The Battle for Chicago

By Jane O'Reilly

It is the old machine vs. the new mayor

Nobody expected an effectless transition, but nobody quite expected the farce now being played in Chicago. After only two weeks into Harold Washington's four-year term as Chicago's first black mayor, the city government was stalemated. When Washington, a Democrat elected despite opposition from his party's old guard, threatened to make good on his inaugural promise--"Business as usual will not be accepted by the people"--the city's Democratic political Establishment came together in a new, sometimes unseemly vigor, determined to outmaneuver and outbellow the antimachine mayor. To paraphrase the 1955 words of the late alderman Paddy Bauler, it seemed that Chicago was not quite ready for reform yet--not Harold Washington's brand, for sure.

Typical was the scene last Wednesday at a meeting of the 50-member, all-Democratic city council. Frequent howls of "Point of order!" rose from the chamber floor as spectators catcalled back. At one point in the heated 2 1/2-hour session, Alderman Edward Vrdolyak, Cook County Democratic chairman and boss of the Chicago Democratic machine, shouted at the presiding mayor: "Government by chaos, Mr. President. Rule or ruin! Are you a dictator?" When Washington threatened summarily to clear the chamber, Vrdolyak, 45, known as "Fast Eddie" for his slick political skills, leaped to his feet, held out his arms and yelled, "Get the handcuffs out!"

Behind the tantrums and soap-opera posturing was the question of who would govern the city for the next four years. Says Washington, 61, who was elected on April 12 with 51.8% of the vote: "It appears that some members of the city council are apparently experiencing a nervous reaction to the prospect of reform." Shortly after the election, at what was supposed to be a "unity" breakfast, Washington had confided some of his reform notions to Vrdolyak. As might have been predicted, the city's craftiest politician did not respond eagerly to the news that he would be stripped of his job as chairman of the powerful building and zoning committee and of his ceremonial post as president pro tern of the council. "That's when I knew it would be war," Vrdolyak told the Chicago Sun-Times. "There's the mayor, the new guy on the block, telling me I'm out. So I say to myself, I thought this guy was just mayor. But he thinks he's king. So, did I want to fight? No. Do I know how? You bet. I don't go down easy."

Vrdolyak marshaled his forces, a majority 29 council votes (28 white, one Hispanic). Washington, with an innocence almost incredible for a man who cut his political teeth in the rough and tumble of Chicago's ward politics, arrived at his first city council meeting Monday, May 2, with only 21 votes (16 black). After three minutes, Washington, realizing he had been outmaneuvered, adjourned the meeting and left the room with his supporters. Vrdolyak seized the microphone and reconvened the meeting, and, as hundreds of Washington partisans who had gathered to watch the historic event shrieked, "Go home! Get out!" the dissident bloc rammed through a humiliating series of rule changes. They weakened the mayor's control over legislation, expanded the number of committees from 20 to 29, assigned machine loyalists to the chairmanships and reduced the number of black chairmen from eight to three. Chicago papers headlined COUP! Washington responded by dispatching patrol cars to council members' homes at midnight the next Thursday to deliver warnings that a planned session the next morning would be illegal. Amid outraged accusations of Nazi tactics and demands that Washington "face the city council like a man," both sides went to court trying to block the other. Further council meetings moved rapidly from parliamentary pandemonium to near fistfights.

In an ironic switch, old-guard city council members began sporting NEW GUARD buttons and complaining about mayoral abuses of power. Says Political Scientist Milton Rakove of the University of Illinois: "This shows us the machine ain't dead yet." By contrast, Washington, who campaigned against patronage, found himself in fact with few bargaining chips in the poker game of Chicago's patronage. Last month Federal Judge Nicholas Bua issued orders cracking down on often ignored proscriptions against political patronage. The practical result: to limit Washington's potential job-appointment pool from 40,000 to about 350. The mayor has raised eyebrows by asking the court to ease the new restrictions.

At the moment, neither side has the votes to prevail. The mayor needs five more for a working majority, but the Vrdolyak bloc needs five more to attain the 34 votes required to override a mayoral veto. A court decision is due Monday, ruling on whether the council proceedings after Washington gaveled the May 2 session to a close were legal.

As the council wrestled for power, city business was on hold, despite a host of financial woes demanding resolution. Meanwhile, bemused Chicagoans debated whether Washington had suffered a crushing defeat or if his resistance represented a refreshing break in the city's long history of machine-controlled mayors. At week's end bargaining teams representing the two warring camps held closed-door cease-fire talks at the Bismarck Hotel. As Alderwoman Marion Volini, a Washington supporter, admitted earlier, "This is chaos. The sooner we get it under control, the better." And said Alderman Roman Pucinski, a Vrdolyak backer, "People around the country think Chicago is in a state of siege. We want to show the world that this city is functioning."

--By Jane O'Reilly. Reported by Christopher Ogden/Chicago

With reporting by Christopher Ogden This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.