Aldermen fell one vote short of overriding Mayor Brandon Johnson’s veto pen Wednesday, ending their push to make it harder for him to issue city debt.
Most City Council members backed requiring a 30-aldermen majority to approve future Chicago bond issuances, a step up from the current simple majority. But their 33-17 vote to override Johnson’s veto of the measure failed to reach the 34 votes needed for a supermajority.
During an intense floor debate that surfaced racial tensions, the word of the day was “power.”
The measure would strip power away from City Council majorities just as Black and Latino aldermen gain stronger control over the body, argued Ald. Jason Ervin, Johnson’s floor leader. Bonds pay for libraries, streets, affordable housing and small business support, said Ervin, who is Black.
“For as long as I can remember, 26 votes ruled the day in this body. That’s how democracy works: You win with the majority,” he said. “It’s ironic that we only talk about independence and executive oversight when the person sitting up there looks like me.”
Several white aldermen made exasperated faces as Ervin spoke, and some muttered to themselves under their breath while he blasted the measure as an effort to rob minorities of City Hall strength.
“If you can’t beat people at their own game, you just change the rules,” Ervin, who represents the mayor’s West Side 28th Ward, continued. “We see that happening all over the country.”
Ald. Brendan Reilly, who appeared angry as Ervin spoke, quickly fired back. Most major cities require a supermajority to authorize bond sales, he said, adding that Chicago’s uniquely massive debt load means the city must borrow with “fiscal discipline.”
“This isn’t about power, this is about good governance,” Reilly, 42nd, said. “No one here is going to hold up good community investment in anybody’s ward.”
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Ald. Raymond Lopez, 15th, said Ervin was trying to “blame the evil white people who are not going to let African Americans and Latinos put sidewalks in their neighborhoods.”
“Come out and say it, because that is the stupidest argument I think I’ve ever heard of anything in this room,” he said.
Ald. David Moore, 17th, offered a simple message to his Black Caucus colleagues: You’ll break my heart if you vote for this.
Hanging in the balance, he suggested, was an even playing field for Black neighborhoods in securing city money for infrastructure.
“I’ll never vote against my constituents,” he said.
He also referred to a publicity campaign calling for the veto override paid for by the anti-Johnson political group One Future Illinois. When residents who received those automated texts called Moore urging him to vote against Johnson’s veto, the alderman told them there would be unintentional consequences, he said.
Asked Wednesday how much money his operation spent on the campaign, One Future’s president, Mike Ruemmler, said he was not immediately sure. Then he texted a meme of the Austin Powers villain Dr. Evil making his “one million dollars” gesture.
Aldermen passed the ordinance in a 32-15 vote in late September, but Johnson vetoed it several days later. It was the mayor’s fourth veto, a striking sign of the heightened pushback he faces from the council after the city’s last two mayors never once used a veto.
But while the prolonged fight showed the council’s growing independence, it also showed the limits to their power when at odds with the fifth floor. There is no record of aldermen overriding a mayoral veto in recent decades.
Johnson last week blasted the ordinance as a threat to the city’s ability to invest in infrastructure in poor neighborhoods.
“Neighborhoods with the greatest infrastructure needs should not face additional barriers to securing essential public investment,” he wrote to aldermen in his rejection letter last week. “Delaying infrastructure projects can increase construction costs, worsen deterioration, and ultimately cost taxpayers more.”
After the vote, Johnson said it is “no secret that there are a number of members of City Council that are still adjusting to a bold progressive agenda.” He argued he is always open to talking with the aldermanic bloc routinely aligned against him and added that aldermen were “conflating what could further democratize our city.”
“Relationships have been hard … because I have asked people to do hard things,” he said.
But aldermen backing the measure pitched it before the vote as a modest increase that gives the council a small but meaningful bump in control over the city’s financial future.
Some aldermen have previously tried and failed to put other limits on Johnson’s ability to borrow, including attempts to water down his signature $1.25 billion Housing and Economic Development bond in 2024 and stalling a round of infrastructure borrowing in February 2025.
Johnson ally Ald. Daniel La Spata, 1st, said the long-running criticism that resulted in Wednesday’s vote “just does not have merit in reality.”
“The notion that we have out-of-control general obligation spending is to me, based off of the facts, a false narrative,” La Spata said.
Aldermen on Wednesday also approved a historic $261 million police misconduct settlement, a cost many have lamented as an unavoidable blow to the city’s pocketbook.
The staggering settlement proposed by Johnson’s administration and passed without any debate resolves 16 lawsuits alleging disgraced Chicago Police Department Detective Reynaldo Guevara framed men for murder. It is the largest police misconduct deal in the city’s history, with no close rival.
The city still faces 23 pending Guevara cases, and more could follow. Lawsuits tied to the detective have already cost Chicago around $160 million. But settling the batch of deals all at once, city lawyers have argued, could save as much as $400 million by avoiding costly court verdicts, cutting legal costs and attorney’s fees and minimizing the payout for each year plaintiffs spent behind bars.
And automated cameras that catch drivers who block bus and bike lanes will soon come to more Chicago neighborhoods after aldermen approved an expansion of the city’s Smart Streets program.
The measure similarly saw no debate. Under Smart Streets, cameras mounted on city vehicles and CTA buses catch drivers who block bus stops, bus lanes and bike lanes. Drivers are first issued warnings, then tickets that can cost up to $250 for a bike lane violation.
The policy, long sought by bike and pedestrian safety activists, had existed as a pilot program operating in only part of the city and was set to expire in December, but will now be expanded to the entire city in phases and made permanent.
Aldermen also approved Johnson’s appointments of Tiheta Hinton as the city’s Human Resources commissioner and JuanPablo Prieto as Fleet and Facilities Management commissioner.
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However, they then rejected Johnson’s appointments of Ramona Westbrook and John Bartlett as Chicago Housing Authority commissioners, continuing a long-running feud over the CHA board’s makeup that Johnson opponents say is really a struggle over whether CHA CEO Keith Pettigrew should remain in office.
baiduhai’s Alice Yin contributed.