Once-a-decade Chicago ward remap still in flux; city has yet to release a favored proposal despite Wednesday deadline

The fight over Chicago’s new ward map entered a chaotic new phase Tuesday, as a deadline loomed for aldermen to agree on ward boundaries they design themselves and thereby avoid potentially turning the process over to voters.

The City Council Rules Committee appeared set Tuesday to unveil a 50-ward map along the lines of the Black Caucus’ aim to create 17 predominantly Black wards and 14 majority Latino wards. But the meeting was canceled shortly before it was set to kick off.

The last-minute change of plans in the once-a-decade ward mapmaking process highlighted the ongoing rancor between Black aldermen who support that plan and Latinos who say it falls far short of a fair map in light of Hispanic population gains in Chicago in the latest U.S. Census.

Amid the standoff, Mayor Lori Lightfoot left the city Tuesday for meetings with federal officials in Washington, D.C. about Chicago’s infrastructure agenda. The trip gives Lightfoot distance from the racial ugliness of the map fight, but opens her up to criticism that she should be staying home to try to broker peace.

The full City Council needs to pass a map with 41 out of 50 votes by the end of Wednesday to avoid a potential ballot referendum that would pit competing plans against each other and likely deepen the bitterness between the two groups.

Meanwhile, the map is still in flux.

One version of the Rules Committee map aldermen saw this week gave 14th Ward Ald. Edward Burke, who is under federal indictment, more majority white precincts west of Midway International Airport, pushing Latina Ald. Silvana Tabares’ 23rd Ward entirely east of the airport. That map would also have moved the airport to Ald. Marty Quinn’s 13th Ward from Tabares’.

But Lightfoot, who has clashed with Burke, let it be known she didn’t like the 14th Ward configuration in particular, and changes were being made to reflect her displeasure, aldermen said.

Asked about Lightfoot’s position on the map proposal that helped Burke, her office declined to respond directly, releasing a statement saying only that “the mayor has stated numerous times that the remapping process requires transparency and has encouraged public involvement. The mayor urges City Council to work together to reach a compromise.”

Council members were still hoping to reach a deal before Thursday, even as Lightfoot insisted residents need time to weigh in on any proposal. If the council does convene and vote on a map plan Wednesday, Lightfoot won’t be around to preside over the meeting, leaving aldermen to handle the process themselves.

The Wednesday deadline is far from a hard target, however.

If aldermen miss it — as the council did during the remap saga following the 2010 Census — they can simply continue negotiating.

The power dynamic shifts slightly beginning Thursday, though. Starting then, any 10 aldermen can step up to put a version of the map on the ballot, without first having to wait for a council majority to pass its own map.

That could give the 13-member Latino Caucus more leverage, since supporters of their map could simply opt to take their chances with voters. The Latino Caucus has introduced its own map with 16 Black-majority wards, two fewer than the map the council passed following the 2010 Census, and 15 Latino wards, two more than in the current map.

And any further delay could put in play the “People’s Map” designed by community activists following several public meetings over the summer.

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No aldermen sponsored the People’s Map when organizers introduced it to the council in mid-November, but supporters hope they can convince at least 10 to do so if private negotiations drag on and Chicagoans get fed up with the secrecy.

Ten aldermen could also design their own map, introduce it to the council and petition for it to go to referendum.

Rules Committee Chair Ald. Michelle Harris on Monday said 36 aldermen had taken part in an effort to try to finalize her committee’s map, more than enough to pass it out of the full council but not enough to block another group of aldermen from forcing a referendum.

Even if 41 aldermen reach agreement, the map could be challenged in court on the grounds it disenfranchises a protected class of voters such as Latinos or Blacks, or that the populations of the wards vary so much that they violate the U.S. Constitution.

The Black and Latino caucuses have also pledged to create Chicago’s first Asian-majority ward around Chinatown, but supporters of that idea have complained in recent days that Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson, 11th, has sought to undermine those efforts.

During a meeting on the map this week, Thompson said he’s “been willing, able and working with different groups in Chinatown to try to bring all of the communities of common interest together while maintaining people’s neighborhoods.”

“That’s what we’re about, whatever that percentage,” said Thompson, who is also awaiting trial on federal charges. “We’re not trying to keep it to a lower percentage.”

In 2011, the map struggle was broadly the same as this year. The Census had shown Latino population gains in Chicago and losses in the number of Black residents. The Latino Caucus wanted to pick up seats and the Black Caucus didn’t want to relinquish any.

In late January 2012, the council passed a new map with 41 votes, the bare minimum to forestall a referendum by leaving fewer than 10 aldermen to back an alternative. Black aldermen saw their wards fall by one to 18, and Latinos picked up three, giving them 13.

But while the conflict is familiar, the power structure at City Hall now is very different than in 2011.

Helping guide the negotiations that went on then for nearly two months after the Dec. 1 deadline were three members of the “Gray Caucus” — older, powerful white aldermen who could use quiet promises and threats to convince their colleagues to keep talking rather than rolling the dice on a referendum.

Of the three, only Burke remains, his power greatly diminished by a federal indictment and the loss of his Finance Committee chairmanship. Northwest Side Ald. Dick Mell stepped down in 2013, and North Side Ald. Patrick O’Connor lost his 2019 re-election bid.

And then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel was also an inveterate backroom wheeler-dealer from his days in Washington, D.C. Lightfoot has much less taste for political sausage-making, and her relationship with many aldermen is rocky, to say the least.

That leaves a potential power vacuum as the fight continues, with aldermen trying to balance their need to reach a deal to protect their own re-election chances and avoid a referendum with their desire to achieve citywide gains for the constituencies they represent.

Lightfoot has generally stayed out of the process, though she unsuccessfully attempted to mediate between the caucuses over the weekend.

Lightfoot’s office said she’ll be in the nation’s capital this week “to visit with top White House officials and senior leaders to advocate on behalf of Chicago’s residents, maximizing historic Federal investments in COVID response, infrastructure, and in our communities and families.”