Mayor Pete Buttigieg speaks Nov. 1, 2019, at the Democratic Party Liberty and Justice Dinner in Des Moines. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)
Chicago top cop David Brown was among a group of law enforcement officials and others meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House today to talk about the federal government’s plan to stem the surge in violence in cities around the country.
He arrived in the nation’s capital on the heels of another violent weekend here: 47 shot, 10 killed.
On Twitter, Brown made it sound like an important meet-and-greet. The president trod well-traveled ground, discussing his crime-fighting plan released in June and urging states to spend some of the $350 billion in COVID-19 relief money on additional staffing and overtime for local police departments, the president told reporters.
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg will be in Chicago on Friday to tout Biden’s $1.2 trillion roads and bridges infrastructure plan, which has drawn bipartisan support in principle. But a Republican vs. Democratic battle looms on financing The American Jobs Plan, as it is known.
Southwest Side and suburban congresswoman Marie Newman will be with Buttigieg when he visits. She and most of Illinois’ Democratic congressional delegation, along with U.S. Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin, sent a letter to Buttigieg last month asking him to come to Illinois and tour a veritable buffet of “transportation assets” and discuss some of the local wish list plans. Among them? Funding for Metra express service from O’Hare International Airport to Union Station.
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And two years after U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont rallied with the Chicago Teachers Union during its strike, the former Democratic presidential candidate is showing “solidarity” with the 2,000 Cook County workers who have walked off the job after contract negotiations stalled over pay and benefits. (H/T Alice Yin)
On Saturday, Sanders took to social media where he called it “outrageous” that the county got $1 billion via the American Rescue Plan but “refuses to negotiate a fair deal” for workers.
The spotlight on the strike puts more heat on Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle. It’s up to her team to hammer out a deal with leaders of the Service Employees International Union Local 73, the same union that endorsed her losing bid for Chicago mayor in 2019.
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President Joe Biden, second from left, hosts a meeting in the White House on July 12, 2021, with (clockwise from left) Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser, Wilmington Police Chief Robert Tracy, Newark Police Lt. Anthony Lima, Domestic Policy Council Director Susan Rice, White House counsel Dana Remus, Deputy Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs Gabe Amo, Chicago police Superintendent David Brown, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Memphis Police Chief C.J. Davis and others about reducing gun violence. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
David Brown at the White House talking crime-fighting with Biden
Chicago police Superintendent David Brown was among a small group of top law enforcement officers at the White House today to meet with Biden. Others at the meeting included Memphis Police Chief C.J. Davis, Lt. Anthony Lima of the Newark, New Jersey, police, and Chief Robert Tracy of the Wilmington, Delaware, Police Department. Elected leaders and others were also on hand, The Associated Press reports.
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After the meeting, Brown told reporters in Washington the president “expressed some concern regarding a sense urgency to do something now, and not just to discuss the problem but to find solutions that we all could bring to the table - that we could do almost immediately.”
During today’s meeting Biden said it was important to support local law enforcement, and highlighted funding available through the rescue plan. He talked about hiring police and paying them overtime, and investing in community policing, according to a White House pool report.
“We know when we utilize trusted community members and encourage more community policing, we can intervene before the violence erupts,” Biden said.
He also stressed the importance of mental health programs and job training for young people, at one point speaking of the need to “support young people to pick up a paycheck instead of a pistol.”
His comments address some of what people see as his weaknesses, according to a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll and analysis. The poll found many believe “Joe Biden is underwater in trust to handle” the uptick in crime. In addition, the majority of those polled said they favored alternative crime-fighting methods.
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Republicans across the nation have pointed to surging crime in Democratic-controlled cities like Chicago as an example of soft-on-crime policies run amok.
Last month Biden announced a crime-fighting plan, including setting up federal strike forces in Chicago and elsewhere to stem the flow of firearms by holding gun dealers accountable for violating current law.
Shootings and killings have surged across the nation since the start of the pandemic, including in Chicago. Brown has become a lightning rod for controversy by blaming what he says is a lenient Cook County judicial system that puts dangerous criminals back on the streets. Experts have pushed back on that theory, holding up the data that they say proves he’s wrong.
The president also said that the purpose of the meeting was to hear from local officials about crime-fighting tactics that have worked in their community.
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, right, and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., talk before the start of a news conference in New York on June 28, 2021. Buttigieg toured a century-old rail tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey as a long-delayed project to build a new tunnel gains steam. (Seth Wenig/AP)
Buttigieg, on the road to promote Biden’s infrastructure plan, set to stop in Chicago Friday
Transportation Secretary Buttigieg is traveling the country to promote his boss’s American Jobs Plan and will make a stop in Chicago on Friday.
