Last month, a federal judge ruled Chicago needed one more majority black ward and ordered city officials to carve it out of the far South Side. The decision brings an end-in-sight to the 6-year-old legal imbroglio between the city's white aldermen, who drew the present ward map in 1992, and a coalition of black aldermen, white independents and community activists who have been fighting it ever since.
And it leaves the rest of us scratching our heads and trying to remember what this was all supposed to mean. If the hearing before U.S. District Judge Elaine Bucklo was any indication, the remap fight was not about political representation under the Voting Rights Act. It was all about borders.
Chicagoans are very border conscious. We subdivide our neighborhoods with trendy names that give us a leg up on the people down the street. Real estate agents use our preoccupation with boundaries to extend fashionable neighborhoods into less desirable locations, hoping to inflate home prices and send the riffraff packing.
We also take great pride in the wards we live in, though given the criminal records of our aldermen, it's hard to see why. In the remap case, for example, residents of the predominantly white 19th Ward told Judge Bucklo their lives would forever be diminished if they were remapped into the mostly black 21st. The 19th Ward is home to the celebrated Beverly community, where being Irish still matters and votes bloom like wild poppies on Election Day. The 21st Ward's claim to fame is that former Alderman Jesse Evans was the latest to resign the City Council as a result of the federal Silver Shovel corruption probe. Beverly residents, both black and white, complained to Bucklo they would suffer lower property values, inferior city services and intangible forms of anti-clout if their homes were no longer part of the natty 19th.
But Bucklo wasn't buying any of it, and she ordered the city to cut a deal. And in true Chicago fashion, when the going got tough, the clout got moving. The white aldermen sacrificed one of their own, 18th Ward Alderman Thomas Murphy, rather than touch the precious 19th. The new 18th takes a bite out of three other wards to become about 75 percent African American and moves Murphy's home into the 13th Ward, which, the last time I looked, already has a white alderman.
This simple maneuver, which the aldermen first considered and then rejected in 1992, has now cost the taxpayers at least $20 million. And it's not as if another black alderman will make the City Council an independent legislative body. The council rarely opposes Mayor Richard M. Daley on anything. Because of death, retirement and indictment (mostly indictment), the mayor has appointed nearly one-third of the current members, including several black aldermen. Daley's budget sails through uncontested each year, and aldermen recently gave themselves, and Hizzoner, a nice fat raise.
But the era of good feeling may not last for long. Now that we've settled the 1990 remap - you guessed it - the year 2000 redistricting is right around the corner. Only this time it won't be blacks knocking at the door. Latinos are expected to make up about one-fourth of the city's population in the next count, and they'll be looking for at least 10 council seats, maybe even 12, up from their current seven.
This time, maybe the city bosses can follow the example of former Alderman Tom Keane, who drew the ward map after the 1980 census. Keane blissfully ignored the census data and kept majority Latino neighborhoods in the hands of Machine hacks.
In 1985, the federal court threw out Keane's map, created four new Latino wards and ordered special elections. That change gave Mayor Harold Washington effective control of the City Council for the first time since his 1983 election.
The 2000 map may also make some serious waves. Which white wards will have the largest Latino populations in 2000? Try these on for size: the 11th, the Daley ancestral village; the 14th, home to the wily and powerful Alderman Edward Burke; and the 33rd, where Alderman Richard Mell, 1992's mapmaker extraordinaire, hangs his hat.
If you think these three amigos will fade away without a fight, you haven't been paying attention.
Gentlemen, on my signal, take out your crayons and start mapping.
James Ylisela Jr. teaches urban reporting at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. He's the consulting editor of The Chicago Reporter.
Illinois Issues September 1998 | 45
