When Chicagoans chose a paid organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union and rookie Cook County commissioner as their 57th mayor, many knew Brandon Johnson would need to grow into the job.
They were right.
Johnson’s first year in office has been a roller-coaster ride filled with the ups of having delivered on a checklist of progressive promises — and the downs of managing contentious relationships with Gov. J.B. Pritzker, the Illinois General Assembly, the business community and police.
There’s even mounting tension with a City Council emboldened by Johnson’s failure to deliver on his signature promise to secure a new revenue source to combat homelessness.
In an interview with the Sun-Times and WBEZ, Johnson reflected on his “remarkable journey” to the mayor’s office and the very “different trajectory” he followed to get there.
He said he’s proud of fulfilling so many items on his progressive to-do list and described a year of accomplishments tempered by impatience.
“There are frustrating moments that I do have where you … just wish you could address everything at the same time,” Johnson said. “That’s just unfortunately not where we are — just because the damage has been so severe, and it has been so widespread,” especially in “historically marginalized” communities.
Johnson acknowledged he hasn’t made everybody happy, but that comes with the turf.
“If the role of the mayor is to satisfy everyone, then we would not have had 56 prior to me,” he said.
Migrant crisis missteps
From the beginning, Johnson has been dogged by the migrant crisis he inherited. One of his first Council meetings included a cathartic vote on $51 million in surplus funding for the crisis — after a contentious, “us-versus-them” debate that reduced one alderperson to tears.
Johnson’s handling of the crisis telegraphed the freshman mayor’s growing pains. He unveiled plans for a winterized camp at a contaminated Southwest Side industrial site only to have Pritzker reject the idea amid environmental concerns.
The local alderperson, a progressive ally, felt blindsided by the mayor’s plan and was subsequently physically accosted by furious constituents.
The abandoned plan ended up costing Chicago taxpayers nearly $1 million.
But Johnson succeeded in emptying Chicago police station lobbies filled with migrants and returning Chicago Park District field houses to their intended use. He did that by opening brick-and-mortar shelters at a furious pace. At its peak, 27 shelters held more than 14,600 migrants.
“When I stepped into office … you had contracts that were bloated, and it was costing the taxpayers an enormous amount of dollars. ... We’ve transformed all of that. … We’ve saved the taxpayers over $200 million,” Johnson said.
But the biggest shelter in Pilsen was crowded and unsanitary. A 5-year-old boy there died of sepsis, and it later was the epicenter of a measles outbreak.
Alderpersons are now pushing back on the mayor’s 60-day eviction policy — which was delayed three times and already has forced more than 650 people from shelters.
Johnson also stumbled by initially reneging on a deal with Pritzker and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, one of his political patrons, to provide $70 million in additional city funding to support migrants through 2024.
His first budget included just $150 million in funding he knew would last only until April 1. He deliberately lowballed the figure to put pressure on the federal government, but the tactic failed. At one point, he used $95 million in federal stimulus money to slap an end-of-year Band-Aid on the migrant crisis. But that alienated some alderpersons who control spending and were not consulted.
Johnson’s hand-picked chair of the Council’s Immigrant and Refugee Rights Committee has frequently complained about being shut out of conversations about the migrant crisis, including about the mayor’s eviction policy. Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th) eventually strong-armed the administration into publishing regular data on evictions.
“There needs to be some work done, as it relates to transparency and accountability, as well as cooperation and engagement and dialogue with the alders,” Vasquez said. “It’s about figuring out how to engage with everybody.”
Alderpersons’ grievances with Johnson were on full display at the last Council meeting, where they called for the mayor to be more forthright about migrant funding and equal spending on long disinvested communities.
Even after the griping, the Council ultimately passed two of Johnson’s top spending priorities, including $70 million from city reserves for migrant spending to honor the deal with Pritzker and Preckwinkle.
“I know how to count, and both those votes received more than 30 votes from City Council,” said Workforce Development Chair Ald. Mike Rodriguez (22nd). “That sounds like a win to me.”
After closing nearly a dozen shelters amid declining numbers, Johnson said he’s “preparing” for a possible influx of migrants in the run-up to the Democratic National Convention in August. But there are “limitations to what we can do” without more federal help, he said.
Progress on progressive wish list
Johnson’s legislative successes have been impressive.
