Who Hurt You, Ray Lopez?

Alder Raymond Lopez doesn't matter -- except, he does, until the way we address local government changes.

A picture of Alder Ray Lopez from the City Clerk’s Office.

I hate writing about Alder Ray Lopez.

This is in part because Alder Ray Lopez is very annoying.

Writing about him requires slogging through tweets where he talks about video games for too long in budget hearings, something that should be charming but somehow isn’t when its from him.

Or it involves listening to him praise law enforcement in Finance committee meetings, even in the middle of conversations about giant payouts to people harmed horribly by law enforcement.

But most importantly — I hate writing about Alder Ray Lopez because even though Alder Ray Lopez is annoying, he isn’t the problem with Chicago’s city government.

What’s Going On With Chicago City Government Right Now?

Over the last few weeks, Chicago’s City Council has held more meetings than it held even during the Council Wars of the 1980s, a period in which several (racist) (corrupt) Alders held Harold Washington’s political agenda hostage by stalling, grandstanding, and bringing up innumerable procedural issues.

It’s not just Council Meetings that have been getting weird: the issues posed by the migrant crisis have led to Alder Julia Ramirez being physically attacked, and multiple fights breaking out in CityKey lines.

This is in part because of the deep structural racism of the city of Chicago, so deeply ingrained in everything: the current issues have become a mirror for how Black and Brown communities are made to fight for resources in the city — as city offices desperately search for places to house migrants, many old guard Alders on the South and West Sides, push back.

Unfortunately, Mayor Johnson’s current response to the crisis has not been great! After facing intensive pushback from organizers regarding the use of contractor GardaWorld — he and his leadership in City Council, Alder Rosa, vehemently defended this choice, often online, as the only option in crisis.

This, plus the frantic laughter of those I’ve spoken to in government when I’ve asked about finding an alternative provider before Chicago’s freezing temperatures hit, contextualize the choice of GardaWorld, but don’t excuse it, especially when, as many others have pointed out, the city’s response to Ukranian migrants has been markedly different (part of it is a federal program, part of it is structural racism).

These many “not-Lopez’s fault” challenges are a shame, because Alder Lopez — gay, Latino, and a passionate supporter of law enforcement — makes for a great City Council villain, IMO.

He’s narratively interesting in the way that Lightfoot was because he often isn’t very rational, alienating allies and exacerbating conflict with choices that don’t make much sense.

It would be pleasant to believe that Lopez was the problem with Chicago’s government, of course: our brains, no matter how intellectual we all are, appreciate characters, particularly villains.

Villains help us understand the stakes and power struggles behind complicated issues, and there’s no shortage of complicated issues in Chicago’s politics right now.

But though Alder Lopez is unpleasant, he’s not the reason why Johnson’s administration is facing these innumerable structural issues. Until now.

Governing V. “Selling Merch”

Lopez is by no means the only Alder with significant ties to law enforcement and real estate, but his colleagues tend to fly under the radar, taking a more “go along to get along” approach to City Council.

In contrast, Lopez uses tactics more along the lines of the right-wing politicians we see in Texas and Florida, inciting controversy to court media at every turn.

Lopez’s antics are about drawing attention from the right people as he attempts to amass more power through continuously running for higher office. This is what he’s doing now amid his self-created City Council chaos. This strategy, as PE Moskowitz put it when describing the Right today, creates chaos to sell merch.

This strategy is way easier (and more lucrative) than freaking governing.

This is another reason I don’t like to write about Alder Lopez, even when he deserves it. If Alder Lopez disappeared from City Council tomorrow, either because he ascended to higher office or resigned from politics entirely, as he’s requested Alder Ramirez-Rosa do, none of the problems facing Chicago would go away.

Chicago would still be the most corrupt city government in the country for the 4th year in a row.

Hundreds of thousands of people displaced because of United States imperialism would still be facing Chicago winter in tents.

The lack of federal and state support for the city, a critical part of addressing municipal crises, would still be missing.

