After a weekend of roaring criticism over upheaval at the Chicago Board of Education, with many laying blame at Mayor Brandon Johnson’s feet, the mayor walked into a news conference Monday morning ready to play hardball.
“Every single mayor in the history of Chicago has had the authority to appoint board members to multiple boards,” Johnson said. “Guess who still has that authority? This mayor does.”
And Johnson is not entirely wrong.
Since 1995, Chicago’s mayor has had the sole authority to appoint board members, who then vote on the school district’s CEO, without City Council input.
But a stunning majority of 41 council members are now out with a demand for hearings after all seven of Johnson’s handpicked Board of Education members announced their plans to resign at once. It came after months of acrimony over who — whether the city or Chicago Public Schools — should pay for CPS non-teacher pensions, and Johnson’s effort to fire CPS CEO Pedro Martinez amid the dispute.
Five alderpersons called to convene a special City Council meeting for 2 p.m. Wednesday, where they are requesting that recently resigned board members and Johnson’s new appointees testify on the mass resignation that “threatens to destabilize the fourth-largest school system in the country.”
Here’s what you need to know about what power, if any, the council holds and what avenues it can pursue in an attempt to check Johnson’s authority.
What authority does the City Council have over Chicago Public Schools?
Not much at all. CPS is a so-called “sister agency” of the city, with its own board and budget. And unlike other sister agencies, CPS board appointments don’t require a City Council vote. That structure is written in state law.
“It’s very clear in the state statute that these are the appointments of the mayor. He made his decision,” said Ald. Jason Ervin, 28th Ward and Johnson’s Budget committee chair.
Ervin was one of nine alderpersons who refrained from signing onto a statement calling for a public hearing in the wake of Friday’s mass resignation.
The council does, however, vote on certain types of spending for CPS. Funding for projects like playground improvements, athletic fields, roof repairs and other infrastructure needs regularly comes from special city taxing districts.
Ald. Scott Waguespack, 32nd Ward, said the financial overlap is a reason the City Council should have more oversight.
“There is a big entanglement with … what we vote on to give to CPS,” Waguespack said. “The negotiations, in terms of what they’re getting, [are] important for us.”
The effort by the council to have more say in CPS leadership is not new. In 2022, then-alderperson and mayoral candidate Sophia King attempted to force CPS officials to testify four times a year or else lose financial support from the city. The effort failed.
What are alderpersons pushing for, then?
In the immediate term, a majority of alderpersons want a hearing in order to have “common sense prevail,” said Ald. Nick Sposato, 38th Ward, who wants Martinez to stay on as CPS CEO.
A proposed resolution calling on the former and newly appointed board members to testify before City Council says the district faces a critical choice. It warns of a “return to the days of mismanagement that lead to the state legislature replacing the entire Board” and financial management of the district.
Waguespack said a hearing would allow City Council members to dig into how the six new appointees were vetted, their stances on the fiscal issues facing the district and ultimately give alderpersons and their constituents a venue to air their concerns “that the mayor’s ignoring right now.”
“We’re kind of the last people that are holding the line on ethics here,” Waguespack said, “and our responsibility is to make sure that … we hear from our constituents, and mine are definitely saying they’re very upset with the way this is going.”
Long term, some City Council members say state lawmakers need to step in and provide more oversight. Ald. Gilbert Villegas, 36th Ward, called for the state to step in, floating the idea of a control board or independent arbitrator.
Gov. JB Pritzker’s office said last week it didn’t have the authority to intervene. Meanwhile, state Rep. Ann Williams, D-Chicago, who sponsored legislation that ushered in the forthcoming elected school board, said that while she would “evaluate what additional guardrails may be needed,” legislation allowing for City Council to confirm appointees may not be necessary.
“Obviously, this is only going to apply in the next two years, because after that, there will be a fully elected board. While that’s an intriguing idea, I don’t think we necessarily need state legislation. We can work on building consensus, even without that in place,” Williams told WBEZ, encouraging the mayor to make inroads with City Council members. “We want stability. We want certainty. We don’t want rancor and divisiveness, and unfortunately, that’s how it feels right now.”
Voters will choose 10 members of the elected school board next month, with the new board made up of partially elected and appointed members taking office in January. The looming election renders any new City Council authority state lawmakers may propose unnecessary, Ervin said.
“The process is the process. We’re going to a hybrid board shortly, so it’s a moot point,” Ervin said.
Can the City Council force the mayor or his administration to show up for a hearing?
No. The City Council lacks subpoena power and would simply be requesting the mayor or his administration show up.
“We just don’t have that direct subpoena power like, say, Congress or the New York City Council does,” Waguespack said. “So we really just have to ask and hope that they show up. My guess is that they would not.”
How has the mayor’s office responded to the pushback?
Johnson was defensive Monday as he announced a new slate of board members. He called several questions “disrespectful.”
“City Council can have as many hearings as they want. There’s only one person who has the authority by state law to make appointments, and that’s the mayor of Chicago, and that’s me,” Johnson said.
He dismissed criticisms, like why he was lobbying state lawmakers earlier this year for $2 billion in public subsidies for a new Chicago Bears stadium, as pure politics.
“The moment people begin to take those unnecessary political shots at my administration, you have to question their motives,” Johnson said. “And just for the record, we do need a new Bears stadium.”
An official with the mayor’s office told WBEZ that as of Monday morning, there were no plans for the mayor or anyone from his administration to appear at a potential City Council hearing on CPS. The official painted the attempt for a hearing as a bad-faith effort and noted that the mayor’s office has had sole authority for decades to appoint CPS board members. The official argued that board members resigned of their own volition.
Is this just an attempt to take away power from the mayor?
Since Johnson took office, there have been repeated attempts from some of his strongest council critics to strip power from the mayor. Prior to the past month, a contingent of some of the council’s most conservative alderpersons have led efforts calling for resignations or removals of some of Johnson’s committee chairs and senior aides.
One of Johnson’s closest allies, Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, 25th Ward, has compared those attempts to the era of the Council Wars, a period largely understood as racist pushback to the city’s progressive first Black mayor, Harold Washington, when a contingent of 29 mostly white aldermen revolted against him.
“It is strange, because every mayor has been given the courtesy of selecting their own leadership team,” Sigcho-Lopez said Friday.
But recent efforts to strip Johnson of his executive authority have looked a little bit different than initial pushback to his leadership choices, with council members from a wide range of factions joining in.
Earlier this month, Johnson was unable to secure enough support in the Black Caucus to avoid a rebuke of his power. Alderpersons voted 33-14 to try to allow Johnson’s police chief, instead of the mayor, to sign a contract with ShotSpotter, the controversial gunshot detection technology Johnson eliminated. The fate of that ordinance remains unclear.
The effort for oversight in light of the CPS board drama looks a little bit different, too. It represents perhaps the largest alignment of politically and racially diverse alderpersons thus far. More than a supermajority of the council — 41 of 50 alderpersons — have signed on, with some of Johnson’s top progressive allies adding their names.
“[The] surprise resignation of the entire school board felt like the rug being yanked from underneath our feet,” Ald. Maria Hadden, 49th Ward, wrote in an email newsletter to constituents Saturday. “Our kids, our families and all of the dedicated teachers and staff that make our schools strong need stability, transparency and accountability. We’re not getting it.”
Mariah Woelfel and Tessa Weinberg cover Chicago politics for WBEZ. WBEZ’s Alex Degman contributed to this story.