Zorn: Highlights from Mayor Brandon Johnson's chippy news conference

I'm not loving what the self-styled "lover" says (and doesn't say) about the unfolding school funding drama

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Eric Zorn is a former opinion columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Find a longer bio and contact information here. This issue exceeds in size the maximum length for a standard email. To read the entire issue in your browser, click on the headline link above. Paid subscribers receive each Picayune Plus in their email inbox each Tuesday, are part of our civil and productive commenting community and enjoy the sublime satisfaction of supporting this enterprise.

Tuesdays at 11:30 a.m. I talk with WGN-AM 720 host John Williams about what’s making news and likely to be grist for the PS mill. The WGN listen-live link is here.

You are embarrassing us and yourself, Mr. Mayor

The mass resignation Friday of all seven volunteer members of the Chicago Board of Education was so unusual and portentously chaotic that it made national news — an example of the clumsy dysfunctionality of our town’s rookie mayor.

The quick summary is that Mayor Brandon Johnson, who appointed the entire board, wants to be rid of Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez, who is opposing Johnson’s plan to take out a high-interest loan of some $300 million to cover the anticipated costs of a new contract with the Chicago Teachers Union. That union is Johnson’s former employer and major campaign funder.

A joint statement from the mayor’s office and the board referring to the resignations as part of a “transition plan” to a partially elected, 21-member board next year was was shamefully preposterous. This is not how orderly transitions work.

Over the weekend an astounding 41 out of 50 members of the City Council signed a statement on the resignations that reads in full:

This past Friday, all seven sitting members of the Chicago School Board resigned. These vacancies, which will now be replaced with direct appointments from the mayor, will be tasked with overseeing the CPS budget, CEO Martinez's employment, and the ongoing negotiations with the Chicago Teachers Union. This is unprecedented and brings further instability to our school district.

Taking out a $300 million, high-interest payday loan is not a smart decision when CPS is already facing a massive deficit and the city an almost $1 billion deficit. With federal COVID-relief funds having recently expired for CPS, it is critical that CPS leaders keep the interests of taxpayers and our children top of mind as they make budget decisions that will impact the district for decades to come. CEO Pedro Martinez and the members of the school board who have announced their resignations understood the reality of that situation by passing a budget that did not include this loan. There is extreme cause for concern now that those voices have been diminished.

Earlier this year, legislators in Springfield noted the requests they received from the city's lobbying efforts. Many of them shared that the request focused too much on $2 billion for a new Bears Stadium, and not enough on additional funds for CPS and other school districts across Illinois. We must find new ways to work with one another, CPS leadership, and our colleagues in Springfield to achieve our shared vision of fully funded schools for all Illinois students.

Additionally, City Council must also convene for a hearing before the end of October, and before any new appointments are established. Chicagoans deserve a voice when it comes to decisions that will affect our school system and city as a whole. A school board full of lame-duck employees carrying out only a few months of a term before residents get a chance to elect representatives is not what is in our best interest.

A revolving door of CEOs that cannot complete more than a handful of years before transitioning out is not in our best interest. With the next school board meeting scheduled for late October, only days away from the general election, it would be a disservice to appoint anyone without thorough vetting - this is not what we fought for in our efforts for a fully elected school board.

Signatories included 13 of 19 members of the council’s Progressive Caucus, alders who generally side with Johnson.

The resigning members of the board have not been forthcoming about their reasons for abruptly stepping down en masse, but I can’t blame them for not wanting to have anything to do with the power struggle between the mayor and Martinez, and for not wanting to take out a massive high-interest loan to use tomorrow's money today so that Johnson can seem to be keeping a campaign promise to more fully fund schools.

Monday, Johnson announced replacements for six of the seven resigning board members in a speech and lengthy news conference. Here are some lightly edited quotes and highlights from that event. They speak for themselves. All the questions came from reporters:

Johnson: (Responding to protesters contending that the new board will not be “legitimate.”) The most legitimate existence of anyone in this country is the legitimate existence of a Black man. …

I'm doing exactly what I was elected to do. And we've done it in a very short period of time, with the previous board collaborating to improve special education services, increasing accountability for the renewal process for charter schools, establishing and embarking upon a five-year strategic plan that neighborhood schools will be prioritized, that sustainable community schools is the model in lieu of school closures.

