Mayor Brandon Johnson is using the game of musical chairs triggered by the retirement of City Council dean Walter Burnett to appease critics and shore up his base in the progressive and African American communities.
Replacing Burnett as chair of the powerful Zoning Committee is 1st Ward Ald. Daniel La Spata, who worked closely with the mayor in crafting a groundbreaking ordinance relaxing parking requirements for so-called transit-oriented developments.
An avid cyclist, La Spata has also led the push for more protected bike lanes, and he tried but failed to persuade colleagues to reduce the default speed limit on Chicago streets to 25 mph.
Replacing Burnett as vice mayor is 37th Ward Ald. Emma Mitts, a 25-year veteran alderperson. Mitts was at the center of allegations that then- Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th) manhandled her at a Council meeting in 2023, leading to Ramirez-Rosa’s resignation as Johnson’s Zoning chair and Council floor leader.
La Spata’s Committee on Pedestrian and Traffic Safety will be chaired by 40th Ward Ald. Andre Vasquez, who led opposition to Johnson during last year’s marathon budget stalemate that saw the Council unanimously reject Johnson’s proposed $300 million property tax increase.
First-year Ald. Jessie Fuentes (26th), a key member of Johnson’s progressive base, will inherit the Vasquez-chaired Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights.
And the Committee on Contracting Oversight and Equity, now chaired by Mitts, goes to South Side Ald. David Moore (17th). The new lineup is expected to be ratified by the Council Thursday.
The vice mayor would be first in line to succeed Johnson if the mayor dies in office or is otherwise incapacitated.
Otherwise, the job historically has been largely ceremonial. The role took on greater importance when Johnson handed the job to Burnett and rewarded him with a $400,000 budget that allowed the Council dean to retain the staff he had as chair of the Committee on Pedestrian and Traffic Safety.
In exchange, Burnett agree to work as a citywide emissary for the new mayor and sometimes represent Johnson at conferences around the nation and the world.
The widely respected Mitts accused Johnson of a political double-cross last year. She claimed to have accepted Johnson’s offer to chair the Housing Committee, only to be told by a top mayoral aide the job she coveted had been promised to Ramirez-Rosa.
“I’ve been bamboozled,” Mitts said then.
During the debate that ended last year’s budget stalemate, Mitts admonished Johnson to repair the deep distrust between the mayor and Council that made the $17.1 billion budget so difficult to pass — and only by a 27-23 vote.
“You’d better get on the right track with this trust thing because when everyone starts distrusting you, you’ve got a problem,” she said at the time. In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times in the run-up to Johnson’s midterm anniversary in May, Mitts said, “Precious little has changed since then.”
Kennedy Bartley, the mayor’s chief of external affairs, said Johnson has demonstrated “over and over again” that he is “willing to work with everyone,” including some of his critics. “We’re doing just that in this reorganization plan,” she said.
Mitts said she does not expect to inherit the $400,000 budget earmarked for the vice mayor’s office under Burnett and will continue to speak out when necessary.
“I don’t want my voice to be silenced,” Mitts said. “And I don’t think that’s what he’s looking for. If anything, he’s looking for my advice.”
The Zoning vacancy created a political dilemma for Johnson. The Hispanic Caucus staked claim to the powerful post it held until Ramirez-Rosa’s resignation. The Black Caucus made the same claim because the most recent Zoning chair was one of its own in Burnett.
Until late last week, it looked like Johnson would avoid taking sides by choosing 44th Ward Ald. Bennett Lawson, who held the post on an interim basis after Ramirez-Rosa was forced out.
But the mayor’s forces ultimately decided that the Zoning chairmanship plum was too important to give to a freshman, and that Lawson was unlikely to support the mayor’s uphill battle for reelection.
As Zoning chair, La Spata will be charged with conducting high-stakes negotiations with developers and leading Johnson’s push to speed construction of affordable housing.
Bartley said La Spata has shown himself to be a “real leader” in the drive to ease Chicago’s 120,000-unit shortage of affordable housing units.
“What he did alongside the mayor … around parking minimums and those reforms — it’s the most substantial in the country. It’s made it easier to build housing in the city,” Bartley said. “That type of spearheading of transit-oriented development is unreal.”
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