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Are There Any Smart People at the Intersection of Mayor Brandon Johnson and the Media?

In days of old it was the media’s job.

Twenty-five years ago every mayoral candidate had to sit down for a full hour every Sunday morning and be prepared for an in-depth discussion on various matters. Back in the day WTTW – which is now the only outlet conducting long-form interviews – was undoubtedly the easiest interview of the bunch. The guy on NBC liked to talk real fast and was a little bit tougher. Over on CBS Bill Kurtis took his job seriously and is probably the gold standard by which all Chicago journalists should be judged.

However, as they say, things have changed; and not for the better.

Today, in their desire to simply have access to the mayor, Chicago’s media outlets are engaged in an embarrassing circle-jerk of never-ending stupidity whereby each tries to demonstrate their own ignorance to the other. The truly sad part of it is that each side is unaware of what it’s doing.

Instead of an hour dedicated to policy, we get Mayor Johnson waxing nonsensically from behind a podium for 10 minutes yammering on about his feelings.

It’s actually hard to believe this didn’t happen during the campaign. Someone, anyone, early on in the process should have made a very nice video while being polite, but simply stating the facts, that Brandon Johnson is an intellectual lightweight who always sounds like someone half drunk at midnight trying to talk their way out of a ticket.

It shouldn’t be difficult. Simply speak the truth. One doesn’t have to be mean about it. There is nothing wrong with telling Brandon Johnson that he appears to be a nice man who loves his wife and his kids, goes to church, and generally means well and what have you. It’s also fair to say that he’s probably a decent man and a productive member of society, Unfortunately, we’re talking about being the mayor of the third largest city in America. The qualifications are more than being a productive member of society and a good person.

We’re not looking for a genius. What Chicago really needs is a leader. A leader is someone who can very simply explain, “This is what I’m going to do. This is why it is going to work. And this is how we will measure success.”

Unfortunately Mayor Johnson is simply unable to consistently articulate his own policy, its rationale, or its measure of success.

To be clear, this is not a criticism of his race. There are several other more qualified candidates for mayor who also happened to be black. Toni Preckwinkle is a proven executive running the Cook County Board. Longtime alderman and former felon Walter Burnett has proven himself quite adapt at wielding the levers of power in City Hall. Doctor Willie Wilson, who did run for mayor, runs a successful multi-million dollar company.

This is not to say that any of people would make a suitable mayor, only that each is infinitely more qualified than Brandon Johnson.

In days of old local media would be having a field day. No talking head would ever appear on camera without saying things like, “Mayor Johnson was unable to describe his policy today…” Or, “Today, Mayor Johnson refused to discuss why so many of Chicago’s children can’t read or do math at grade level.”

It’s easy to believe local media is simply full of sycophants. And while that is certainly part of it, it’s also worth noting that today most journalists are dumber than politicians. They just don’t know what questions to ask.

Journalism can be confrontational without being adversarial. Perhaps it’s time for the Chicago Tribune editorial board to invite the good mayor in for a sit-down. They can call it the “State of the City” or something like that as we approach the halfway point of the mayor’s term.

Although no one sees that happening, here are some questions a young enterprising journalist should ask the mayor if they could ever get him to sit down. They could actually even give the mayor the questions in advance so he could study like a test. All the questions follow the same, policy > nexus > metric, format:

The Scope and Role of Government

• With the recent election of Trump, how do you see the different roles of municipal, county, state, and federal governments?
• What policy of your administration do you believe best represents Chicago fulfilling its role as a municipality?
• How will this policy make life better for Chicago’s residents?
• How will your administration measure the success or failure of this policy?

Finance & Macroeconomics

• Policies:
  • Can the city go on raising taxes forever or at some point will have to balance the budget, pay down debt, and get current with its pension obligations?
  • Would you ever consider putting the city into bankruptcy?
  • Do you believe the city has an obligation to fully fund the pensions of the police officers, firefighters, teachers, and other city workers?
  • For the last decade or so the city has been hemorrhaging people, how long can they continue before it becomes a problem?
  • Do you believe the city may reach a point where it would have to raise taxes so prohibitively that people may leave and cause what some call a “death spiral”?
• Describe how your policies will make living more cost-effective in Chicago.
• How will your administration measure the success or failure of these policies?