I have no doubt that the new board will continue and build on the progress using the five-year strategic plan as we guide and collaborate with stakeholders, community partners to bring about the transformation that this city deserves.

When I ran for mayor, I promised to transform our public education system. I'm a man of my word, and that means bold leadership in a moment that doesn't nibble around the edges and look for incremental gain. Our people in this city are tired of political leaders that want the status quo to nibble around the edges, and then when children don’t get what they deserve, they blame the very communities that they've disinvested in. Not on my watch.

When our people wanted to be liberated and emancipated in this country, the argument was, you can't free Black people because it would be too expensive. They said that it would be fiscally irresponsible for this country to liberate Black people. And now you have detractors making the same argument of the Confederacy when it comes to public education in this system.

I am fulfilling the executive responsibility that is given to me by the State law. If you want to find out who CTU is endorsing, go ask the CTU. I'm not the CTU. I'm the mayor of the greatest freaking city in the world, the city of Chicago.

Q. This is a looks like a coup by the CTU to get rid of Pedro Martinez. Was there collaboration … on your part to make this happen so that you could fire Pedro Martinez?

Johnson: Every single mayor in the history of Chicago has had the authority to appoint board members to multiple boards. Guess who still has that authority? This mayor does. Thank you. …

Q. I'm wondering if any of the (newly nominated) board members can answer this question: If all of you can just, maybe even just a show of your hands, how many of you support taking out a loan to pay for…

Johnson: No. We're not doing that. We're not doing that. We're not doing that. If you have a question for the mayor of Chicago, you can ask me a question. What you are not going to do is litigate what the board has the authority to do once they're appointed. You can ask that once they are appointed. No, not going to do it. It's disrespectful. Do you have a question for me? Do you have a question for me? Ask me the question. Ask me if I support— I’m going to help you out. Ask me the question if I believe that we should invest in our children and make sure we don't lay off brown and Black women? Yes, yes. I'm not going to tolerate cuts. That's what the issue has been in this city. You know what a better question would be: What are you willing to do with your power to ensure that a school district that stuffed Black children in Willis wagons?*

What you should be asking me is, what are you willing to do when you had a district that have laid off Black women? You should be asking me, What am I prepared and willing to do to ensure that our children get education, that they deserve? Anything necessary?

Q. I’m going to ask my own questions, thank you. …

Johnson: Now you actually have a mayor who recognizes democracy. Have given the people exactly what they asked for and what they voted for.

Q. Could you explain, once and for all why you still don't think it's appropriate to talk about why you’re dissatisfied with Pedro Martinez's performance?

Johnson: Here's what I'm always willing to talk about, making sure that every single school has a social worker and a counselor and a nurse. Making sure that every single school has a library, and making sure that our schools have real college-to-careers as well as opportunities for the trades, for arts. … People who decide to make it personal about one individual and carry out private conversations publicly. I’ll just put it to you this way, I was raised better than that. …

Q: I'm wondering if City Council should get to have a hearing before these appointees are installed.

Johnson: The City Council can have as many hearings as they want. There's only one person who has the authority, by state law, to make appointments, and that's the mayor of Chicago, and that's me.

Q: So you say you're not going to tolerate cuts. So what are you going to ask the new board to do to ensure that you don't have to do cuts, given the half a billion dollar deficit next year and the following year? Are you going to ask them to take out that short term loan?

Johnson: As what we do to ensure that our children have social workers, nurses, sports and extracurricular activities, we have to look at everything. … This board and the people of Chicago, my administration, will continue to advocate in Springfield for more resources. As far as what we are prepared and willing to do to ensure that every single child gets what they deserve everything is on the table …

Q: You say everything, is on the table. And so what is on the table?

Johnson: So let me ask you this, what is your definition of everything, right? What is your definition of everything? What is your definition of everything? What does everything mean?

Q: Everything

Johnson: All right. Next question. Heh-heh. I think we answered that …

Q: I don't think any of us have been able to get a hold of and have a conversation with outgoing school board members since the press release came out on Friday. In your conversations with them, were you able to get a sense of why not a single one of them wants to continue serving the board beyond this fall?