In the first year alone he has phased out the subminimum wage for tipped workers; pushed through the most generous paid leave policy in the country; reinstated the city’s Department of Environment; and laid the groundwork to reopen two shuttered mental health clinics.
The mayor has also begun to ease the pressure on Chicago police officers by expanding a plan to send mental health providers, instead of police, to nonviolent mental health emergencies.
Johnson kept his promise to put a binding referendum on the ballot that would have authorized the Council to increase the real estate transfer tax to create a dedicated funding source for homelessness prevention. But Chicago voters rejected it, a major defeat widely viewed as a referendum on the mayor’s first year in office.
Mayoral allies in the Council’s Progressive Caucus heard the message loud and clear and vowed to work harder to win voters’ trust and simplify a complicated referendum that many voters didn’t understand.
“Ignoring what those critiques are and thinking that we’re just morally right isn’t going to lead to future wins,” Vasquez said.
At the time, Johnson responded to the defeat with bravado, warning anyone who might assume one defeat would make him put the brakes on his progressive agenda to “buckle up.”
More recently, the mayor won Council approval for a $1.25 billion bond issue, devised by former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, to fund housing and economic development programs. The same goes for Lightfoot’s plan, which Johnson expanded, to transform nearly vacant buildings along La Salle Street into more affordable residential units.
Canceling the city’s contract with the gunshot detection technology company known as ShotSpotter also delivered on a progressive promise. Johnson and his base have long viewed ShotSpotter as a surveillance tool that leads to overpolicing in Black and Brown communities.
But Johnson’s decision was somewhat overshadowed by his delivery. He announced it just days before the contract was to expire, then scrambled to negotiate an extension through the historically violent summer months and the Democratic National Convention.
ShotSpotter and the broken migrant funding promise with Pritzker and Preckwinkle were the subject of a disastrous Feb. 15 news conference showcasing a communication problem dominating Johnson’s first year in office.
He evaded some questions, answered in platitudes and declined to say if he’d walked away from a migrant funding deal with Pritzker and Preckwinkle or nailed down the ShotSpotter extension before announcing a phase-out.
That defining moment in his relationship with the media seems to have led to a course correction. Johnson finally named a permanent communications director in Ronnie Reese, who had essentially filled the role since Johnson took office. Johnson also hired a chief strategy officer, Joe Calvello, who learned the art of being “radically open and honest” while guiding U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., through a difficult campaign dominated by health issues.
The changes appear to have made an impact already, with Johnson taking media questions more often and answering those questions a bit more directly.
Mixed bag for business
Johnson’s aggressive agenda, such as costly mandates on paid leave and the subminimum wage, put him at odds with the business community.
But labor leaders said Johnson also had displayed a willingness to compromise on both issues, even as business groups kept “moving the goalposts.”
“They were looking not to compromise. They’re just looking to stop the policy. And that’s not realistic,” said Chicago Federation of Labor President Bob Reiter, noting similar policies have been adopted by other major cities.
Johnson also appeared to extend an olive branch with recent rollouts of pro-development policies. And his choice of seasoned real estate executive Ciere Boatright as commissioner of Planning and Development also was applauded by the business community.
Besides the La Salle Street plan, the mayor proposed recommendations to cut bureaucratic red tape on business development and revived the long-stalled O’Hare expansion project by hammering out a cost-cutting deal with the major airlines.
Johnson also held the line on city property taxes — though he allowed Chicago Public Schools to boost property taxes to the limit two years in a row.
“It’s been a little bit up and down. Some positives. Some negatives,” Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce President Jack Lavin said of Johnson’s first year, adding there’s “a lot of work to be done to improve communication” and trust between the mayor and the business community.
“He has a tax agenda. We have ideas on how we can grow the economy. And we’re going to have to come together because federal money is drying up. There’s lots of fiscal cliffs and fiscal challenges coming up,” Lavin said. “He’s the mayor. We’ve all got to work together. If the mayor is not successful, Chicago’s not going to be successful.”
With two of four city employee pension funds hovering perilously close to insolvency, Johnson has displayed some financial acumen by continuing a Lightfoot policy of making additional payments. He also appointed a working group to study the $35 billion crisis — which has yet to produce any ideas on solving it.
Goodwill from police is short-lived
Johnson’s choice of Larry Snelling as police superintendent played to rave reviews. A commanding and reassuring presence, he’s already won the support of the demoralized rank and file.
