What will it take for Chicago to elect a mayor who embraces free-market reforms?
As a majority of recently polled likely Chicago voters believe Mayor Rahm Emanuel should resign, AM 560’s Dan Proft and Pat Hughes, co-founder of the Illinois Opportunity Project, look ahead to the 2019 mayoral election and the possibilities for reform-minded candidates.
Fifty-one percent of likely Chicago voters believe Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel should resign, according to a poll released Dec. 8 by Chicago polling firm Ogden & Fry, while only 29 percent believe he should not step down.
Emanuel has dismissed Superintendent of Police Garry McCarthy and recently reversed his position opposing a Department of Justice investigation into the Chicago Police Department. But the mayor has said he has no plans to leave office. “We have a process called the election,” Emanuel told Politico. “The voters spoke. I’ll be held accountable for the decisions and actions that I make.”
Voters won’t have their chance to speak again until 2019. Until then, whether Rahm resigns or not, Chicagoans will have to wait to voice their opinion on Chicago’s political establishment and how it’s serving their city.
In the wake of police scandals, a breakdown between the mayor’s office and Chicago’s teachers, and the biggest property-tax hike in recorded city history, what would it take for a more fiscally focused, center-right candidate to replace Emanuel and his failed agenda?
The city has not had a Republican mayor since William Hale Thompson left office in 1931, and has not even had a credible center-right candidate in three decades, but the conditions could be ripening for a change in city politics. With massive property-tax hikes and a surplus of additional fees coming to an already highly taxed city with an economic climate that is hostile to jobs growth, more residents will be inclined to flee the city for the suburbs or neighboring Indiana. And with concerns about safety and now police misconduct, 2019 has the potential for a necessary, seismic shift in Chicago politics, and in turn, public policy in the city.
What will it take for Chicago to elect a mayor who embraces free-market reforms?
Listen in as AM 560’s Dan Proft and Pat Hughes, co-founder of the Illinois Opportunity Project, discuss this topic on the Dec. 6 episode of “Illinois Rising,” which airs every Sunday at 3 p.m. on Chicago’s AM 560.