Johnson: We did a lot of great things together. Now it's time to transition. That's all it is. It's a transition. And here's the part that's neat about this transition. The people of Chicago gave me the authority to do it when they voted for me.

Q: You've said you're worried about cuts, and that's the big reason that this all is happening right now. You don't want to see people laid off, furloughs, that sort of thing. Do you have any sense of the magnitude of cuts you would be expecting if there were to be a shortage of money in the spring?

Johnson: I don't worry. I don't worry. God has not given me a spirit of fear, so I'm not worried at all. Just want to clarify that, okay. But you know who the people who do worry in this city? It's the Black children who have to beg for everything. It's the children who don't have somewhere to lay their head. Those are the people who worry. It's the teacher who does everything in their power to show up for this school district, and then the school district turns on them and says, “You don't deserve the job.” That's the worry for them. It's the child who just wants someone to see them because they're depressed and we don't have behavioral counselors in buildings. And all we give them are people with badges and guns. Do you understand how sick that is, you all?

We're talking about children and families who've had to worry administration after administration. If someone actually gave a damn, I give a damn. And so whatever that number is, whatever that number is, I’m not going to tolerate it, …Do you have a follow up ?

Q: Yes, do you have a sense of the magnitude of cuts that would be expected?

Johnson: Whatever it is, it's too much, whatever it is. … Let me just ask this question out loud, not for you to answer. So you have a Black man who's a parent, a teacher and the mayor of Chicago with the authority that the State gave me, and now (critics) have concerns that I'm expressing that authority?

Q: How do you get money to solve this problem? How does what you're doing — replacing your board — solve the problem? Get the money that you need?

Johnson: As far as how we get partners to see the vision — not just for Chicago, but for all of our school districts across the state — it's going to take all of us. See, this is the difference between me and other mayors. I don't have to do anything alone. I don't have to intimidate people, threaten people. I don't have to do that. The people of Chicago are tired of that.

The people of Chicago actually voted for — you know, the greatest power in the world is? It's the power of love. The people of Chicago voted for a lover. And so are there other people who love as much as I do? I hope so, so we can all go down to Springfield and we just love each other together. …

Q: When does the bill come due for this borrowing in addition to the debt the system has? And when that time comes, how will it be paid?

Johnson: It's a great question. Look, that's why we need smart people on the board and people who can actually help guide that. Look, I have a budget director in the office. I have a Deputy Mayor for infrastructure, a chief operations officer, a policy director. We have experts in their respective spaces that can offer up recommendations. I have one of the most brilliant chief financial officers on my side, on the fifth floor. So all of us are going to work together and figure that out. But what I do know is this, here's what I do know: We cannot kick the can down the road. Can't do that anymore. … The fact of the matter is the state of Illinois has to do more.

Q: But when 41, of 50 alder people saying, “Hold on, take a pause, we're concerned with this,” does it give you pause?

Johnson: No, I tell you why. How much longer are we going to make parents in the city of Chicago wait? How much longer? … Everybody agrees that there are real issues and problems of disinvestment, right? Do we all agree that schools are woefully underfunded? Can we all have some agreement around that? I think we do, right? The question is, how will other elected officials use their power … to make sure that parents do not have to wait any longer. … There are a number of folks who recognize that waiting in this moment is the status quo, and I am not the status quo. …

I am just bold enough and honest enough to say out loud that what we what we have to do is make sure that every single child, — no matter what school, no matter what zip code — has social workers, counselors, nurses, mental health providers, sports and extracurricular activities. And that should be the case for every school district in Illinois.

Q: Mayor, is this a good week to go to London for a Bears game? And also, who's going to pay for that trip?

Johnson: OK, all right, I'm going to London to attract business to Chicago. OK? I'm going to attract business to Chicago.

Q: But are you going to the game?

Johnson: Hold on a second, because you already know the answer to that. … I have to be very honest with you, it's pretty jacked up the way you framed that. It is. It is. It's disrespectful and condescending that the Black man is going to London for a game. It's disrespectful. It is. And people get away with that too much. The governor went to Tokyo. The governor went to Tokyo to attract business. The mayor of Chicago is going to London to attract business, and while I'm there, I'm going to root for the Chicago Bears. …

My full time, and only job is to run this city, to love my Black wife and my Black children.