Race Relations

• We’ve noticed that you often talk about what you wish to do for black people, is there anything the city should be doing for non-black people?
• What policy of your administration best deals with the above question?
• How will your administration measure the success or failure of this policy?

Education

• Policies:
  • If CPS was a business, what is the product?
  • How does the product of CPS compare to other school districts in large cities?
  • What’s the high school graduation rate for CPS? | What should be done with students who don’t graduate?
  • What’s the metric by which CPS teachers should be measured?
  • Are there any bad teachers in CPS? | What should we do with them?
  • CPS is now spending over $20,000 per student per year, is that an acceptable number?
  • Why is it that CPS’s spending has not gone down with declining enrollment?
• Describe how these policies will make education better for the average child in Chicago.
• How will your administration measure the success or failure of these policies?

Public Safety

• Policies:
  • Should CPD simply follow the law and arrest or ticket every individual who was observed committing a crime regardless of the situation or that persons race, gender, or stature?
  • If either CPD or the Cook County State’s Attorney wish to apply discretion in any matter how should that be judged? | What are the factors used when applying law enforcement or prosecutorial discretion?
  • Now that we have seen some of the effects of cashless bail, is it working or not working?
  • What would you say is the reasonable amount of crime that law-abiding citizens should have to tolerate in the city?
  • What data do you get in reports from CPD and OEMC by which you measure CPD’s performance? | Are you happy with the reports you get? | How has the data changed since you have been in office?
  • What should citizens expect as a reasonable response time from CPD when they call 911?
  • In the federal system, felons in possession of a firearm receive a mandatory 5-year sentence. Have you ever spoken with anyone in the CCSAO about making these referrals to the US attorney? | Would you support the CCSAO making these referrals?
  • Is CPD a little top-heavy? | Is there some reason each district requires more than a single commander, 3-4 captains, 6-8 lieutenants, 14-16 sergeants? | If the superintendent cannot directly manage 50 people he wouldn’t be qualified to manage a McDonald’s. What’s going on over there?
• Describe how these policies will make life safer for the average citizen in Chicago.
• How will your administration measure the success or failure of these policies?

Housing & Real Estate

• Policies:
  • Does Chicago have enough housing?
  • Does Chicago need more high-end, market rate, or more affordable rate housing? | Why?
  • Is there any neighborhood where you would or would not allow only market rate housing to be built? | Similarly, is there any neighborhood where you would or would not allow only affordable housing to be built?
  • Does your office have a report on how much additional tax revenue would be generated if any given amount of new housing was completed? | No. Why not? | Yes. What does it say?
  • Why does Chicago have so much vacant commercial real estate? | What, if anything, should be done about it? | Would you support the city and/or county having a tax holiday for some business that wants to open up in vacant commercial real estate? | By what criteria would the businesses be selected?
• Describe how these policies will make housing more comfortable for the average citizen in Chicago.
• How will your administration measure the success or failure of these policies?

Migration & Social Services

• Policies:
  • How many migrants, illegal immigrants, are currently residing in Chicago?
  • How many migrants can Chicago accept in any given year? | How was that number determined? | Is any number too many; can Chicago accept 1,000,000 per year?
  • In your term, or perhaps in just the last fiscal year, what has been the cost of illegal immigration to Chicago?
  • Does that number include the added expense of migrant children enrolled in CPS?
  • How many children of illegal migrant’s are currently enrolled in CPS?
  • Does your office have a report describing spending on migrants? | Does this report break it down to dollars per migrant?
• Describe how these policies will make life better for the average citizen in Chicago.
• How will your administration measure the success or failure of these policies?