And, if you want to zoom out, the United States (with the dubious support of the slight majority of Chicago’s City Council) would still be supporting genocide.

Alder Lopez, no matter how narratively interesting he may be as a villain, doesn’t really matter when it comes to these issues.

But then, after today’s Council meeting and Friday’s special session, I find myself writing about Alder Lopez. Because even when he doesn’t matter, Alder Lopez finds a way to matter anyway — no matter what it costs the City.

Here’s what happened in Chicago City’s Council over the last week:

On Friday, Alders Lopez and Alder Beale attempted to hold a Council meeting to overturn Chicago’s status as a Sanctuary City.

Chicago’s Sanctuary City status means that the Chicago Police Department and other city departments do not cooperate with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.

Chicago being a Sanctuary City has nothing to do with public funding, resources, or any part of the structural crisis posed by how the city has thus handled the 68,000 migrants seeking support here. As DePaul University professor Kathleen Arnold said in a Sun-Times article — “People did not flee Venezuela because they heard Chicago is a Welcoming City. This ordinance simply upholds the Constitution.”

But holding a meeting like this one makes sense for Lopez. This Model UN kind of pettiness is very effective when you’re taking the “sell merch” approach to governance — you can shut everything down and never worry too much about actual solutions to municipal problems.

The meeting, as you may imagine, got dramatic very quickly — floor leader Alder Rosa sent the kind of passive-aggressive text organizers send when they’re right and also mad at you about it.

Alder Ramirez-Rosa tried to stop the meeting in this text, because, again, Chicago’s Sanctuary City status has nothing to do with the migrant crisis. It also was a meeting with dubious quorum, ie, there were not enough Alders present to vote (you need 25).

Ramirez-Rosa’s text ended with a smiley face emoji, which is how you know he was inconsolably furious.

Once the meeting started Alder Lopez, sans gavel, tried to convene the meeting by banging on the table with his hand. Then the lights went out.

According to Alder Lopez, this all culminated, supposedly, in Alder Rosa trying to block West Side Alder Emma Mitts from the chamber (to stop her from voting and reaching quorum) by physically attacking her. Many people are skeptical of these claims, though I feel like discussing them at all is beside the point. This is especially true because my immediate thought about every statement I’ve read about this event is “damn, this sounds like how Alder Lopez talks.”

There’s a video where Alder Rosa is wringing his hands awkwardly the way one does when you’re very annoyed— is it violent? It really just looks awkward! Since the original statement, I’ve not seen the word attack or anything besides “manhandling.” In the meeting yesterday, by the way, Ramirez-Rosa and Mitts hugged it out in what Mayor Johnson called restorative justice. I don’t know guys.

Again, I don’t want to spend time disputing any of these things, because again — when we’re talking about whether or not Alder RRosa was violent, we’re not talking about why in the world there was a special meeting of Alders to convene about a referendum that has nothing to do with anything.

Chaos Wins

This strategy has already worked: Alder Rosa resigned from his leadership roles in City Council on Monday as a consequence.

As the Tribune reports, after CBS Ch. 2 released video of the incident, a group of roughly 300 local progressives leaped to Ramirez-Rosa’s defense with a statement late Monday, arguing that Ald. Raymond Lopez, 15th, “clearly lied” about the severity of the Mitts incident, that Ramirez-Rosa’s exit from leadership were “hasty” and censure efforts were “politically motivated.”

Alder Ramirez-Rosa, whatever else you want to say about him, has consistently been playing 4D chess while serving as leadership in Chicago’s city government right now — I don’t envy him this role and we desperately we needed him there. Him losing these roles, even if he isn’t censured (which apparently has no consequences, it’s just petty), is a loss, even if everyone hugged it out, because Alder Ramirez-Rosa is practiced in representing the goals of his organized base in a way that others, including the Mayor, simply don’t have the organizing bloc for, This has allowed him to make bold choices that challenge the status quo, particularly when it comes to the real estate industry. Whoever replaces him in this leadership role, regardless of personality, will not have a strong voting bloc that can stand behind his political choices.