The mayor also extended the police contract and sweetened police raises. But the feel-good period was somewhat short-lived.
He infuriated officers by twice asking Council members to reject an arbitrator’s ruling allowing officers accused of the most serious wrongdoing to bypass the Police Board, taking their cases to arbitration.
“For a Democratic mayor to be so anti-union, it’s pretty breathtaking,” said Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara.
As expected, a judge sided with the union — but agreed to make the arbitration process more public, and that meant the back-to-back Council votes were more than “symbolic,” Johnson said.
Johnson did keep a campaign promise to hire 200 new detectives and free officers for street duty by hiring civilians to perform office jobs. And to the consternation of some progressive allies, he increased the police budget to nearly $1.99 billion.
Still, Snelling told a town hall in Jefferson Park recently that Chicago remains down about 2,000 officers citywide and struggles with low recruitment.
Like Lightfoot, Johnson has devised a plan to get at the root causes of crime. His hyperlocal version focuses on 10 multiblock areas in four neighborhoods: Englewood, Austin, Little Village and West Garfield Park.
Those neighborhoods — plagued by school closings and high dropout rates, while lacking public amenities like parks and libraries — will receive an array of services, including priority in another round of the city’s guaranteed minimum income program.
Johnson has also put a heavy focus on creating more summer jobs and neighborhood recreational opportunities for young people, to give them alternatives to a trend of mass downtown gatherings that have turned violent.
Shootings and homicides are down slightly, but robberies remain stubbornly high. In neighborhoods citywide, Chicagoans continue to feel unsafe, waking up to reports of another wave of strong-armed robberies, store break-ins and carjackings.
Reducing violent crime remains such a priority, alderpersons who believe ShotSpotter is an effective prevention tool have vowed to, perhaps symbolically, defy the mayor and tie his hands on ending the contract.
Johnson plays Council tie-breaker
Twice in the first year, Johnson was forced to cast tie-breaking Council votes: To save his now-ousted Zoning chair and floor leader, Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th), from censure; and to approve a nonbinding resolution for a cease-fire in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
The cease-fire resolution strained Johnson’s relationship with many Jewish leaders and the only Jewish alderperson, Debra Silverstein (50th). Some Jewish elected officials and civic leaders — including the Anti-Defamation League Midwest, state Sen. Sara Feigenholtz and state Rep. Bob Morgan — later declined the mayor’s invitation to a recent meeting meant to ease the tension.
But not supporting the resolution would have diminished his relationships with progressives and Arab Americans. He noted that calling for a cease-fire is in line with his values and several progressive, pro-Palestinian Jewish groups did attend the meeting.
“As far as me calling for peace, I hardly consider that controversial. ... The entire country and people around the world are calling for that. That’s something that we value as residents of the city of Chicago, but it’s also part of our responsibility as global residents that calling for peace and an end to war is a part of our very profound tradition,” he said.
The Chicago area’s large Palestinian community demanded for months that Johnson and his Council majority take a stand, voicing their feelings at numerous raucous Council meetings.
The division caused by the war has spread to college campuses in Chicago and nationwide, foreshadowing the civil disobedience that might occur when Democrats gather here in August to formally nominate President Joe Biden for reelection.
If Johnson is too timid, he risks allowing demonstrators to run roughshod over Chicago. If he allows Chicago police to be too heavy-handed, he runs the risk of civil rights violations and the inevitable comparison to the disaster of the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Johnson’s first chief of staff, Rich Guidice, a seasoned City Hall lifer, was widely expected to serve through the convention, bringing the expertise garnered from guiding Chicago through decades of major events. But Guidice abruptly resigned last month.
The tie-breaking vote that spared Ramirez-Rosa from censure followed his resignation from leadership after apologizing for bullying and threatening colleagues to block a symbolic referendum on whether Chicago should remain a sanctuary city.
Johnson hasn’t named a replacement for Ramirez-Rosa — either as Zoning chair or floor leader. Some Council members are demanding a replacement from the Latino Caucus, but Johnson has yet to find someone he trusts who can also win alderpersons’ support.
Meanwhile, some of Johnson’s progressive supporters said they believe rushing to force Ramirez-Rosa’s resignation went too far, and an apology should have sufficed.
Backing the Bears puzzles progressives
Progressives were also left scratching their heads when Johnson embraced the Bears’ plan for a sprawling domed stadium south of Soldier Field — a project requiring billions of state and federal dollars that haven’t been approved or identified.
