Keeping track of the new machine. Fifteen of the 50 city aldermen have been members of the Chicago City Council since at least 1989. Political scientists Dick Simpson, Ruben Feliciano, Rick Howard, and Aaron Van Klyton of the University of Illinois at Chicago have compiled their voting records on contested issues in 1989-’90 and in 2000-’01, recording how often each voted with Mayor Daley’s floor leader, Ed Burke, on contested votes (www.uic.edu/depts/pols/citycouncilvotes). Slightly less loyal now than ten years ago are Richard Mell (33rd Ward, down from 93 percent to 82), Carrie Austin (34th Ward, down from 94 percent to 80), and Burton Natarus (42nd Ward, down from 93 percent to 77). But some former dissidents now vote with the mayor most of the time: Dorothy Tillman (Third Ward, up from 33 percent to 77), Ed Smith (28th Ward, up from 47 percent to 100), and Helen Shiller (46th Ward, up from 31 percent to 90). By this measure, the most independent alderman at the moment is Toni Preckwinkle of the Fourth Ward, and even she voted with the mayor 64 percent of the time in 2000-’01. Another sign of the degree of the mayor’s control of Chicago’s legislative process is that in 1989-’90 there were 97 divided roll-call votes, whereas in 2000-’01 there were only 13.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
“If law enforcement officials asked you for information about one of your patrons and ordered you not to disclose that they had asked for information, would you challenge their order by disclosing the request to anyone (e.g., the patron, the press, and/or a public interest organization such as the ACLU) other than your library’s attorney?” That’s one question the Library Research Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign asked 906 librarians in a recent survey (www.wired.com, January 16). Of those responding, 5.5 percent said they “definitely” would challenge the order; another 16.1 percent said they “probably would.”
