[EL] Vengeful politicians

[Robert Wechsler]

Here's my City Ethics blog post 
<http://www.cityethics.org/content/chick-fil-controversy-really-government-ethics-issue> 
on the Chicago Chick-fil-A controversy:


  The Chick-fil-A Controversy Is Really a Government Ethics Issue

If you read the newspapers and blogs, the big issues in the Chicago 
Chick-fil-A controversy are free speech and government boycotts. But 
it's really a government ethics issue.

All rational voices acknowledge that a local legislator should not block 
a store opening just because it has given large sums to help an 
unpopular political cause. What they aren't saying is that a local 
legislator shouldn't be able to block a store opening in his district at 
all. Zoning matters should not be up to council members. They should be 
up to zoning boards and zoning officials.

According to an article in the Chicago /Tribune/ yesterday 
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/ct-met-chicago-chick-fil-a-20120725,0,929023.story>, 
"Ald. Proco 'Joe' Moreno announced this week that he will block 
Chick-fil-A's effort to build its second Chicago store ... 'If you are 
discriminating against a segment of the community, I don't want you in 
the 1st Ward,'" he told the /Tribune/.

The problem isn't what Moreno or the mayor want. It's that they have a 
say in the matter. What Moreno is basing his threat on is what the 
/Tribune/ calls "a rarely violated Chicago tradition known as aldermanic 
privilege, which dictates that City Council members defer to the opinion 
of the ward alderman on local issues." This privilege allows individual 
aldermen to engage in pay to play, and also to punish those they don't 
like for political, personal, or ideological reasons.

Chick-fil-A has already obtained zoning for a restaurant in Moreno's 
ward, but it has to seek council approval to divide the property. It's 
this approval that the local alderman can block.

The council just this week passed the mayor's recommended ethics 
reforms, but those reforms did not include abolition of the aldermanic 
privilege. This will hopefully be in the mayor's second round of ethics 
reforms, after the city's special ethics task force files its second report.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research, City Ethics
rwechsler at cityethics.org <mailto:rwechsler at cityethics.org>
203-859-1959
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