Brandon Johnson joining crowded race for Chicago mayor

Accusing Mayor Lori Lightfoot of “breaking every single promise she made” to progressive voters, Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson on Thursday will join the crowded field of candidates seeking to deny Lightfoot a second term.

“The hopes and desires of working families have been ignored. … This is what happens when you are not legitimately connected to the progressive movement,” Johnson told the Sun-Times.

“It’s not a surprise to me that she broke those promises because she never believed them from the beginning,” Johnson said, adding: “I don’t break promises.”

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He will be “the bonafide progressive candidate in this race,” he said, with an ability “to organize and collaborate in a way that actually gets us to the type of economic justice that this city needs.”

Johnson, an organizer for a Chicago Teachers Union that has fought Lightfoot at almost every turn, cited the mayor’s about-face on an elected Chicago Public Schools board as one of her broken progressive promises.

She instead tried to block it, then criticized the 21-member board forced upon her by state lawmakers, calling it “unwieldy.”

Johnson’s bill of particulars includes other promises Lightfoot made to reopen shuttered mental health clinics; raise the real estate transfer tax on high-end home sales to create a dedicated revenue to reduce homelessness and create affordable housing; and deliver tax-increment-financing reform.

Then there’s the standoff over whether a car-shredding operation would be allowed to relocate from Lincoln Park to a predominantly Black and Latino area on the Southeast Side.

Lightfoot’s administration initially backed the move, triggering an ongoing federal civil rights investigation. The city health department eventually denied the operating permit.

Johnson slammed “an administration that was willing to set up a toxic waste dump ... where Black folks and Brown folks reside.”

Pressed to identify revenue sources he favors in addition to the real estate transfer tax, Johnson mentioned reinstating Chicago’s $4-a-month-per-employee corporate head tax. Business leaders who complained about that tax weren’t opposed, “they just didn’t like all the paperwork.”

Johnson is the eighth Black mayoral candidate. He joins Lightfoot, retiring City Council members Sophia King (4th) and Roderick Sawyer (6th), state Rep. Kam Buckner (D-Chicago), millionaire businessman Willie Wilson, community activist Ja’Mal Green and Chicago police officer Frederick Collins.

Rounding out the field: former CPS CEO Paul Vallas and Ald. Ray Lopez (15th).

Political observers believe a divided Black vote makes it harder for Lightfoot to win a large enough share to offset expected losses among north lakefront voters who supported her in 2019.

Ald. Jason Ervin (28th), a staunch Lightfoot supporter, has said if the Black community’s vote is divided, it risks “losing it all.”

But King has said she won’t be “bullied” into withdrawing.

Johnson likewise said he won’t be bullied by the threat of a divided progressive vote and will never step aside for U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, D-Ill., though Garcia is far better known than Johnson and forced Rahm Emanuel into Chicago’s first mayoral run-off in 2015.

Supporters have a “Ready for Chuy” website and are circulating nominating petitions with Garcia’s consent.

“Chicago needs a leader who is prepared to move with urgency. ... Working families cannot wait. We cannot wait for schools to be fully funded and resourced, particularly our public neighborhood schools. We cannot wait for a transportation system that allows for students in particular and seniors to ride for free,” Johnson said.

“We cannot wait for this moment to pass us by when it is becoming increasingly harder to live in the city of Chicago.”

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

Johnson enters the crowded field with a pile of cash and a head of steam.

He just got a $1 million contribution from the American Federation of Teachers on top of an earlier $125,000 donation from the group’s Illinois affiliate. He’s been endorsed by United Working Families, his teachers union brethren and independent political groups affiliated with both groups in four Northwest Side wards: the 30th, 33rd, 35th and 39th.

Garcia sent an email to the United Working Families party committee asking the group to defer its mayoral endorsement. It refused because Garcia wouldn’t give them a timeline for his decision.

Still, the CTU endorsement and Johnson’s close ties to the union could be a mixed bag.

Some working parents blame the union for keeping schools closed for 15 months due to COVID-19, causing a loss of student learning documented by recent test scores.

Johnson makes no apologies for the union’s strong stand.

“We wanted to save lives. That’s it. ... The death toll in the Black community and the Brown community was horrific. Anyone that believes that our intentions were anything other than saving lives somehow missed the entire episode of a 100-year pandemic. We did what we had to do,” Johnson said.

At a recent forum hosted by the Northwest Side progressive groups that endorsed him, Johnson said he was “absolutely” committed to freezing the Chicago Police Department’s budget and, instead, investing in “data-proven crime reduction strategies.”

With polls showing violent crime foremost on the minds of Chicago voters, Johnson vowed to launch a year-round, “robust” youth hiring program to “give our young people hope” and steer them away from the fast-money lure of violent street gangs.

He also promised to deliver “fully-funded and resourced” public schools and improve Chicago’s homicide clearance rate by ramping up programs that would allow mental health professionals to respond to the nonviolent situations that comprise more than half of all 911 calls.

“Families deserve justice. … The loss of life in this city is gruesome. But when we’re not solving crimes because law enforcement is being forced to deal with domestic issues that, quite frankly, should be led by social workers and mental health providers — this is what’s causing the rift in our justice system. That’s why I’m gonna be pushing for treatment over trauma,” he said.

At that recent forum — and to the Sun-Times — Johnson said every mayoral administration since Richard J. Daley has had a calculated, deliberate policy to drive down Chicago’s African American population. That includes Lightfoot, he said.

He specifically slammed Lightfoot’s decision to raise bridges to seal off downtown during civil unrest sparked by the 2020 murder of George Floyd.

“We should be building bridges — not raising them,” Johnson said. “Ridiculing Black people for the hardship that we’ve experienced in this city is difficult to hear — especially when it’s coming from another Black person.”

Pressed to explain how Lightfoot has “ridiculed” Blacks, Johnson said: “It’s easy to set up curfews for Black children versus finding jobs for Black children. It’s easy to come up to Black children in playgrounds and shoo ’em away without having a conversation and asking them how they are experiencing this pandemic.”

Veteran political strategist Victor Reyes said Johnson faces an uphill climb to unite and energize progressives, build a multiracial coalition and overcome the potential stigma that could come with being a CTU organizer. Johnson’s promise to freeze the $1.8 billion CPD budget and his claims of a plot to drive African Americans out of Chicago could scare off conservative voters, Reyes said.

Johnson “cannot be overlooked,” Reyes acknowledged, but he added: “Nobody knows who he is. That’s his No. 1 challenge.”

Other candidates are “known commodities,” Reyes added. “Brandon is not. … He needs to spend a lot of money and do a lot of campaigning to let people know who he is.”

If Garcia gets in, Reyes said it “changes the dynamic completely” because “I would assume that CTU and many of the other progressive entities that have supported Chuy in the past would have to re-think their position.”