Other Stuff

• Policies:
  • How much money is currently sitting in the TIFF funds? | How is it invested? | What should be done with it?
  • Do you support the creation of additional TIFF districts in the city?
  • Does the mayor’s office have enough power – or not enough power – relative to the City Council? | Is there anything within your power which you believe should require Council approval? | Is there anything that requires Council approval that you believe you should be able to do?
  • Now that Trump has won, what – if anything – is your office doing to prevent a repeat of the violence of 2016 & particularly 2020? | If violence does erupt, what is your intention in regards to dealing with it? | Will it be permitted?
  • By what standards/metrics should the citizens measure your performance as mayor?
• Describe how these policies will make life better for the average citizen in Chicago.
• How will your administration measure the success or failure of these policies?

These questions are not mean, inappropriate or gotcha. These are ordinary questions that every journalist working the city desk should have the answers to at their fingertips but they, and we, don’t. As a result, we don’t know what were voting for, how much it’s going to cost, or how it impacts our families.

In Chicago, we are governed by idiots in no small part because the people working in journalism today either don’t want or are too dumb to get answers to the real questions affecting our lives.

What’s really going on with mail-in voting in Chicago?

According to the Chicago Board of Elections’ database, as of early August there were 2,115,542 registered voters in Chicago. Of those, 1,570,753 were in active status.

Two addresses share the title of having the greatest number of active voters. The first is 2700 S. California; that’s right, Cook County Jail. The second is in the 3700 block of South Indiana. Each has 1,019 registered active voters.

All told, there are 18 properties in Chicago with 100 or more active voters. 74 properties have 50 or more active voters and 757 addresses have 10 or more individuals “living” there representing 19,823 active voters.

How can this be?

Under Illinois law, 10 ILCS 5/3-2(b)

A homeless individual must have a mailing address in order to be eligible to register to vote. For purposes of this Act, a mailing address shall constitute a homeless individual's residence for voting purposes. A mailing address of a homeless individual may include, but is not limited to, a shelter, a day shelter, or a private residence.

Scrolling through the list of addresses generally confirms the obvious. The vast majority of these addresses with hundreds of active registered voters are in fact shelters. Others are veterans’ homes or long-term care facilities. That address on South Indiana Avenue belongs to Matthew’s House, a homeless shelter and food pantry. Here’s a list of the top 10 addresses:

• 2700 S. California – Cook County Jail – 1019 voters
• 3700 S. Indiana – Matthews House – 1019 voters
• 400 N. St. Louis – Breakthrough Men’s Center – 852 voters
• 2700 W. Harrison – Franciscan Outreach – 481 voters
• 3300 W. Carroll – Breakthrough Women’s Center – 437 voters
• 2900 W. Lake – Above & Beyond – 299 voters
• 1700 N. Ashland – Midnight Ministries – >210 voters (multiple unit numbers)
• 500 W. 14th – Pacific Garden Mission – >200 voters (at multiple addresses)
• 800 N. Christina – Salvation Army – 174 voters
• 300 N. Central – Central Plaza – 155 voters

The list goes on and on. Whether or not this is a good idea is a different topic; this is not an argument for or against registering voters at shelters. It’s undeniable that Chicago has a homeless problem. Allowing the homeless to use a shelter as a registered address is the probably the right thing to do. However, since the proliferation of mail-in voting it does make one wonder who is actually filling out the ballots.

But there are other problems as well. The law calls for the Chicago Board of Elections to use United States Postal Service returned mail as the primary source for list hygiene. That is, the only way that the CBOE will move a voter to inactive status is if the USPS returns the election card as “undeliverable” or if another government agency specifically notifies the CBOE of a voters change of address.

Just so it is abundantly clear, nothing in this article should be taken as an accusation of fraud. It’s not. It’s also not meant to suggest that the outcome of any prior election would have been different if this or that took place. This is not about election hypotheticals. This is about facts surrounding who is registered and eligible to vote in Chicago.

