What Ever Happened to Reform on the City Council?
By Kevin Robinson in News on Feb 10, 2010 4:20PM
Mayor Daley's recent calls for expanding the city Inspector General's authority over the rest of the city council got me thinking about a Chicago Reader blog post by Mick Dumke that ran last month. That's because back in 2007 when Jesse Jackson Jr was beating the drum of reform in the city, pushing a slate of candidates (including his wife, Sandi) for city council that would challenge the mayor's stranglehold on civic discourse in the city, take apart the Chicago Machine and clean up the corruption that's the most public secret in town, he published a ten-point ethics package designed to make Chicago government make sense for regular people (hat tip to Reader reader Hugh for the link!). Strangely, only one has come to be - broadcasting all city council meetings on the internet, although expanding the purview of the city IG ranked number six on Junior's list.
As Dumke observes, while the desire for reform in Chicago hasn't been quelled among voters, "For much of the last year, ever since he was identified as “Senate Candidate 5” in the initial criminal complaint against Rod Blagojevich, Jackson has kept a pretty low profile." And while Chicagoans may have been frustrated by corruption and waste in the city in 2007, they're downright pissed off nowadays. Jackson may not be the right messenger for a reform platform in the coming municipal elections, but are the ideas any less relevant today?