Should City Seek Compensation For Midway Blitz? 7 Ballot Referendums Advanced By Council

CITY HALL — Alderpeople on Thursday advanced numerous advisory referendum questions to appear on the ballots of Chicago voters during the Nov. 3 and Feb. 27 elections, although they must still win full City Council approval.

The council can select up to three non-binding referendums per election that will then appear on ballots alongside candidates for office. The questions are often broadly-worded, although they’re also used as a way to capture public opinion and draw political support for various issues.

The referendum questions approved by the City Council’s rules committee on Thursday range from whether the city should seek compensation stemming from federal immigration enforcement fallout to bringing back gunshot detection technology and creating a dedicated festival grounds.

The committee barely discussed the merits of the proposals. Instead, several alderpeople used parliamentary maneuvers to block questions proposed by Mayor Brandon Johnson, who had introduced them directly to the committee on Thursday rather than at a previous full City Council meeting.

That decision sparked immediate pushback from several of the mayor’s council opponents, with Ald. Anthony Beale (9th) calling it an “abuse of the rules.” Two of Johnson’s three proposed ballot measures were blocked, while one — which was also pitched through a direct introduction — was approved.

The rules committee ultimately advanced four questions for the November election, although the full City Council — which next meets Wednesday — will have to further narrow that down to three.

The questions advanced by the committee for the Nov. 3 election are:

• Whether Chicago should pursue reimbursement in federal funding for the costs and lost tax revenue from “the Donald Trump administration’s violent, militarized ICE operations” including during Operation Midway Blitz (pitched by Johnson)
• Whether Chicago should create a permanent festival and outdoor event space for large-scale events (Ald. Nicole Lee)
• Whether Chicago should restart use of a gunshot detection technology system, such as ShotSpotter (Ald. Marty Quinn)
• Whether Chicago should make its legally-required contributions to city pension funds in the first-quarter of every year “to reduce long-term debt” (Ald. Samantha Nugent)

The committee members also approved three questions for the Feb. 27 municipal election, when Chicagoans will vote for mayor, alderpeople and city clerk and treasurer.

Those questions are:

• Whether Chicago should withhold funding from sister agencies, such as the CTA or the Park District, that do not “enforce debt repayment plans for outstanding debt owed” to the city (Ald. Gilbert Villegas)
• Whether Chicago should create a permanent monument celebrating the city’s contributions to music and the arts (Nugent)
• Whether the City Council should establish and fully fund its own independent legal counsel separate from the city’s Law Department (Ald. Brendan Reilly)

The two questions pitched by Johnson that were rejected by alderpeople included whether Chicago should impose a “3 percent surcharge” on people making more than $1 million a year to fund education and public safety initiatives, as well as if the city should create a property tax relief fund for homeowners experiencing rising property taxes.

Another ballot question proposed by Ald. Matt Martin (47th) over whether the city should adopt ranked-choice voting for its elections was re-referred to committee, and will not appear on the November or February ballots.

After the meeting, Martin said he plans to push to get the question on a ballot “at the earliest next opportunity.”

Alderpeople were less than thrilled with how the referendum question process played out on Thursday. Midway through the meeting, Ald. Jason Ervin (28th) asked if a decision on the questions for the February election — still seven months away — could be delayed, but that request was rejected.

After votes were taken, Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th) called the meeting a “circus,” and said the council needs to create a specific timeline and system for approving ballot questions — rather than the ad hoc one that played out on Thursday.

“It’s clear that everyone’s got different motives as to why they put questions on, and because there isn’t a specified timeline of when we talk this through, you end up with a circus like we saw today,” he said.

And in a blistering statement, a Johnson spokesperson said the alderpeople who moved to block the mayor’s referendum questions “chose to shield powerful special interests instead of standing with working people.”

“They chose to deny Chicagoans a voice, reviving Machine-era traditions of keeping the public out of decisions that directly affect their lives in lieu of ballot questions that are moot and do nothing to address the real challenges our residents face,” the statement said.