Lori Lightfoot First Openly Gay Black Female Mayor

Source:chicagotribune.com

Just 14 hours after her landslide victory to become Chicago’s next mayor, Lori Lightfoot held hands Wednesday morning with her vanquished opponent, Toni Preckwinkle, and prayed for the city’s future.

“We stand on another mountaintop with mayor-elect, and we pray that you will allow her to govern with fairness, with equity for the South and the West Side and the North Side and all over this city, will be one, even playing field,” the Rev. Marshall Hatch prayed as Lightfoot and Preckwinkle bowed their heads with their eyes closed, “that no longer will ZIP code determine life options for innocent children, that God you will allow justice to roll down like waters and righteousness a mighty stream.”

The solemn moment at a post-election unity event brokered by the Rev. Jesse Jackson was part of a whirlwind victory lap for Chicago’s mayor-elect, who greeted commuters at a downtown “L” stop and had afternoon meetings with outgoing Mayor Rahm Emanuel and police Superintendent Eddie Johnson.

“Today is April 3, a new day for all of Chicago,” Lightfoot told a packed room of religious and community leaders at the headquarters of Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition in Kenwood. “And I’m looking forward to the future. I’m looking ahead to hard work in the coming weeks and to collaborating with President Preckwinkle and other elected officials to bring the change that Chicagoans voted for and that we so desperately need.”

Lightfoot defeated Preckwinkle in overwhelming fashion, garnering 74 percent of the unofficial vote and sweeping all 50 wards to become both the first African-American woman and openly gay person elected Chicago mayor. Of the city’s 2,069 precincts, Lightfoot had won more than 2,000 while Preckwinkle had won roughly 20 centered on her 4th Ward in Hyde Park, unofficial results showed.

In her election night celebratory speech and again Wednesday morning, Lightfoot referred to her lopsided victory as a “mandate” from voters that she would “take full advantage of.”

“Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s going to be leaving office with a lot of unfinished business, and I think it’s going to be really important upon us to deliver on the mandate that we’ve been given,” Lightfoot said. “Honeymoons come and go, and I want to make sure we’re doing everything we can to really breathe life into the historic nature of this election with two African-American women running. That is a huge change in our city.”

With the change, however, will come the tall order of governing at a City Hall with myriad challenges.

She will preside over a city with a widening gap between the wealth of downtown and the North Side, and the generational poverty that has persisted in many neighborhoods in the predominantly black South and West sides.

She will take over a Police Department under a federal consent decree that has faced tremendous turmoil in recent years, including the fallout of the Laquan McDonald police shooting, a federal civil rights investigation that found widespread misconduct and use of excessive force, several recent officer suicides and a woefully low rate of solving the city’s homicides.

And she will have to come up with more than $500 million for a budget due in October that will have to close a projected $252 million budget deficit and come up with $276 million in new pension payments required by state law.

Jonathan Jackson, the civil rights leader’s son and the national spokesman for Rainbow/PUSH, ticked through the financial challenges facing Lightfoot and Preckwinkle in their respective positions before declaring, “These ladies have mounting issues, and it’s unfair that when they get their power, the city is at its lowest.”

Lightfoot said she embarks on the office clear-eyed on the tasks ahead.

“We’ve got a lot of hard work ahead to keep our streets safe, to make sure we’re bringing great, quality education to every neighborhood, investing in our people,” she said. “There is a lot on our list.”

At the unity event, Preckwinkle pledged to work with Lightfoot to pursue criminal justice reform and to drive resources to  economically starved neighborhoods on the South and West sides.

“We have some real challenges ahead of us in our county and in our city,” Preckwinkle said. “And I look forward to working with Mayor-elect Lightfoot to address those challenges.”

A couple of hours later, Lightfoot met with Emanuel in the fifth-floor office at City Hall that she will assume May 20. The mayor greeted his soon-to-be successor with a handshake, providing a convenient photo op for the cameras rolling just outside the glass door.

Afterward, Lightfoot emerged from what she called a “cordial and productive” 45-minute conversation with Emanuel, saying her victory felt “still a little surreal, but good.”

“You sit down with the existing mayor and his team, and run through issues of mutual concern and importance,” Lightfoot said. “So it was very cordial and very important for me, and I appreciate the generosity. And it will be, as I said, the first of many.”

Lightfoot said there was no lingering animosity  over her resigning last year from the Police Board post Emanuel had appointed her to in order to run against him. The former federal prosecutor also spent much of the runoff pointing out that unlike Preckwinkle, she had launched her campaign before Emanuel dropped his bid for a third term or, as she often put it, “before Goliath was slayed.”

“It was a very, very cordial conversation,” Lighfoot said of her meeting with the outgoing mayor. “He was extremely generous, and I’m grateful.

Emanuel told reporters he had a 250-page transition book to present to Lightfoot at their meeting. Minutes after the meeting, the outgoing and incoming mayors issued a joint statement.

“Today, we had a positive and productive conversation about the challenges and opportunities facing our city,” the statement read. “It is abundantly clear that we both share a deep love for this city and a commitment to work together to move all of its communities forward. We’ve both made it clear to our teams that they should continue working in collaboration to ensure the smoothest possible transition.”

From City Hall, Lightfoot was headed to meet with Johnson to discuss the city’s policing strategy.

“Obviously, I’m concerned about what the plans are for summer and any other issues that we would need to know walking into office,” she said. “We’ll, I’m sure, have a very detailed discussion. This is something I know a lot about and care a lot about.”

Lightfoot met with Johnson and his command staff to discuss a plan to address summer violence, the consent decree, and how to improve trust between officers and the community.

“I look forward to further collaboration with Superintendent Johnson and the command staff as we address the violence in neighborhoods throughout our city to build a safer and more equitable Chicago,” Lightfoot said in a statement after the meeting.

As Lightfoot spent much of the day in meetings, her staff worked to begin to put together a transition team, which it has not yet finalized. Several advisers, however, remain in the picture as Lightfoot lays the groundwork for her administration.

The list includes U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly; Ra Joy, an entrepreneur and activist who ran for lieutenant governor last year on a Democratic ticket with Chris Kennedy; campaign manager Manny Perez; campaign chief of staff and policy consultant Robert Fojtik; campaign advisor and communications guru Joanna Klonsky; consultant Lisa Schneider Fabes, who has advised on operations; Maurice Classen, with whom Lightfoot served on Emanuel’s police accountability task force; and activist Ja’Mal Green, who speaks with Lightfoot frequently and serves as a go-between with many of the city’s grassroots organizations. Lightfoot also talks regularly with her mentor, Mayer Brown partner Ty Fahner, though they don’t delve into politics as the mayor-elect and former Republican attorney general don’t see eye to eye much in that department.

Lightfoot started her first day as mayor-elect greeting morning commuters at the Clark and Lake “L” stop in the Thompson Center, stopping to take pictures with many of them. She arrived with a city police detail that escorted her through a throng of cameras  on a Lake Street sidewalk.

Lightfoot told reporters she was surprised by the lopsided nature of Tuesday’s results.

“We felt very comfortable that we would have a nice margin, based upon our internal polling and what we were hearing from other people across the city,” Lightfoot said. “But to sweep all 50 wards with that kind of margin, obviously it’s historic and it’s very, very gratifying.”

The big win sends a message that Chicagoans crave a new direction, said Lightfoot, who took aim at political insiders as she did throughout her insurgent campaign.

“I think what it signals is that people want a break from that broken political past,” she said, “and I’m excited about the prospects.”