CHICAGO URBAN DAILY
CHICAGO (CHICAGO URBAN DAILY)— One vote. That’s all that stood between Mayor Brandon Johnson and a new check on his borrowing power.
The City Council voted 33-17 Wednesday to override Johnson’s veto of a measure requiring 30 aldermanic votes — three-fifths of the council — to approve new city debt. It needed 34. The veto stands, and the mayor’s borrowing authority stays exactly as it was.
The ordinance, led by Ald. Marty Quinn of the 13th Ward, would have raised the bar from the current simple majority of 26. Quinn argued it would make the council more independent and force a mayor to build broader support for borrowing. Ald. Matt O’Shea of the 19th Ward pointed to more than $30 billion in outstanding city debt as reason for stronger oversight.
Johnson made this fight personal before he even picked up the veto pen, calling the measure a “three-fifths compromise” — invoking the constitutional provision that counted enslaved people as three-fifths of a person. The mayor and some allies said the proposal carried racial motives; Quinn defended it as a purely procedural change.
On the floor, Ald. Jason Ervin of the 28th Ward warned the measure shifted power from the mayor’s office, while Ald. David Moore of the 17th Ward said calls urging him to back the override amounted to a bid to keep control of city finances from the mayor.
This was Johnson’s fourth veto — issued over the weekend after the council first passed the measure 32-15. With the 2027 budget fight heating up and a mayoral election landing in February, City Hall’s power struggle is only getting louder.
Stay tuned to Chicago Urban Daily as budget season unfolds.
Reported by Chicago Urban Daily News. Visit chicagourbandailynews.com for updates.
