Chicago’s immigrant community and activists remained on edge and watchful Monday, a day after sweeps were expected to begin — at President Donald Trump’s behest — across the United States but didn’t visibly materialize on a large scale locally.
Over the weekend, Democratic elected leaders — including Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Illinois U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, of Springfield, and U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, a Chicago Democrat who lives in the Little Village neighborhood — walked the streets, publicly denouncing the expected raids and educating residents about their rights. Today, Durbin was in the Loop talking about a bipartisan bill to curb soaring insulin prices and Lightfoot — who penned an open letter in the Washington Post to Trump denouncing the sweeps — was in New York for a global conference for mayors.
But the threatened sweeps are only part of the complex immigration issue that will be front and center in the 2020 presidential campaign.
Former Mayor Rahm Emanuel, meanwhile, reflected on the political implications of it all. He said infighting among Democrats and Republicans represents the looming meltdown of the two parties as we know them.
And former Illinois first lady Patti Blagojevich delivered a message from her imprisoned husband over the weekend — and that was about all — at an event hosted by the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/Push Coalition. They were marking the 20th anniversary of Jackson’s and then-U.S. Rep. Rod Blagojevich’s trip to Yugoslavia where they brokered the release of three U.S. Army prisoners of war. Two of those troops also were at the event.
At one point Blagojevich was on stage with Jackson and the Rev. James Meeks, a former Illinois state senator, who also was part of the 1999 delegation to Belgrade, and others. It all seemed a bit awkward.
Welcome to The Spin.
The (wait for) immigration raids and other business
“Immigration advocates had braced for wide-scale ICE raids in the Chicago area over the weekend, and though they had not materialized by Monday, allies said they will remain vigilant,” the Tribune’s Elvia Malagon reports. Read the story here.
That said, the New York Times reported “a small number of coordinated federal raids targeting undocumented migrant parents and their children took place over the weekend, the beginning of the Trump administration’s plan to swiftly enforce deportation orders against some 2,000 recently arrived migrants who are not eligible to remain in the country.” That includes a Chicago mother and her daughters who were detained and then released. Read the Times story here.
Lightfoot to Trump: Why Chicago police will not assist ICE in its raids — Read the mayor’s open letter to the president in the Washington Post here.
Lightfoot to NYC — again: Lightfoot, taking her third out-of-town trip for business since taking office May 20 returned to New York City where she joined mayors from across the globe in attending the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative. While there, they’re expected to talk about solving issues facing major metropolitan areas, according to the mayor’s office.
Last month, Lightfoot was in New York where she appeared on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” spoke at the Democratic National Committee’s annual LGBTQ Gala and met with New York Mayor and Democratic presidential hopeful Bill de Blasio and former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Earlier in June, Lighfoot traveled to Southern California, where she met with Los Angeles police about crime-fighting efforts and headlined a fundraiser in Palm Springs for former Democratic U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer’s political action committee. The mayor and wife Amy Eshleman also dined at the Montecito home of Oprah Winfrey.
Despite residency rules, World Business Chicago VP, Wilmette school board president holds a key role in Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s orbit — Lisa Schneider-Fabes, a Lightfoot adviser, lives in the tony North Shore suburb of Wilmette where she serves on the school board. She was hired by the public-private nonprofit agency run by the mayor that receives a mix of city tax money and private funding to lure business to Chicago. It’s legal because she’s a non-city employee, the Tribune John Byrne and Juan Perez Jr. note in their story here.
*The rub: “As a mayor who campaigned on a promise to bring clarity and reform to how the city operates, Lightfoot, like Emanuel before her, is nonetheless relying on non-city advisers and private sector appointees from organizations that offer little transparency about their operations,” Byrne and Perez report.
Cook County government has some work to do on investigating sexual harassment: IG — “A Cook County watchdog’s investigation determined County Board President Toni Preckwinkle handled allegations of sexual misconduct by her former chief of staff in a “reasonable” manner, but recommended the county establish better ways for handling complaints of improper behavior by county employees that occur while they are not at work,” the Tribune’s Hal Dardick and Ray Long report. Read their story here.
Feds raid home of second Speaker Madigan ally, ex-Ald. Mike Zalewski – Read Ray Long’s story in the Tribune here.
