CHICAGO — Rahm Emanuel isn’t ready for reform — at least if that means limiting the length of his mayoral reign.
Emanuel made his position known at the Pride Parade when a guy with a clipboard asked him to sign a petition that calls for reforming city government from the top.
"Mr. Mayor, would you want to sign our petition that puts term limits on ... your,” the volunteer said.
A video of that exchange shows Emanuel reading the petition that calls for a binding ballot referendum that, if passed, would limit Chicago mayors to two consecutive four-year terms in office.
“No,” Emanuel said.
Then, the mayor cracked a little smile, patted the petition passer on the shoulder and shuffled away.
Former Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, the guy pushing the grassroots effort to get the 100,000 petition signatures needed to put a binding initiative to get mayoral term limits on the ballot, considers the move a way for regular folks, especially people who feel forgotten, to remind powerful politicians, specifically Rahm, that they work for “the people.”
It’s been two years since Quinn lost his re-election bid to Emanuel’s pal, Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, and transitioned back into life as a private citizen.
The 67-year-old Galewood resident said he has spent a lot of time volunteering for the Chicago Food Depository, the Chicago Police Memorial Foundation, a variety of veterans charities and a group pushing to give more people high-speed internet access.
Quinn said he gets to play pickup basketball more often and even has enough time to mow his lawn, a chore that he had trouble keeping up with when he was governor.
“I have a push lawnmower, the one my father had when he got out of the Navy. … It’s getting a workout,” Quinn said.
But like a lot of Chicagoans, the former governor says he hasn’t been too happy watching “the guy I ran against" struggle to fix the state.
And he also has concerns about Emanuel’s performance as mayor, particularly the delay in releasing the horrific video showing police officer Jason Van Dyke shoot Laquan McDonald with all 16 bullets in his gun until the teenager was dead.
“Four-hundred days, 16 shots. Something is wrong with that,” Quinn said. “Somehow, a mayoral election came and went. … Chicago kept that hidden, and it’s not good.”
Those are just some of the reasons Quinn says he’s decided to go “back to the future.”
He’s talking about a return to his days as a petition-passing outsider who led successful ballot initiatives that created the Citizens Utility Board and, in 1976, ended the practice of paying state lawmakers their full salary on their first day on the job.
“I enjoy organizing. … I’ll be in a nursing home someday collecting petition signatures. It’s taking action. Taking charge. That to me is a very American impulse. It’s like the men who put their names on the Declaration of Independence. They could have been beheaded if they weren’t successful. They all were taking a big risk.”
Some people will tell you that trying to establish mayoral term limits — particularly in a town run by the same Democratic Machine for generations that has had two mayors named Daley who each served in office for more than 20 years — is a quixotic battle.
It’s certainly not a move you’d expect from a Chicago Democrat, particularly one with an Irish surname.
But Quinn isn’t your typical politician.
“I think it’s very important to have causes, big causes that make a difference,” he said. “If we win this it means Chicago will be like other municipalities that have set the same limits. … There are 20 different towns in Illinois including Springfield, Naperville and Oak Lawn that have passed term limits on their mayors. Of the 10 biggest cities in the country, only Chicago doesn’t have term limits.”
It doesn’t take a genius to know why that’s the case.
“The No. 1 reason is the machine is a political tradition in Chicago which has proven to be unhealthy for taxpayers,” Quinn said before pulling the second installment of his Cook County property tax bill from his pocket.
“These bills that arrived this weekend are the price tag for postponing important decisions and now property taxpayers are forced to foot the bill.”
Quinn has a saying, “May the will of the people always be the law of the land."
That sentiment is at the heart of his fight for mayor term limits.
“Reform doesn’t come from the top down. Reform bubbles up from folks who feel like they’ve been left out,” Quinn said Wednesday when we met at his temporary office, a greasy table at the Thompson Center food court.
For most of his public life — even during his time as governor — Quinn has been sidelined, pushed around and disregarded by Democratic Machine powerbrokers, House Speaker Michael Madigan, former Mayor Richard M. Daley and current Mayor Rahm Emanuel, to name a few.
It’s no surprise that Quinn counts himself among the reform-minded people who feel left out.
“Term limits bring fresh ideas and fresh people. In the last [mayoral] election the incumbent spent $25 million. That’s a lot of money and it came from a couple hundred people. In my view, term limits are one of the best ways to get campaign finance reform,” he said.
Quinn, of course, is talking about the target of his petition drive, Emanuel, a guy who the former governor said “didn’t work with me and was always trying to go around me to raise state property taxes.”
“He made a big mistake,” Quinn said.
Before I could ask if Quinn’s petition drive is a thinly veiled attempt to get an early start on a 2019 campaign to regain the governor’s mansion or run for mayor, a state employee walked up and did if for me.
“We sure miss you. Can you run for governor again or mayor or something?” the state worker said.
Quinn smiled.
“You never know. Maybe yes, maybe no,” Quinn said. “This guy here is a reporter … writing down everything I say.”
Some gadfly with a blog will probably use that response to discount Quinn’s push for mayoral term limits as a stunt to revive his political career.
But the former governor told me his petition drive is not an effort to get political payback.
“That last election has come and gone. … This has little to do with the personality of the current incumbent [governor] and previous mayors. It’s about the policy. We need to have municipal ballot initiatives,” he said. “Binding referendums are always frowned upon. … Because if this goes on the ballot and people vote for it, the mayor can’t change it. There is a lot of support for that. In America today, a lot of people think their voice is not being heard.”
Over the last three weeks, Quinn said he’s personally collected 3,000 petition signatures.
While we chatted in the food court I watched him collect four more.
It’s not always that easy.
“I’ve had people say, ‘I don’t want the mayor to get mad at me,’” Quinn said. “I never argue with them. I want them to have their own opinion.”
Quinn knows that getting 100,000 petition signatures is a daunting goal.
“You can’t do it precipitously. You’ve got to do it patiently. We will just keep collecting signatures until we hit the mark. We have adequate time to do it before the 2019 ballot,” he said.
“For me, this effort is so everyone can get their opinion expressed at the ballot box. That’s what democracy is all about. I think it’s a great opportunity for progressive reform.”
As for Rahm, well, the mayor doesn’t think voters should have that kind of power.
It’s all right there on the video.
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