The Chick-fil-A Controversy Is Really a Government Ethics Issue
Robert Wechsler
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, "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.
Related blog posts:
Council Fiefdoms
He Zones, She Sells, and It's Legal (in Chicago)
Chicago Ethics Task Force Files First Report
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
203-859-1959
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, "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.
Related blog posts:
Council Fiefdoms
He Zones, She Sells, and It's Legal (in Chicago)
Chicago Ethics Task Force Files First Report
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
203-859-1959