Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson delivers remarks at his election night party after defeating Paul Vallas in the mayoral runoff election on Tuesday, April 4, 2023, at the Marriott Marquis in Chicago. (Vashon Jordan Jr. / Brandon for Chicago)
Chicagoans had the opportunity to elect a new mayor who made curbing the city’s crime a pillar of his plans. Instead, they chose Brandon Johnson, who promises even more of the policies that have made parts of the city unliveable. Charles Lipson explains in Spectator World:
Virtually all of Brandon Johnson’s funding and his legions of campaign workers came from the Chicago Teachers Union, plus several other public-sector unions. Those union friends went door-to-door singing his praises and putting up campaign signs all over town. It was a very effective strategy.
Such assistance from public-sector unions is legal, but why is it corrupt in a larger sense? Because public-sector unions are fundamentally different from private-sector ones. They help elect the very officials who will, in turn, reward them with favorable contracts. That’s not true in the private sector, where union negotiators sit on the other side of the table from management. They have some common interests, of course, which become the basis for new contracts. But the two sides are basically at odds over wages and working conditions. And, of course, unions have no say in choosing the corporate management that will negotiate with them.
It’s not just that public-sector unions feed from the public trough. They also help choose the people who will negotiate with them. Those elected officials know who put them there. That means Brandon Johnson won’t be sitting on the opposite side of the table from the CTU or other Chicago city unions. He’ll be sitting on the same side. That’s partly because he shares their left-wing ideology. But even more, it’s because he owes his election to their dollars and hard work. They picked him and helped get him over the finish line. His chances of reelection depend on their continued support. Not surprisingly, they expect him to deliver what they want. His only constraint is the city’s overstretched budget.
The one union that staunchly opposed Johnson was the Chicago police. Their support for Vallas presents exactly the same problems as the CTU’s support for Johnson, though the CTU was far more effective in practice. Why did the police favor Vallas? Because Johnson was a vocal support of the “defund the police” movement at its apex (the aftermath of the George Floyd killing and another in Chicago that rightly received lots of local attention). Johnson downplayed those positions in the latest contest, but it was clear that he wants much tighter constraints on policing and much more lenient treatment of accused criminals. Although Chicago voters overwhelmingly told pollsters that crime was their leading issue, they voted for Johnson and will have to live with the results.
Johnson represents a clear victory for the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wing of the Democratic Party and for the role of public-sector unions within it. The national implications are clear. And the implications for those who live in Chicago are huge.
Read more here.
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