CHICAGO—Mayor Rahm Emanuel, known for keeping vise-like control over Chicago and his own political image, finds himself in the weakest position of his long public career as he struggles to respond to a police scandal, claims of cover-ups at City Hall, and calls for his resignation.
But the former White House chief of staff has said repeatedly that he will not step down.
The nation’s third-largest city has no process for a mayor to be recalled. And most of the cries for Emanuel to resign have come from grassroots activists and residents, not from the city’s political powerbrokers. The next election—should he seek another term—isn’t until 2019.
On Wednesday, Dec. 9, the mayor used a special meeting of the Chicago City Council to try to calm the firestorm, apologizing for the fatal shooting of a black teen by a white officer and promising “complete and total” reform.
Since the video emerged, Emanuel has scrambled to contain the crisis. He fired his police superintendent after days of insisting the chief had his support. He also reversed course on whether the Justice Department should launch a civil-rights investigation, saying he would welcome it only after presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and other top Democrats endorsed the idea.
In news conferences, he has appeared worn down, fumbling answers to reporters’ questions or avoiding them entirely by walking away, with cameras rolling.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him grapple with anything quite like this,” said longtime ally and adviser David Axelrod, who also served with Emanuel in the Obama White House.
Axelrod said Emanuel worked on the speech all weekend, with input from him and others. But he said the speech alone isn’t what matters.
“You don’t earn trust back with one speech,” Axelrod said. “You earn trust back with actions.”
The most likely effect of the crisis will come in the form of pushback from aldermen, who have long been considered a rubber stamp for the mayor’s initiatives, said political consultant Delmarie Cobb. She said the black community “has been awakened,” and Emanuel can expect a tougher re-election if he tries again.
“He definitely won’t run unopposed, and it will be a viable candidate,” said Cobb, who is black.
The mayor won re-election in April by a healthy margin, but only after suffering the embarrassment of not getting a majority in a five-candidate February election, forcing the first mayoral runoff in decades.
At the time, he pledged to listen more and to “bridge the gaps between the things that divide us.”
In the months that followed, his public schools CEO, who oversaw closings of about 50 schools that angered many residents, was indicted on corruption charges. Emanuel also pushed through the largest tax increase in city history to deal with a budget crisis.
His administration has warned of massive mid-year layoffs in the public schools and is in the midst of rocky contract negotiations with the Chicago Teachers Union. This week, union members are voting on whether to authorize a strike. They could hit the picket lines as early as March.