*The reference is to this bit of ghastly Chicago history:

Schools in neighborhoods populated primarily by white students had generally better financing. They also had empty seats that students from poorer schools were anxious to fill. But under the neighborhood school policy of Superintendent of Schools Benjamin Willis, students could not transfer to these better-performing schools. To keep African-American kids in their local schools, Willis instead installed trailers (called Willis Wagons) to create more seats. As a result, students of different races were kept separate. And their educational opportunities remained far from equal.

Civil rights icon Jesse Jackson endorses Trump-backer Bob Fioretti for Cook County State’s Attorney

Jackson is 82 and demonstrating for us that it’s never too late to tarnish one’s legacy.

Here’s Fioretti on why he supports Trump.

Notes and comments from readers — lightly edited — along with my responses

Trump’s ‘one real rough, nasty day’

Bob Angone — I am a retired lieutenant with the Chicago Police Department, and I find Donald Trump’s proposal that police be given free rein to brutalize criminals for one day to be really scary. He is advocating for police officers to become thugs not to mention judges and juries. Imagine America’s law enforcement officers ignoring the very laws they are sworn to uphold becoming criminals in order to serve and protect. Shoplifting laws may be frustrating to people but its not the job of the police to commit other crimes to satisfy frustration. In case Trump needs to hear this, in America every single person is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

‘Brainless’ Democratic voters

Sherry Kujala —   The maniacal followers of celebrities tend to be uninformed voters, and there are more numerous brainless voters on the blue side of the political spectrum.  

I have long felt that brainless voting is a bigger threat to democracy than anything Trump says or will do.

Our system allowing the right to vote regardless of how uninformed one is, needs checks and balances.  

So when Democrats fuss about the Electoral College and obsesses about the national popular vote totals, I assume that a large number of Democrats brainlessly followed the instructions of celebrities and registered to vote. This tips the results to a less informed outcome.

The last time the Republican Party won the popular vote was in 2004 with George W Bush and this is a reflection of the growth in celebrity endorsements favoring Democratic candidates and a growing number of brainless voters, disproportionately clustering about Democratic candidates.

I am not doubting the vote counts but I am doubting the substantive value of many of those votes.     

Zorn — I will disagree 100% and leave it at that.

Gender reassignment surgery in public schools?

David Applegate: You suggested that Donald Trump is promoting the false idea that public schools are performing gender reassignment surgery. But nowhere does Trump say that. And of course schools can’t perform such surgeries because they’re not equipped with surgeons or operating rooms, among other things.

What public schools can and do do, however, is either help convince confused kids that they were born in the wrong body or indulge them in that belief and then begin addressing kids by chosen names of a different gender without parental knowledge or consent. 

And that, in today’s parlance, is a “gender change.”  Surely you, as a card-carrying liberal/progressive/Democrat in good standing understand the difference between “sex” and “gender,” even if our newest US Supreme Court Justice - a woman herself - doesn’t know what a “woman” is.

In short, like many Trump detractors, you shoot yourself in the foot by going overboard in your attacks on the man, when there is plenty enough already at which to shoot.

Zorn — I stand by my suggestion! I should have included these quotes from Trump:

The transgender thing is incredible. Think of it. Your kid goes to school and comes home a few days later with an operation. The school decides what’s going to happen with your child. (CNN)

Kamala supports states being able to take minor children and perform sex change operations, take them away from their parents, perform sex change operations, and send them back home. Can you imagine you’re a parent and your son leaves the house and you say, “Jimmy, I love you so much. Go have a good day in school” and your son comes back with a brutal operation. Can you even imagine this? What the hell is wrong with our country? (The Independent)

But I do take your point about parental consent/notification.

Voting third party

Jim Strickler — I think of people with whom I generally agree politically but who refuse to vote for Kamala Harris as being willing to sacrifice the immediate needs of some people — such as women who want an abortion, gay people who want to marry, and any of us concerned about climate change, etc., — for the sake of a larger longer-term goal.

