Calls for Chicago mayor, Rahm Emanuel, to resign have been increasing and include a call from Al Sharpton. Amid rumors that Emanuel’s office withheld the Laquan McDonald police video purposefully to boost his reelection chances, Illinois is now considering the possibility of a recall election.
Illinois state law currently addresses only the recall of a governor, a provision voters approved in 2010 after former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested and impeached. Now, state Rep. La Shawn Ford, a Chicago Democrat, wants voters to also have the power to remove the mayor of the country’s third-largest city.In light of the unrest in the city, Ford said, “It’s clearly the right thing to have on the books.”. . . . Under Ford’s proposal, two city aldermen would have to sign an affidavit agreeing with a recall petition and organizers must collect more than 88,000 signatures from registered voters in the city. At least 50 signatures must come from each of 50 wards.The proposal would pre-empt local law, so it needs approval from two-thirds of each chamber of the Illinois Legislature to pass during the session that starts this month. The bill would be effective immediately if signed into law, a scenario that can pose legal questions because it would target someone currently in office, said David Melton, executive director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform.
Emanuel has been adamant in insisting that he will not step down and held a press conference to that effect last week.
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According to ABCNews, “Across the country in 2015, there were at least 434 attempts to recall local and state officeholders, according to Spivak’s research. Of those, only 93 made it to a recall vote.”
With Chicago, Illinois, and other prominent Democrats calling for Emanuel to resign and even The New Yorker writing about Emanuel’s “sudden but well-deserved fall,” it’s hard to see how he stays in office.
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