I Was Wrong

I haven’t filled you in on the latest shenanigans in Chicago politics. The entire board of the Chicago Public Schools is resigning. Sarah Schulte and Eric Horng report at ABC 7 Chicago:

CHICAGO (WLS) — The entire Chicago Board of Education will resign, the office of Mayor Brandon Johnson said Friday.

The Chicago Public Schools shakeup with the mass resignation of all seven members of Johnson’s hand-picked board paves the way for the mayor the reappoint a board who will be willing to act on Johnson’s wish to oust CPS CEO Pedro Martinez.

Messages left by ABC7 for the school board president and multiple board members have not been returned, so ABC7 hasn’t heard directly whether the board members resigned in protest or were forced out.

The mayor is moving quickly to name new board members. That will happen Monday morning. However, the action is still unsettling to many in the district.

“It’s shocking,” CPS parent Sarah Strasser said. “We’re all, I guess, going to have to find out what comes out in the wash. I would love to know what was said behind closed doors.”

The outrage over which the board is resigning is the mayor’s insistence on the CPS CEO’s resignation which Mr. Martinez, also appointed by the mayor, has refused to do. The basis of the mayor’s displeasure is Mr. Martinez’s refusal to do something egregiously stupid: borrow to pay operating costs.

I had thought that no mayor could possibly be as bad as our previous mayor, Lori Lightfoot, but I obviously was wrong. Not that I voted for Brandon Johnson. I voted for the other guy. Mayor Lightfoot’s mistake was in not doing what she was elected to do—reform the Chicago Police Department. The problem with Mayor Johnson is that he is doing precisely what anyone who was paying attention should have expected him to do.

This turmoil is more opportunistic than ironic. Democrats have long been striving for an elected Board of Education and they will get their wish in November at which time we will have the opportunity to elect some of the board members. Mayor Johnson wants to appoint a new Board of Education that will do his bidding before the November election.

Mayor Johnson’s approval rating has declined to 25% according to a recent NBC poll. His disapproval rating is 60%. I’m surprised his approval rating is that high.

I genuinely wonder what Mayor Johnson’s supporters, that 25%, expected him to do. He’s doing exactly what I predicted he would do—whatever the Chicago Teachers Union want him to do.

All of this highlights a desire I have mentioned before. I think that Illinoisans deserve the ability to recall any elected official. At present the only elected official whom we have the power to recall is the governor under the Blagojevich Amendment.