections, the Democratic nominee for county sheriff, Daniel Gilbert, was discovered days before the election to have amassed a fortune through sports betting. Several races that were seen as certain wins, like John Duffy for county board, were dragged into defeat as a consequence. Arvey was also removed as party chair. Notably however, Daley (ward boss of Bridgeport) won the county clerk race. Kennelly became a lame duck mayor in large part because he lost the critical support of William Dawson, ward boss, congressman, and black leader.
Daley was elected chair in 1953 and used that position to ensure that, come 1955, he was party favorite for mayor. Kennelly nonetheless contested the primaries, but we was supported by only 2 ward bosses: Tom Nash (no relation to Pat) and Frank Keenan. He of course lost. Benjamin Adamowski had also contested the nomination, and switched parties afterward. Daley won the election narrowly over Robert Merriam, an alderman who had also just switched parties. As a result of the party's poor performance in 1950, the defections of rival ward bosses in 1955, and Daley's politicking and consolidation in the years between, he was now an uncontested party leader and mayor.
Adamowski won election as state's attorney in 1956. He produced three scandals against the Daley administration:
- Traffic courts were fixing tickets. Policemen took bribes and paid into the machine.
- Municipal courts were refunding posted bail to bondsmen after defendants failed to appear for their hearing. Policemen had de facto partnerships with favored bondsmen and routed defendants accordingly.
- A burglar confessed that the other members of his outfit were policemen.
The last in particular forced Daley to adopt the platform of a reformer. He removed police chief Timothy O'Connor and brought in Orlando Wilson. He allowed Wilson to reform the police, including redrawing the precincts.
The November 1960 elections were marred by massive voter fraud in Cook county. A slow recount began to give evidence that there was very little fixing of national races however, and the Republican Party declined to continue funding it. Adamowski was thus removed from office.
Daley replaced Wilson in 1967 with James Conlisk. In April 1968, following the assassination of King, Daley directed Conlisk to give shoot to kill orders. Police brutality continued to ratchet up, culminating in the police riot outside the Democratic National Convention in August.
Daley died in office in December 1976. Michael Bilandic (also ward boss of Bridgeport) was appointed acting mayor by a wide margin and also won the special election, but in an upset lost the 1979 primary to Jane Byrne. The 1983 primary was expected to be a re-match between her and the old machine, now headed by Daley (of course also of Bridgeport). Instead congressman Harold Washington built a South Side and West Side coalition that won by a substantial margin. His term suffered from constant sabotage by other Democrats. During the eleciton, party chair Edward Vrdolyak threw his support to the Republican Bernard Epton. After the election, Vrdolyak and Ed Burke organized a white opposition in the city council. This period of obstructionism is known as the Council Wars. This culminated with Vrdolyak defecting to a third party to contest the 1987 mayoral election. Washington won and finally centralized his control over the party, but died in office later that year. Eugene Sawyer served the remainder of his term.
Daley defeated Sawyer in the 1989 primary and was elected mayor, returning the machine to power.
Since 1999, mayoral elections are non-partisan and no party primaries are held. In the event that no candidate wins a majority, a run-off is held between the first and second placing candidates.
Daley chose to not contest the 2011 election. Rahm Emanuel won by a wide margin.
The 2019 mayoral race involved 14 candidates; the number of campaigns ballooned after Emanuel dropped out of the race in late 2018. Lori Lightfoot won a surprise plurality, and advanced to the run-off against Toni Preckwinkle. Most of the machine candidates were dragged down by the Ed Burke racketeering scandal. Lightfoot collected the endorsement of almost all of those candidates however, and won the race.
The 2023 mayoral race was also substantially crowded, with Lightfoot placing third after Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson. Johnson jumped to first place in the run-off, becoming mayor.