Alder Lopez doesn’t matter, but he did this, so he kind of does matter — he manufactured crisis enough to shift power.

At any rate — the backlash against Rosa and the general upheaval of these meetings show much more effective scorched earth villain tactics like the ones Lopez uses seem to be compared to any attempt to fix or address any of the issues facing Chicago right now, however ineffectively.

What Can Mayor Johnson Do?

Yesterday’s regularly scheduled City Council meeting reflected the tensions that have been fully on display throughout the migrant crisis, with many Alders, including Black Caucus members, and Alder Lopez, using this disaster moment as an opportunity to promote their own pro-criminalization and anti-immigrant agenda.

They’ve been particularly effective at characterizing any action from Johnson to address this crisis as one that jeopardizes resources for Black or Latinx communities, and judging from the intensity of the packed public comment period, they’ve mobilized their constituents accordingly.

I’ve written in the past about the structural challenges facing Chicago’s current Mayor. When Johnson was elected Mayor, he and every other Left local official suddenly had power far beyond the Left’s previous capacity as outsiders. However, running the government also meant leaders like Ramirez-Rosa were suddenly in charge of a giant, inefficient, austerity-gutted government with an unprecedented amount of sudden social support and need — without any of the federal funds distributed to manage crises like these.

Instead, these meetings showed the appeal of the “sell merch” approach to governance — it’s far easier to be Alder Lopez, to sow chaos and media response to this crisis, than it is to figure out how to change any of these crises with winter approaching.

Asha Ransby wrote for In These Times about the challenges facing the Left and Johnson right now, saying that “unlike Lightfoot or Rahm, we actually want Johnson to succeed.”

Unfortunately, wanting Johnson to succeed feels extremely different from knowing how to make that success possible.

How Can We Move Forward?

I used to think that focusing on local politics allowed for greater, more targeted pressure on elected officials that would lead to better organizing outcomes. But, as this particular moment shows, local politics often mean contending with the austerity issues on the federal level with even less leverage.

These local austerity issues reward playing politics the way that Alder Lopez does — causing havoc and making allegations rather than working to change policy.

There’s some success, of course, in Johnson’s administration, from grassroots organizers, including Bring Chicago Home passing Council. But these wins feel smaller in the face of crisis.

I certainly couldn’t tell you what precisely I think Mayor Johnson or any progressive Alder should be doing instead of what they’re doing now. Well, I can tell you what I think Mayor Johnson should be doing— working with migrants in terms of housing vouchers rather than crisis contracting with GardaWorld, not renewing the city’s contract with surveillance tool Shotspotter, power mapping out the municipal government to better understand the holdover Lightfoot and Daley staff currently getting in the way of his agenda — but I don’t know why he’s not doing these things at the moment, which feels key.

Is There Hope for City Government?

The only good news I see in the face of moves like Lopez’s — when politicians choose merch over policy over and over again — eventually people start to take action.

On the national level, with 61% of Americans under 40 supporting Palestine, but only 7 Senators in favor of a Ceasefire, hundreds of thousands of people have started to disrupt business-as-usual politics — not just protesting or even doing mass direct actions and sit-ins, but also disrupting trade, blocking ports, and hitting key political targets in a way that is strategic and effective because it disrupts something they actually care about, including people blocking the street outside Jan Schakowsky’s Evanston home.

In Illinois, organizers were able to turn Dick Durbin into a ceasefire supporter. In this context, organizing is working — this is what I have to believe to avoid despair, but it’s also true: 61% of Americans did not believe that Palestine had a right to exist last year, and presumably many of the hundreds of thousands of people who have been taking action in the last few weeks weren’t mobilizing towards action until very recently.

But until we figure it out, Alder Lopez will find a way to matter, causing havoc toward accumulating personal power — even when he doesn’t.

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