I don't always disagree with this strategy. It's what we did in the American Civil War: we asked people to sacrifice their lives, initially to save the republican form of government, and then to end slavery. I disagree with this strategy for this election. To me, asking others to sacrifice makes sense only if we have a reasonable chance to win. I don't see a reasonable chance that we will adopt a dramatically more fair and free society right now. So, to me, not voting for Harris is asking others to sacrifice without a reasonable chance of success.

Reformers as diverse as Karl Marx and Frederick Douglass and Michael Harrington have agreed that society moves in a positive direction when progressives align with moderates. I think of the abolitionists who supported Lincoln in 1860, even though he clearly intended to protect slavery in the states where it existed. And the workers and socialists who supported FDR in 1932, even though he was a wealthy man dedicated to protecting capitalism. And the civil rights leaders who supported LBJ, even though he had close ties to the most racist elements in our society. I'm glad Lincoln, FDR, and LBJ all won, even with their flawed policies. I think the people they defeated would have made the same mistakes they did but without the achievements they left us.

Challenge to the Electoral College

Michael M. — You suggested that Electoral College votes be awarded by percentage of votes each candidate get in each state. But someone on Quora calculated the number of votes that would have been cast by each state in every U.S. presidential election since 1864 if every state had cast its electoral votes in proportion to its popular votes.

The biggest difference I found was that 12 of those 39 elections (1880, 1892, 1901, 1909, 1913, 1925, 1948, 1968, 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2016) would have had to be decided by the U.S. House of Representatives due to nobody receiving a majority of presidential electoral votes.

Zorn — Yikes. Such a system would also enable third-party spoilers, so there would ideally be a top-two apportionment. The U.S. House solution is awful, given that it stands frequently to negate the popular vote. I'd like to see which party controlled the House after those no-majority elections and so how many of them would have gone to the candidate who did not prevail in the popular vote.

Bold prediction

Fred — Trump won’t come close to winning if it's an honest election.

Zorn — I have seen others on the left making that prediction and I certainly hope that Vice President Harris wins a resounding enough victory that we know the result shortly after the polls close in California and only the truly insane of Trump’s cultists claim he actually won. Given how readily his followers believe the nuttiest lies, however, I wonder if even a landslide loss will persuade them that the fix isn’t in.

A plaque for Pete?

Joan Pederson — The late Pete Rose did not cheat. He simply broke a rule. His lifetime ban served as a warning: Don't make sports gambling look acceptable because of its corrosive effect on individuals, families, and society and the sport played by the gambler in question. As the article you linked to points out the online sports books are incredibly corrosive, far more than Rose ever was. So I voted to let him in to the Hall of Fame. And any owner who wants funding for new stadiums can go to the sports books to get their funding. No citizen should ever again pay a dime of tax money to pay for one.

Zorn — I do like that funding idea a lot. But the following letter makes a good point about cheating:

Steve T. — Those who say Rose’s gambling didn’t matter because he bet on his own team, miss a couple of key points: One, it’s impossible to believe anything he says because of the many times he changed his story to suit himself. And two, anyone betting on their own team still has plenty of ways to affect game outcomes— run differentials, betting different amounts (or nothing) for some games.

Michael Johnson — Pete Rose was banned from baseball for life and was thus ineligible for the Hall of Fame. To me that means he is now eligible for consideration.

Zorn --  Logically, yes, when you die, all “lifetime” bans expire. Change of Subject readers don’t see it that way:

534 votes

Sun-Times readers saw in differently:

894 votes

Speaking of sports

Melinda A K — In your quotables section you posted @Punished_Stu’s quote, “If you don't like sports, you are missing a whole world of easygoing conversations with complete strangers.”

This is so true! My autistic and developmental disabled son loves sports and talking about sports, which opens him up to conversations — something very hard for him otherwise. He always wears something related to one or more sports teams. People will comment on what he’s wearing and it starts a conversation my child would otherwise not have. To see this young adult who didn't even talk for several years, having a back-and-forth conversation is an absolute delight. He works in a hospital and sports is how he relates to a lot of the patients. I worried it was too much sports talk but I'm advised that he is well-loved by patients and co-workers alike.

The week’s best visual jokes

Here are some funny visual images I've come across recently on social media. Enjoy, then evaluate:

There’s still time to vote in the conventional Quip of the Week poll!

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