Divisive Chicago ward remap battle pits Black & Latino communities against each other.
Still hoping for a last-minute compromise
It’s hard to fathom how the Black and Latino Caucuses within Chicago’s City Council allowed themselves to get roped into such a bitter and divisive ward remap battle. With the two groups failing to reach a compromise, their competing proposed ward maps will now be voted on by the public during the June primary. Already, PACs are being formed and each side will now spend millions attacking each other’s maps which were allegedly redrawn to reflect the population shifts recorded in the 2020 census. The campaign is off to a contentious start with lots of invectives already being hurled back and forth.
We’re told that final map will shape Chicago politics for the next decade and determine the balance of power between Black, Latino, Asian, and white voting blocs. But those who’ve been through these battles over the past decades know that real power comes through organizing and that Black/Latino unity has got to be at the core of any successful progressive movement in the city.
The City Council’s Black Caucus has refused to accept a map that creates 15 wards with a majority of Latino voters as demanded by the Latino Caucus. The map supported by the Black Caucus crafts 16 wards with a majority of Black voters, one ward with a plurality of Black voters and 14 wards with a majority of Latino voters.
Leaders of the groups that successfully pushed for a map that redraws the 11th Ward to include a majority of Asian American voters warned members of the City Council that asking voters to decide the boundaries of the city’s 50 wards “fans the flames of racial division.”
Mayor Lori Lightfoot, just chose Nicole Lee, the first Asian council member, to replace indicted Patrick Daley Thompson as 11th Ward alderman. But Lightfoot has largely stayed above the fray and hasn’t endorsed either map.
The Black/Latino split plays as it always has, right into the hands of the old-guard white political operatives like Ald. Eddie Burke, whose incumbency is at stake. IL Playbook reports that the Black Caucus just secured an endorsement from the Chicago Firefighters Union Local 2. The organization represents firefighters who live in mostly white wards. They reportedly like the Black Caucus map because it goes out of its way to make a ward for embattled white Ald. Jim Gardiner, who’s a firefighter. He’s also been the poster boy for right-wing politics in the Council and for using his political power to harass opponents and abuse women.
I’m hoping there is still a chance for a compromise agreement between the two caucuses. I can’t stand the thought of crumb bums like Burke and Gardiner laughing up their sleeves while Black and Latino caucuses go at each other.