Mayor Johnson fact-checks after attacking Springfield legislators

Last week, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson repeatedly criticized Statehouse lawmakers.

“Some of the same people who say they support an elected representative school board only got the gospel once I became mayor of Chicago,” Johnson told reporters during one of the most combative and counterproductive news conferences ever. i have ever seen

no

Lori Lightfoot campaigned for mayor by supporting an elected school board, then did everything she could to stop it. But a bill was passed in Springfield and signed into law in 2021 over his opposition. One victory he achieved was to kill a proposal to require City Council confirmation of all school board appointees.

After Johnson was elected, he and the Chicago Teachers Union first called (under threat of a lawsuit presented by the union during a Senate hearing), then suddenly opposed a fully elected school board. They ended up demanding a temporary hybrid board. So, similar to the bill passed in 2021, half of the board and the board president will be appointed by the mayor for two-year terms, and the other half will be elected by voters.

We continue with the mayor’s remarks: “These are the same people in Springfield who didn’t fight for adequate funding, that when mass school closings were happening, none of them stood up at the time to say: “You know what, maybe the mayor’s authority is too much.”

Only 47 current state legislators (by my quick count) were in office in 2013 when Mayor Rahm Emanuel closed these schools. That’s barely a quarter of the 177 members of the Legislature. The mayor fights ghosts.

Anyway, CTU pushed legislation at the time to reverse the closing of Emanuel schools in 2013. House Bill 3283 had 32 House sponsors, and one of those sponsors is now the House Speaker Chris Welch.

A similar Senate bill (SB 1571) made it out of committee. But the two Democratic legislative leaders blocked the bills. Even so, the CTU soon after contributed to his campaign funds.

More Johnson: “Now you have a mayor who recognizes democracy, has given the people exactly what they asked for, what they voted for. And suddenly they want to repeat the policies of Bruce Rauner, who called for control and seizure of state ownership. Therefore, we are not going down this road.”

That Rauner proposal was laughed at in the General Assembly. It would have put a state authority in charge of the school district and allowed the district to file for bankruptcy. Normal thinking legislators do not consider anything even remotely close to this. The only issue going on right now might be that he requires City Council approval of his appointments, but even that is doubtful. Could there be some railings? for sure Could the mayor trigger a state takeover by deliberately shutting down the district’s finances? we’ll see

The CTU opposed the 2017 school funding bill

Johnson also told reporters that he, as a CTU staff member, helped pass the evidence-based school funding bill in 2017. But the reality is that CTU strongly opposed the bill of law that was approved.

On the Sunday before the bill was voted on, CTU held a conference call with several Democratic lawmakers and I managed to get the number and the calling code and listened.

Compromises made to achieve a veto-proof majority in this bill include adding the Invest in Kids tax credit program. But that “voucher” plan was “not something we can live with,” then-CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey told lawmakers during the conference call.

The compromise was “the language of our enemies,” CTU President Karen Lewis said on the call. Welch noted on the call that if this deal was the only way the House could find a three-fifths supermajority to pass something at risk of a veto threat from Rauner, “then why shouldn’t we support it ?”

As I wrote at the time, Lewis’s retort to Welch was blunt: “Honestly, you’re destroying public education” by supporting the compromise.

“We’d rather have no deal” and not include additional state money in the legislation than accept the compromise, Sharkey said.

“The Illinois Democratic Party has crossed a line that no amount of spin or talk of ‘compromise’ can ever erase,” the union thundered after the House passed the bill.

Does it look like they helped pass the bill?

And more Johnson: “This (school) board and the people of Chicago, my administration, will continue to advocate for Springfield for more.”

Once again, with sentiment, the mayor has yet to ask the governor or legislative leaders for the billion dollars he claims the state owes the school district.

Rich Miller also publishes Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter, and CapitolFax.com.

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