Chicago’s 2019 aldermanic elections will take place in two rounds, the first round to be held just about a month away on February 26 and the second on April 2. Our aldermanic elections are notionally non-partisan but practically single party. In the ward in which I reside, Chicago’s 39th Ward, all of the candidates running are Democrats.
Since the incumbent alderman of the 39th Ward, Marge Laurino, has elected not to run for re-election, for the first time in 50 years no member of the Laurino family will be running in the election. There are presently three candidates: Robert Murphy, Samantha Nugent, and Casey Smagala.
The Chicago Tribune asked a number of questions of the candidates:
- What do you see as the city’s number one challenge in the next four years?
- Do you favor or oppose a city-owned casino in Chicago?
- Do you favor or oppose electing Chicago’s school board?
- How should CPS respond to shrinking enrollment?
- What’s your game plan for reducing violent crime?
- What’s your strategy for dealing with the city’s pension crisis?
- Should the use of TIFs continue or should they be phased out? Explain your reasoning.
- How would you address the city’s problems with lead in drinking water?
- If you believe Chicago needs new tax revenue, where do you think it should come from?
- What should the city council do to make itself more independent from the mayor’s office?
- What’s the most pressing issue facing the people of your ward and how would you address it?
Their answers may be found here. You’ll need to scroll down to the 39th Ward. Alternatively, they allow you to filter to just the 39th Ward. Apparently, their web designers are unaware of local anchors.
There was substantial agreement among the candidates on the issues. All mentioned public pensions as a major issue if not the #1 challenge. All favored a city-owned casino. All opposed increasing property taxes. Several mentioned marijuana legalization (in the context of increasing city revenue). None had a good answer for a more independent city council. A graduated state income tax was frequently mentioned.
I thought the best answer to the last question came from Robert Murphy:
What I hear most from residents of my ward is that they are not getting the services they pay for, and that they feel locked out of major decisions and have no voice. The other issues are strong local schools, fixing the city’s financial crisis and making sure we are investing in our neighborhoods, in our infrastructure and in our local businesses. I am running to bring better services to the ward and to create a transparent ward office and process.
Here in the 39th Ward we’re not opposed to paying taxes. If we were we wouldn’t be living in Chicago at all. We do think we should be receiving value for what we pay and, presently, that is not the case.
I have substantial disagreements with all of the candidates. For example, I wonder if they’re aware that every study of the effects of legalized casino gambling has shown that most of the revenue comes from local residents and that they function as a steeply regressive tax? Or that the revenue effects of marijuana legalization have been disappointing? Here’s the Kansas Fed’s assessment of Colorado’s experience:
As detailed above, much of the tax revenue collected from the marijuana industry goes toward costs incurred by the state related to the expansion of the marijuana sector. The additional revenue primarily funds education and the general fund. To put those revenue amounts in perspective, in total, the Colorado Department of Education received $90.3 million in marijuana tax revenue for the 2017-18 school year, or 1.6 percent of the state’s total K-12 education budget.xxii Revenues from the special sales tax on recreational marijuana have totaled about $108.4 million to date in fiscal 2018. Starting next year, the general fund will receive 15.56 percent of those revenues, which if applied this year would have equaled about 0.2 percent of general fund revenues to date in fiscal 2018.
Chicago cannot depend on gambling or marijuana tax revenues to solve its fiscal problems. The only thing that can do that is economic growth and that must be fostered by reducing corruption and crime, improving the regulatory environment, and holding the line if not reducing taxation. Doing those things simultaneously would be no mean feat—it would require a complete re-engineering of city government.
As the late Mayor Daley once said, regardless of how things look now somebody will be elected. I thought that Samantha Nugent’s CV was impressive and I was also impressed by Casey Smagala’s command of the details. At this point I’ll probably vote for Robert Murphy. I thought he had the best and most practical views. Sadly, I’ll believe in his independence from City Hall when I see it.