When the Bears unveiled their stadium plan, Johnson acted more like a cheerleader than a guardian of taxpayers and protector of precious lakefront parkland.
Asked if the plan violated the city ordinance prohibiting new construction along the lakefront, Johnson referred to the Bears’ promise of increased green space on the Museum Campus. But he failed to mention those additional 14 acres are possible only if the state and federal governments cover all $1.5 billion in infrastructure costs.
Putting the Bears stadium near the top of his legislative wish list contradicts Johnson’s campaign stance. Now, though, Johnson calls Soldier Field a “100-year-old building” — even though it was rebuilt in 2003. Paying off what’s owed on that renovation will drain city coffers unless the debt is refinanced in the new stadium funding package.
“If someone else has another solution that addresses this problem, then they should put that on the table,” Johnson said.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson spoke in favor of the Bears’ stadium plan at Wednesday’s presentation at Soldier Field. The Civic Federation and Friends of the Parks argue that the mayor was acting not as a guardian of the public interest but as a cheerleader for the project.
Pat Nabong/Sun-Times file photo
Every mayor loves a giant public works project. They generate jobs, contracts and political donations and are a feel-good diversion from Chicago’s intransigent problems. Then-Mayor Richard M. Daley had his failed 2016 Olympic bid. Former Mayor Rahm Emanuel had Elon Musk’s high-speed tunnel train to O’Hare Airport.
Johnson’s stadium plan similarly appears to be going nowhere. Springfield has far higher priorities.
“The position he’s taking there … seems to run at odds with his key base of support from progressives. I understand the temptation and desire to put forward a signature project — a legacy project, if you will … But it just seems like an unforced error in the way he rolled it out,” said David Greising, president and CEO of the Better Government Association.
“Unforced errors is sort of a common theme that we are seeing in many respects. … Communication with the public and the press remains lacking,” he said.
At the Bears’ announcement, Johnson was “speaking in platitudes from scripted remarks” and couldn’t “really engage with the questions being asked,” Greising said, which undermined “his ability to earn support from people most affected by the decisions he is making.”
Pritzker did not address the Bears stadium controversy or other points of tension with Johnson, saying instead: “The first year of any administration is often the most challenging, and I commend Mayor Johnson and his team for reaching this milestone.”
Springfield stumbles
A stadium defeat would not be Johnson’s first in Springfield.
Last month, the Illinois House voted 92-8 to approve a bill curbing the power of Johnson’s revamped, hand-picked school board. A Senate committee did the same last week during Johnson’s first Springfield lobbying trip as mayor. The bill would prevent Chicago Public Schools from making any admissions or funding changes to selective-enrollment programs and from closing any schools until a fully elected school board takes control in early 2027.
There was no mistaking the message to Johnson’s board, which wants to prioritize investing in neighborhood schools over choice schools like selective-enrollments. The original bill was amended to extend an existing moratorium on closing all schools, and not just selective schools, after lobbying by the CTU.
Asked what message he took from the vote to tie his hands on an important education issue, Johnson noted it still needs final approval.
“It’s not a law, so nothing has happened,” he said.
Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates (from left), Ald. Lamont Robinson (4th), Mayor Brandon Johnson and Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez address sophomore students in their American contemporary issues class at Kenwood Academy High School on the South Side on the first day of school for the district last August.
Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times file photo
An emotional CTU President Stacy Davis Gates — perhaps reflecting on setbacks like these — told supporters last fall she was “ashamed of myself” for having helped put Johnson — “my brother,” she called him — in “an impossible place.”
Asked recently what made her ashamed, Davis Gates talked about the resistance Johnson had faced during his first year.
“Transformation is happening right now in Chicago and every corner of the city because of his leadership. And that level of transformation either makes you a hero or it makes you a villain,” Davis Gates said. “It’s not lukewarm. It’s either hot or cold, and that is a very precarious position to live in.”
Remaking Chicago Public Schools
As a candidate, Johnson promised to make progressive changes to CPS, and he has.
His revamped board is led by former science teacher Jianan Shi, who also led the parent advocacy group Raise Your Hand for Illinois Public Education. Johnson’s board is filled with others with community-organizing experience.
That board has delivered on a promise to shift away from student-based budgeting that progressives argue exacerbates challenges at schools serving low-income communities and toward a need-based funding model.