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U.S. Rep. Marie Newman said in a statement that she’s happy Buttigieg has responded to the invitation and that she and other elected leaders want to show him “first-hand how the American Jobs Plan will not only create more efficient roads and railways in Chicago’s communities but also bring much-needed economic development and new good-paying, union jobs.”
Biden and members of his cabinet have been traveling the country to promote the infrastructure plan as well as other facets of the president’s agenda. The president was here last week to talk up his infrastructure plans. Buttigieg has traveled to numerous states including New York, Tennessee and North Carolina.
According to ABC News, Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, said last month he was “itching to get on the road since Day One.”
Having a member of the president’s cabinet visit a community to talk up a program lends some muscle to that program. “You represent the administration and the president, writ large. It’s a way to let people know that they’re important,” he said. More here.
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U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, then a presidential candidate, appears at a rally at the Chicago Teachers Union headquarters on Sept. 24, 2019. (Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune)
Bernie Sanders stands in ‘solidarity’ with striking Cook County workers
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the far left Independent who ran for president as a Democrat, is once again standing in solidarity with Chicago-area government workers on strike.
It was the CTU in 2019, when the then-presidential candidate showed up to a rally of striking teachers. Now it’s SEIU Local 73, whose 2,000-plus employees work in offices under the Cook County president, in the county clerk’s office, in civilian positions in the sheriff’s office, and for Cook County Health. About 1,473 of those workers are part of Cook County Health, working at Stroger and Provident hospitals, clinics and in mental health services at Cermak. They include technicians, physician assistants and service and maintenance workers, among others.
He took to Twitter over the weekend and wrote, “I stand in solidarity with @SEIU73 and 2,500+ Cook County workers — custodians, technicians, & clerks who are on strike for a new contract. It’s outrageous that Cook County received $1 billion from the American Rescue Plan but still refuses to negotiate a fair deal for workers.”
After two losing presidential bids, Sanders seems to have propelled himself back on to the national stage in recent weeks balking at Biden’s infrastructure plan. In a New York Times’ interview with opinion columnist Maureen Dowd, Sanders said he plans to go into “Trumpworld” to begin talking with the former president’s supporters, saying that sometimes the “Democratic elite” have failed to listen to the needs of the working class.
Ald. Gilbert Villegas appears during a City Council meeting on May 26, 2021, at City Hall. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)
With remap of Chicago wards pending, Latino aldermen aim to protect, and expand, their City Council footprint
The Tribune’s John Byrne writes, “Latino aldermen on Monday staked their claim to protecting and perhaps expanding their City Council representation in the upcoming ward remap based on new census numbers.
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“With the once-per-decade political fight over ward boundaries about to kick into high gear and set the racial makeup of the 50 wards heading into the 2023 elections, members of the Latino Caucus laid out their case.
“Chicago’s Black population has been falling and Latino numbers have been on the rise for years. City Council Latino Caucus Chairman Ald. Gilbert Villegas, 36th, said he and his colleagues will be calling for boundaries to the 50 wards that reflect ‘the population data and the Voting Rights Act.’
“Though Villegas wouldn’t say he wants to see more Latino-majority wards than the current 13, census numbers will likely help him and his caucus colleagues make that case.” Full story here.
Gary Roeder works March 19, 2021, inside what will soon be the Luna Lounge, a cannabis consumption lounge in Sesser. (Isaac Smith / The Southern Illinoisan)
Despite local election battle, small town in southern Illinois opens pot-smoking lounge
Cannabis smokers in downstate Illinois can now legally light up in public in a lounge specifically built for that purpose, the Tribune’s Robert McCoppin writes. The lounge opened in Sesser — where it became a big issue in the mayor’s race — on Saturday.
There have been discussions in Chicago and elsewhere in the state about opening consumption spaces — and a tobacco hookah lounge in DeKalb began allowing marijuana smokers two weeks ago.
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The state law that legalized cannabis last year prohibits consumption in public, including in motor vehicles and parks. The law allows local governments to authorize smoking lounges for adults 21 and up, but only in a licensed cannabis dispensary or a “retail tobacco store,” defined as a shop that generates 80% of more of its revenue from the sale of tobacco or smoking products.
Whether such cannabis cafes catch on is up for debate. As McCoppin writes, “In Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot last year proposed allowing cannabis lounges in smoke shops, but the ordinance stalled in the City Council. Some aldermen worried about creating unruly party spots. Others were concerned with a lack of equity, with most existing tobacco shops located on the North Side, and questioned how anyone would make money paying a $4,400 licensing fee and trying to combine weed tokers with cigar smokers.
“A proposed state law would let local governments authorize consumption and tours at other nonresidential locations, but it did not pass in the spring session.” Full story here.
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The Spin: Pete Buttigieg heading to Chicago Friday | Chicago’s top cop at White House meeting on crime | Bernie Sanders shows ‘solidarity’ with striking Cook County workers, putting heat on Preckwinkle
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