Chicago's Mayor Brandon Johson is already considered the worst mayor in Chicago history. His approval rating is at 25%. He's made enemies of the media, the city council, labor, management, and even the radical left.
The only group that still supports him is the Chicago Teachers Union. The CTU elected Johnson in one of the most jaw-dropping displays of union power in any big city in recent history.
Now comes the payoff. The CTU is negotiating a new contract that promises to be worth about $10 billion over the three-year life of the deal.
CTU wants massive pay raises, stipends and additional personnel – all of which are within the traditional scope of bargaining. It also wants the city to create new housing, levy new taxes, construct new parking garages, undertake new environmental initiatives, divest pension funds from fossil fuels, fully fund infertility and abortion care for members, subsidize weight-loss surgery and drugs such as Ozempic, add new members to the bargaining unit, offer free CTA passes for all students and employees, among many other things.
Johnson appears to be out of his depth. His press conferences are exercises in grievance-mongering, a fact not lost on Chicago Tribune cartoonist Scott Stantis.
On point art from Chicago Tribune cartoonist Scott Stantis. pic.twitter.com/GdoXJU62wb
— LizaM (@gotchatheregrin) October 9, 2024
"This is not a guy charting a course, but someone reacting to the chaos going on around him, much of his own making. He isn’t building bridges, but burning them," wrote Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg.
When a reporter asked Johnson at a press conference this week if he really wanted to go to London for a Bears game this weekend when the city is in crisis on all fronts, Johnson blew up at the reporter: “It’s disrespectful and condescending that the Black man is going to London for a game. It’s disrespectful. It is. The governor went to Tokyo to attract business. And I’m going to London to attract business.”
“And while I’m there, I’m going to root for the Chicago Bears," he said a short time later.
Johnson is a pressure cooker of boiling grievance. Someone asked him about the ruinous cost of his plan for Chicago Public Schools to take out a short-term, high-interest loan to cover a pension payment and a new teacher contract. His response was to damn the “so-called fiscally responsible stewards” for “making the same arguments” as antebellum slaveholders.
That loan is economically unfeasible. The $300 million loan would cost the city $700 million due to Chicago's junk bond rating. And his effort to push the loan resulted in the entire Chicago school board resigning rather than knuckling under to Johnson's strong-arm tactics in trying to get rid of Chicago Public School CEO Pedro Martinez, who opposed his fiscally irresponsible plan.
“I’m the mayor of Chicago, you all, I’m the mayor of Chicago," Johnson repeats like a mantra, as if that's enough of an explanation for his misdeeds.
The Chicago Tribune wrote a scathing editorial in the form of an address to Johnson.
Your being mayor of Chicago does not instantly render all criticism of the officeholder racist. Being mayor of Chicago does not mean that anyone daring to question your actions should have to sit there and be accused of being some walking remnant of the Confederacy. When so insulted, reporters are not in a position to be able to easily answer back.
Mr. Mayor, when you said, “I’m trying my best to keep composure for these last 15 months,” did it not occur to you that the same could be said of the citizens you serve?
The teachers will get their $10 billion contract. They paid for it already by electing Johnson. Johnson's new school board will make sure the $300 million loan goes through. But how he and the city council are going to close the billion-dollar budget gap without declaring bankruptcy is a trick many Chicagoans are anxious to see.
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