A rare Ald. Carrie Austin sighting at City Hall
Ald. Carrie Austin, 34th, hasn’t much been seen or heard from around City Hall since the FBI raided her ward office last month but she was spotted Monday leaving the building.
The Tribune first reported on a subpoena, issued by a federal grand jury that sought records relating to “the construction, purchase, financing, rental, or ownership of, and/or work on,” a home in the 12200 block of South Laflin Street in Chicago, including billing and payment information.
Austin herself introduced and voted for the 2016 zoning change that allowed the home to be built, which she later bought, city and county documents show.
In a brief interview Monday, Austin said she hasn’t done anything wrong and will keep working for her constituents. “They didn’t elect me to stand still,” she said. (Gregory Pratt)
Lightfoot, Pritzker tout apprenticeships to make sure locals take their talents to local companies – Read Ally Marotti’s piece in the Tribune here.
Emanuel and the ‘megapolitics’ of AOC vs. Pelosi and Trump vs. Ryan
“House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the moderate old guard, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the head of the liberal ‘squad,’ are no longer trying to make a go of it. They’re done with their loveless working relationship, and neither is willing to continue faking it,” the Tribune’s Dahleen Glanton opines.
“The public fallout began when Pelosi appeared to dis Ocasio-Cortez and her squad of three other freshman minority women in an interview with the New York Times. Ocasio-Cortez retaliated by calling Pelosi “outright disrespectful” to newly elected women of color. Somehow, that got translated into labeling Pelosi a racist.” Read the full Tribune column here.
But the Democrats haven’t cornered the market on public party feuds. In this latest battle, Trump is going after ex-Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin for questioning in a forthcoming book Trump’s command of how government works.
The Washington Post got an early copy of the book about the Trump White House — titled “American Carnage” — and in it Ryan is quoted as saying “I told myself I gotta have a relationship with this guy to help him get his mind right,” Ryan recalls. “Because, I’m telling you, he didn’t know anything about government. … I wanted to scold him all the time.”
On Saturday, Trump responded on Twitter, stating in part: “….Paul Ryan almost killed the Republican Party. Weak, ineffective & stupid are not exactly the qualities that Republicans, or the CITIZENS of our Country, were looking for.”
The fallout? Emanuel was on the ABC News political program “This Week” on Sunday and said such intraparty fissures are history in the making: “Here’s the thing that is happening in the kind of megapolitics (world): you have the president and Ryan, you have Nancy Pelosi (and) AOC … this is the breakup of the traditional parties as we see ’em.”
Some observers say it could hurt the Democrats more than the Republicans — especially when it comes to making Trump a one-term candidate. Incumbent presidents typically have the upper hand.
Emanuel talked to The New York Times for a weekend story about this so-called crack-up of the parties for a Sunday story, too. Read that story here. And separately, he told NYT columnist Maureen Dowd that Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff is a “snot-nosed punk” as the battle between moderates vs. far left in the Democratic Party simmers. Read the column here.
Perspective: He’s a longtime friend of Pelosi’s and the two served in Congress together.
Trump vs. ‘the squad’
Trump is facing loud backlash, particularly among Democrats, after taking to Twitter on Sunday morning and making apparent references to the four Democratic congresswoman of color. In his tweet, Trump said they can criticize the U.S. government after they “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”
Trump did not name the targets of his tweets but seemed to be referring to Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. Only Omar, from Somalia, is foreign-born, but all are U.S. citizens.
Ocasio-Cortez fired back on Twitter.
During an appearance on Sunday’s “Face the Nation” Illinois Sen. Durbin steered around the host’s question about Trump’s comment “Do you consider that a racist tweet?” Read my story here.
Today, while some Republican lawmakers began criticizing Trump’s comments, the president continued writing on Twitter that the congresswomen were “Anti-Semitic, they are Anti-America, we don’t need to know anything about them personally, talk about their policies. I think they are American citizens who are duly elected that are running on an agenda that is disgusting …”
Illinois’ governor joins the argument – The Democrat took to social media and urged people to call out GOP lawmakers for not criticizing Trump’s tweet. Read the thread here.