Even without making any accusations of fraud, it’s certainly appropriate to ask questions about the voting procedure taking place at these shelters. What happens to all the registration cards sent by CBOE? It’s reasonable to assume the post office does not know who is or is not using any particular shelter as an address. A fair conclusion is that USPS does not return any of the election cards as undeliverable. The most likely scenario is the USPS delivers all the mail to the shelter regardless of whose name it is addressed to.

The next question is what does the shelter do with the election cards it receives? Does the shelter sort through 500, 800, or 1000 cards and determine when was the last time they saw each of these individuals? Does Matthew’s House have a wall with 1000 little pigeonholes where they put everyone’s mail? That’s unlikely. Does the shelter return any of the cards to the CBOE as undeliverable? Not bloody likely. What most likely happens is that the shelter accepts the cards on behalf of the homeless and returns none of them as undeliverable.

The unfortunate reality is that once an individual is registered to vote at a shelter, there is no method for moving that voter to inactive status. That, in and of itself, is a problem. Add to it mail-in voting and we’ve created a situation simply asking for abuse.

But the situation at the shelters is not the only issue. In fact, it’s only the beginning.

Because the CBOE is relying on the USPS to return mail as undeliverable, wherever and whenever that doesn’t happen the number of voters at any address slowly creeps up. Looking at a list of commercial/condo buildings, here is a short sample of interesting addresses:

• One E. Erie – FedEx Office – 33 voters
• 69 W. Washington – County Building – 29 voters
• 4750 N. Sheridan – Institute of Cultural Affairs – 21 voters
• 1120 N. Lake Shore Drive – Condo – 8 voters
• 4554 N. Broadway – Commercial Space – 8 voters
• 8052 S. Loomis – Apartment – 8 voters
• 1040 N. Lake Shore Drive – 2 Bed Condo – 7 voters
• 1300 N. State – 2 Bed Condo – 7 voters

Note: Apartment/unit numbers are deliberately excluded. Similarly, for individual residences only the block number is provided. This is not an exercise to dox, harass, or shame anyone. This is merely shining sunlight on an issue which affects everybody.

Then, there are the condo/apartment buildings where no unit number is given. It appears safe to assume the USPS is not returning mail as undeliverable from any of these addresses either.

• 1165 N. Milwaukee – 33 voters
• 5030 N. Marine – 21 voters
• 5495 S. Hyde Park – 20 voters
• 10858 S. Michigan – 19 voters
• 155 N. Harbor – 19 voters

There are hundreds of such buildings representing thousands of registered voters.

As if that was not enough, there are single-family homes with more active registered voters than reasonable voting eligible residents.

• 1500 block N. Menard – 12 voters
• 2700 block W. Greenleaf – 12 voters
• 2800 block W. Walnut – 12 voters
• 3600 block W. Douglas – 12 voters
• 6900 block N. Oleander – 10 voters

Is it possible that 12 voting-age adults can be living in the same three-bedroom house? Of course. But it’s not reasonable to believe it’s a regular, frequent occurrence which should be dismissed out of hand as normal.

It’s not normal. None of this – from the shelters to people living in commercial spaces – is normal. And in the past it was probably tolerable if not outright acceptable. Because everyone had to go vote in person, a little sloppiness in the voter rolls was not a big deal. However, as mail-in voting becomes more common, we see the need for some changes in election policy.

Lest there be any doubt, let’s take a look at the impact of mail-in voting.

Below is a chart showing the total number of votes cast in Chicago in the last six November general elections stacked by voting method.

For starters, it’s obvious more people vote in the presidential elections than in the mid-terms. That’s a well established trend that has existed nationally throughout history.

One, perhaps unusual, observation is that while the total vote in 2012 was just over 725,000 votes, that number swelled to nearly 958,000 in 2016. The number of in-person voters was about the same, rising slightly from 526,000 in 2012 to 562,000 2016. The biggest driver in the count was early voting which nearly doubled from 176,002 to 284,000. Nevertheless, there was a 4x increase in the number of mail-in votes from just over 15,000 to nearly 66,000.

However it was accomplished, it was an increase of 223,000 votes. Does Chicago really love Hillary Clinton that much more than Barack Obama?