But he’s already disappointed some parents by sticking with a plan for a phased-in elected school board instead of delivering that pivotal reform in one fell swoop.
Johnson will also have to find a way to deliver for the schools, parents and his former colleagues at the teachers union without breaking the bank in the CTU contract he is now negotiating. Teachers started out by demanding a 9% raise, or to match inflation, whichever is higher.
“I know what it takes — from a teacher’s perspective, as well as a parent’s perspective and a student’s perspective — to have a more transformational educational experience,” Johnson said. “And that’s what our focus has to be: funding our schools and actually transforming them so that they are fully, fully expressed in an equitable way.”
CPS faces a $391 million deficit for the upcoming school year, not including raises being negotiated for teachers and a 4% raise already promised to support staff. The CTA and other mass transit agencies are facing their own funding cliffs.
That’s another point of contention between Johnson and Pritzker.
The governor and others are demanding a leadership change at CTA before providing any new money. Others want to merge all four Chicago-area mass transit agencies into a single super-agency to reduce costs, improve operations and create a uniform fare system.
Johnson, harshly critical of CTA performance during the campaign, has stuck with embattled CTA President Dorval Carter Jr., no favorite of Chicago alderpersons.
When Pritzker dared demand a leadership change, the mayor replied he alone gets to choose the CTA president, adding, “If people want to be mayor, they should run for it.”
Mayor Brandon Johnson (left) and Gov. J.B. Pritzker sign a piece of glass from the Thompson Center’s siding after a press conference last Monday marking the official start of construction of the renovation of the former state office building, which will become a Google’s new Chicago headquarters. Though they were all smiles at the downtown event, the two Democrats have not always seen eye-to-eye on some issues.
Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times file photo
Room to grow into job
Johnson likes to say he intends to serve for 23 years — long enough to become Chicago’s longest-serving mayor, bypassing Richard M. Daley.
But that will require him to grow and mature in the job and survive many upcoming tests. While his first budget made no real political waves, the second will demand making cuts, raising property taxes or finding new sources of revenue while still chipping away at his commitment to invest in people.
Despite Johnson’s gestures to the business community, Greising said many business leaders he talks to “feel like they still don’t know him, still don’t understand what he’s trying to do and what they can do for him — and still don’t feel heard by him.
“Every successful mayor has found a way to have the business community with him. And this mayor, so far, doesn’t seem to work very hard on that.
“We shouldn’t be all that surprised when we elect someone with his background that there’s a very steep learning curve,” he said. “But … he really needs to invest his effort into growing in those areas where he is falling short. If he doesn’t do that with urgency, then it will be too late.”
Davis Gates acknowledged the growing pains.
“For so long in this city, people who have needed [the most] have been told ‘no,’” she said. Now, after years of “demanding a thing happens, fighting for a thing to happen, protesting, rallying, door-knocking,” progressives are in charge, she said.
“To make things happen, those are different muscles ... The muscles that we have to develop now — not just as a movement, not just as a mayor, but as an entire city — is, No. 1, we’ve got to get more inclusive. We’ve got to figure out how to work past our differences,” she said.
It will take some time for this “new formation that we have in Chicago” to settle in, Johnson said.
“The way these systems have been built, particularly government, they have been built in a very complex way to favor the few,” he said.
“There has been sort of an unfettered access of a handful of powerful people having access to the fifth floor,” the mayor said. “Maybe they’re not used to sharing. And that’s going to take some adjustment.”
More pictures from Mayor Brandon Johnson’s first year
Mayor Brandon Johnson stands beside police Chicago Police Department Supt. Larry Snelling at West Marquette Road and South Lawndale Avenue in West Lawn, where officials and family members unveiled a street sign named in honor of Chicago police officer Andrés Mauricio Vásquez Lasso, Saturday, March 2, 2024. Vásquez Lasso was killed in the line of duty on March 1, 2023 allegedly by Steven Montano, who pleaded not guilty, in the 5200 block of South Spaulding Avenue while Vasquez-Lasso responded to a domestic violence call.
Pat Nabong/Sun-Times file photo
The endorsement of civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson (center) was a big deal for Chicago mayoral candidate Brandon Johnson (right). Here, Johnson helps Jackson get a drink of water during a March 2023 news conference at the offices of Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition on March 17, 2023, where Jackson issued his endorsement.
Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times file photo