Out of the gate: A blown deadline and a study on locations, financing a Chicago casino
The ink is barely dry on a state law allowing more casinos to open in Illinois, but there’s already some movement on a first-ever (or first legal) Chicago betting parlor. Don’t get too excited, though: The Illinois Gaming Board on Friday picked a firm Friday — blowing a deadline by a few days — to conduct a study on finances and locations. The firm? Vegas-based, baby. Read Dan Petrella’s quick-read on what’s next for gambling expansion in Illinois here.
Money matters: A reminder that revenues from gambling expansion will be funneled to construction projects at public schools, state universities and community colleges under the governor’s “Rebuild Illinois” program. Revenue from expanded gambling will help pay for construction projects at public schools, state universities and more under the $45 billion plan.
Rev. Jackson, Meeks on ‘free Blagojevich’ bandwagon’
Patti Blagojevich was at the Rev. Jackson’s Operation Push headquarters on the South Side on Saturday to deliver a message from her imprisoned husband.
Jackson introduced the former first lady, recalling his and then-U.S. Rep. Blagojevich’s work to free the POWS — and how those efforts need to now focus on releasing the former governor.
“We’re not going to rest until we set Blagojevich free either,” Jackson told the crowd. “We intend to set the captive free,” later adding repeatedly, “we want Blagovich home with his family.”
Addressing the crowd, Patti Blagojevich said she talked to her husband — behind bars at a federal penitentiary in Colorado — and he sent her a statement to share.
It stated in part: “The brave men and women who serve in our military are the pride of our nation. Their service and sacrifice and their willingness to fight for and give their lives for our country should inspire all of us to never give in to those who abuse power, pervert our constitution and steal our freedoms. So from prison, I want to extend my best wishes and express my deepest appreciation to Rev. Jackson, and to all of you at Rainbow Push for everything you do in the cause of freedom and in the fight for equal justice. Thank you for serving our country and thank you for keeping hope alive.”
Meeks also spoke at the event, striking a different chord from a decade ago when he was in the General Assembly and preparing to cast an impeachment vote in the Senate that resulted in then-Gov. Blagojevich’s removal from office.
To cheers from the PUSH crowd, Meeks said: “I’m on the ‘Free Blagojevich’ bandwagon — free Rod Blagojevich.”
History lesson: As an Illinois senator, Meeks voted with the rest of his colleagues to impeach Blagojevich in 2009 after the then-governor was charged with trying to sell Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate seat. Meeks was reportedly ticked off that Blagojevich didn’t keep his promise to reform education.” Meeks even borrowed from a notorious Blagojevich line captured on FBI wires.
“We have this thing called impeachment and it’s ‘bleeping golden’ and we’ve used it the right way,” Meeks said at the time.
The Rev. Jackson’s son, then-U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., a Chicago Democrat, had unsuccessfully angled for Obama’s old seat before running into his own legal troubles that ended his political career.
Sanguinetti vs. Casten: Former Illinois Lt. Gov. Evelyn Sanguinetti, the Republican looking to unseat first-term Democratic U.S. Rep. Sean Casten, in the 6th Congressional District — once a GOP stronghold — has announced a long list of endorsements from current and former Republicans. A sampling: U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, 16th, former U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk, who lost his seat to Democrat Tammy Duckworth, former U.S. Rep. Judy Biggert, and former Illinois Lt. Gov. Corinne Wood.
Chicago politico hired to work on 2020 presidential campaign: Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, among the several dozen Democrats seeking the party’s nomination for president, has hired a Chicagoan who’s worked for some of the city’s biggest movers and shakers. Peter Cunningham is now Hickenlooper’s communications director, the campaign announced. Cunningham is fresh from working on Bill Daley’s losing bid for Chicago mayor.
He’s also worked for Bill Daley’s brother, former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley along with one-time political strategist David Axelrod. Cunningham replaces Lauren Hitt, who recently departed from the Hickenlooper campaign, according to a news release.
Former Emanuel spokeswoman heads to Uber: Kelley Quinn, who has done tours of duty as a spokeswoman for then- Gov. Blagojevich’s office, former Cook County Assessor Joe Berrios and later in the mayoral administration of Rahm Emanuel has taken a job with Uber as a senior manager for communications and strategy, she confirmed. Former Mayor Emanuel’s brother, Ari, is an investor in Uber. Quinn is just the latest staffer from the Emanuel administration to land a gig with the ride-share company.
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