Brandon Johnson was sworn in as mayor of the nation’s third-largest metropolis Monday at a ceremony attended by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and U.S. Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin.
Johnson, 47, a progressive former union organizer and instructor, gained a good runoff in April in opposition to former metropolis finances director Paul Vallas after Lori Lightfoot misplaced her bid for a second time period as Chicago mayor. The mayoral race targeted largely on public security, taxes and training and was seen as a significant win for progressive teams.
Johnson congratulated the town’s different newly elected officers and shared his imaginative and prescient for the way forward for Chicago.
“Our tales get to succeed in effectively past this second, they do,” he mentioned. “And I am grateful that I can be working with a physique of presidency that’s dedicated to that transformation.”
Who’s Brandon Johnson?
Johnson is a former public college instructor and organizer for the Chicago Lecturers union, which he supported throughout a strike in 2019. He was one among 10 siblings rising up in Cabrini Inexperienced, a former public housing advanced the place he later grew to become a instructor. He is elevating three kids in a neighborhood on the West Aspect that sees a number of the metropolis’s highest charges of gun violence.
“Rising up one among 10 in a working-class household, it teaches you a whole lot of issues, however I by no means might have foreseen this,” Johnson mentioned Monday. “Now, make no mistake about it, that does not imply that I am not ready.”
Johnson was elected as a Prepare dinner County Commissioner in 2018, a place from which he resigned forward of his mayoral inauguration. He was not well-known when he entered the mayoral race in 2022, however his progressive marketing campaign targeted on addressing the basis causes of violence attracted endorsements from U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
Johnson confronted pushback for calling “defunding the police” a “actual political aim” in a 2020 interview. He later clarified his place, saying he would take a “extra holistic method to public security” and wouldn’t “defund the police.”
He promised to advertise 200 Chicago police detectives, strengthen police accountability and work carefully with the town’s new civilian police oversight physique.
He tapped retired police Cmdr. Fred Waller, who’s in style amongst rank-and-file officers, to function interim chief of the Chicago Police Division. Johnson has the ultimate say on the town’s subsequent police superintendent, however for the primary time, an appointed citizen fee will choose three finalists.
Johnson to sort out public security, taxes, migration
Murder charges in Chicago had been falling steadily till they reached a 25-year excessive in 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Homicides decreased final 12 months whereas crimes together with carjackings and robberies elevated.
Johnson mentioned a policing-first method has failed and the town ought to spend money on psychological well being remedy, reasonably priced home and jobs for younger folks as an alternative of policing and incarceration. In his victory speech in April he promised Chicagoans a metropolis “that is really safer for everybody by investing in what really works to stop crime.”
“Too many Chicagoans, although, concern for his or her security and after they stroll down the streets to get groceries and drive to the fuel station as a result of our metropolis’s murder and violent crime charges have constantly outpaced our peer cities,” he mentioned Monday.
He additionally proposed a plan to tax “ultrarich” folks and companies which he says will elevate $800 million. The plan features a per-employee “head tax” on employers and an extra tax on lodge room stays.
Johnson’s proposal to tax monetary transactions would require approval from state lawmakers. Pritzker has indicated he will not help the plan, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Johnson will even have to deal with a rising migrant disaster and an inflow of recent arrivals, which is predicted to extend now that pandemic-era restrictions on migrant crossings have ended. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has bussed in additional than 8,000 migrants to Chicago since August, in accordance with Lightfoot who urged Abbott to cease the follow earlier this month.
Chicago mayoral race:Brandon Johnson elected mayor in shut victory for progressives
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Lori Lightfoot bids farewell
Lightfoot, the town’s first Black lady and first overtly homosexual individual to function mayor, left Metropolis Corridor on Friday in a maroon Cadillac amid cheers from her supporters and members of her administration.
Lightfoot, who has confronted criticism for her dealing with of the instructor’s strike, the pandemic and the 2020 racial justice protests amongst different points, informed reporters she feels assured about her document and accomplishments in workplace.
She mentioned she’s going to give attention to her household shifting ahead and he or she needs Johnson success throughout the transition.
“We have carried out every thing that we might to set him up for fulfillment,” she mentioned Friday. “As I discussed to him earlier than, and I will say it right here, my door’s at all times open for any session that he desires, and I will not even cost him.”
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Contributing: The Related Press