In 2020, the next presidential election, the country was reeling with Covid. Only 300,000 folks voted in-person. Nearly 390,000 – stood six-feet apart, braved the disease and – went to early voting. An absolutely astronomical 455,442 votes were cast via mail-in voting.

Another way of looking at the voting trend is to group the numbers by ballot type.

The trends in early and mail-in voting are undeniable.

Also undeniable is that there was something extremely unusual with mail-in voting in 2020.

Again, nothing in this article should be taken as an accusation of fraud. It’s not. It’s also not meant to suggest that the outcome of any prior election would have been different if this or that took place. These are simply factual observations based on Chicago’s voting history.

Nevertheless, in 2020, Chicagoans cast 1.17M votes. 455,000 of those were mail-in ballots.

Looking at all of the 2020 voters, regardless of their voting method, 411,000 of them did NOT vote in 2016. Over 555,000 of them did NOT vote, by any method, in 2022.

In fact, there were over 180,000 voters in 2020 who did NOT cast a ballot in the 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, or 2022 elections.

It’s astounding and undeniable as to what an unusual (and statistically impossible) election took place in 2020. Over 10 percent of the people who voted in 2020 had not done so in the prior four federal elections and then failed to vote again in 2022. The only possible conclusion to be drawn is that when a mail-in ballot is sent to every registered voter, people – but we don’t know exactly who – send them in.

Just so it’s abundantly clear, Trump lost Chicago by nearly 1M votes. But multiple things can be true at the same time. It’s possible that there was no situation whereby Trump could win Chicago (or Illinois) while simultaneously there were significant voting irregularities regarding the use of mail-in ballots. Those concepts are not mutually exclusive.

Putting the freakishness of the 2020 election aside, in 2012, mail-in voting represented only 2.13 percent of votes cast. In 2022, nearly a quarter (23.98%) of all ballots counted were mailed-in. It appears that we are going to have mail-in voting for the foreseeable future and its relevance will only continue to grow.

Which brings us to the Permanent Roster. The Permanent Roster is a new law in Illinois whereby registered voters will receive a mail-in ballot for each election without having to apply for an absentee ballot. What this means is that in Chicago, the CBOE will automatically mail a ballot, for every election, to everyone on the Permanent Roster whether that address is at a shelter, a commercial space, or even to 12 voting age adults living in a three bedroom house, ad infinitum, until the USPS returns mail as undeliverable.

The Permanent Roster law is putting out a fire with kerosene.

This situation is not going to resolve itself. It’s gonna require some changes. Thankfully, those changes are actually not difficult to execute. They will however need some political capital to be accomplished. Here’s a few ideas that could be completed quickly without any changes in the current law:

• The CBOE should take it upon itself to make sure that every voter is registered at a legitimate “residential” address. Every address should be CASS certified and verified through the Cook County Assessor’s list of known PINs. Anyone registered to vote from a commercial address needs to correct their registration or be placed in inactive status.
• The voter rolls must be searched for duplicates based on similar names and birth dates.
• Addresses with a high number of voters – particularly single-family homes or individual apartments/condos – should be reviewed and people not legitimately residing at such address would need to correct their registration or be placed in inactive status.
• The CBOE should work with the Cook County Clerk to make sure every city resident who has died is marked as non-eligible to vote.

Beyond that, more fundamental adjustments will require something from Springfield. For example, DMV “Real ID” records should be used to confirm identification, addresses, and citizenship status.

The first step to solving anything is recognizing that there is a problem. In this case, the problem is not about voter fraud or the denial of election outcomes. The problem is a set of laws that were created decades ago which don’t meet the needs of our modern society.

We can have a system of voting which is clunky, confusing, opaque, and ripe for abuse which only leads people to doubt the results which in turn causes the breakdown of society. Or instead, we can have a voting process which is inclusive, transparent, and secure so that everyone has confidence in every ballots’ authenticity, accuracy, and chain of custody.

The time to fix this is now.