PHOTO/SARAH JANE RHEE
CHICAGO — In a startling accomplishment on February 24, Jesus “Chuy” Garcia forced incumbent mayor Rahm Emanuel into a runoff, despite Emanuel being endorsed by all major media and nearly every major power source in the city. What does Emanuel really represent?
On December 1, 2014, World Business Chicago (WBC) held a fund-raiser to aid in bringing more corporate investment to the 14 county Chicago area. Six hundred attendees contributed $800,000 and heard an address by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, one of the wealthiest billionaires in the world. Emanuel chairs WBC. Last year he appointed as Vice Chair Michael Sacks, Chairman and CEO of Grosvener Capital Management. Sacks’ corporation donated over a million dollars to Emanuel’s 2011 and 2015 election campaigns, more than any other contributor. Emanuel raised more than $15 million for this election. Millionaire Bruce Rauner, at that time Governor-elect, attended the fund-raiser. After leaving his position in the Clinton administration, Democrat Emanuel earned $17 million in the two years he worked for Republican Rauner. Governor Rauner has been reported as urging millionaire former mayoral candidate Willie Wilson to support Emanuel in the runoff. Mayor Emanuel is Mayor 1%.
Endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union, the Garcia campaign presents an opportunity to draw a clear line about what are the demands of the people of Chicago. The Emanuel administration has repeatedly ignored those demands: he closed a record number of Chicago schools, expanded charter schools, blocked an elected, representative school board, closed mental health clinics, ignored the need for a trauma center on Chicago’s South side, pushed a deceptive minimum wage “increase,” attacked public worker pensions, hid historic examples of police brutality, privatized services and installed an automated traffic ticketing system that many believe is simply a revenue raising ploy. This list represents a definite corporate agenda: public services are no longer necessary for a public that is no longer necessary. Fulfilling the demands of the people requires a society based on cooperation; a society where education, healthcare, and the abundant food, clothing and housing are available to all as needed.
In addition to the mayoral race, 19 of the 50 races for alderman will go to a runoff April 7. For example, in the South Side’s 10th Ward, environmental activist Susan Sadlowski Garza finished second behind pro-Emanuel alderman John Pope on February 24. She has campaigned against dumping petcoke (petroleum coke) in her community. “I believe in a complete ban on petcoke production and storage,” says her campaign web site. Garza has lived all her life in the working-class area of factories, rail yards, harbors and steel bridges. She is an elementary school counselor in Chicago Public Schools and an area vice president of the Chicago Teachers Union. Garza opposes Chicago school closings and turnarounds and supports an elected school board, as do 91.24 percent of 10th ward voters. And she supports “Chuy” Garcia for Mayor.
The Garcia campaign in all the wards, and especially in those where alderman runoffs are posing challenges to Mayor 1%, will teach us lessons about how to rely on the demands of the people while envisioning a new society where no one wants for what we need.
