Welcome to Chicago 312: 3 Headlines. 1 Big Question. 2 Red Flags. Every Wednesday. Subscribe here.

What To Know This Week: This week’s newsletter is brought to with more questions than answers. Was CPD enabling ICE raids in the South Loop, and why did that happen? Are CHA residents being told to trust a guy they say never listened to them when he was alderman? If the curfew veto only barely held after weeks of organizing from youth-led groups, how do we push forward harder? And — if the city needs more revenue with everything happening, how do we actually get it? Let’s dive in.

3 Headlines: ICE + CPD, CHA Deals, What Comes After the Snap Curfew Veto

1. Who’s on First With ICE and CPD

Monica Eng, Axios Chicago: Chicago police showed up at an ICE raid last month in the South Loop. Now, Ald. Andre Vasquez wants the call logs—texts, comms, bodycam data, anything that tells us what actually happened. Under Chicago law, CPD isn’t supposed to help ICE unless there’s a criminal warrant.

At a City Council meeting last week, Alds. Napolitano and Lopez delayed the vote on Vasquez’s ordinance demanding CPD hand over the data. Then, in the softball dugout for a CPD v. City Hall charity game, pictured above, Lopez said the effort “sucked” and was “a waste of time.”

….A waste of time for who? For people trying to figure out if our cops violated the law? For immigrants who were surrounded by armed agents and uniformed officers? For the public trying to understand what can actually be done to defend their undocumented neighbors in the post-welcome city era?

Why It Matters: Chicagoans deserve to know what’s going on in the black box of CPD while immigration raids are escalating nationally. Are they following the law or following ICE?

2. Burnett Wants to Run CHA. Residents Say Hell No.

Lizzie Kane, Tribune: CHA hasn’t had a permanent CEO in 9 months. RetiringAld. Walter Burnett seems to want the job—and residents are pissed.

Burnett’s pitch is: I grew up in public housing, I know the culture, trust me.
Residents’ response: You ignore us, dismiss us, and we have the voicemail receipts.

Resident board members aren’t sold: “Nobody cares about us but us,” Francine Washington said.

The CHA is part landlord, part developer, part political football, accountable to residents on paper but stacked with insiders in practice.It's burned through progressive administrators, professional technocrats, and backroom dealmakers alike. Burnett might not be the very worst person for the job, but you hand the keys to Burnett, will CHA keep burning? What’s the alternative?

Why It Matters: The only thing I really know about CHA is how little I know about it. That said, I do not know what or how or why this would ever be a good deal for a career politician like Burnett in a way that aligns with progressives or any meaningful steps to make this agency work better.

After decades of land sell-offs, displacement, environmental neglect, and secrecy, with the current federal climate, I don’t know how this department can be fixed without major political and structural overhaul — but I also don’t know where the political will to make that kind of overhaul a reality would come from. That said, you know probably does, who said so repeatedly in the Tribune article, and has 3 other candidates? Francine Washington…

3. What Comes After the Snap Curfew Veto

Tonia Hill, Triibe: Brandon Johnson’s veto of the “snap curfew” ordinance held, with only 27 alderpeople voting to override—short of the 34 needed. The measure would’ve let CPD impose emergency curfews across Chicago with just 30 minutes’ notice, at any time, in any neighborhood. Johnson’s veto was his first—and the first mayoral veto since 2006. Groups like GoodKids MadCity, Communities United, and LSNA packed City Hall for months, testifying, rallying, and meeting with alders.

Their message was clear: we need jobs and peacebuilding, not curfews. Relatedly: though GKMC’s long-running demand for youth-led Neighborhood Peace Commissions has yet to become law, the Johnson admin has partially funded the Peace Book through the 2024 and 2025 budgets, which means GKMC was able to employ 200 youth peacekeepers—but had to turn away 1,000 more.

Why It Matters: The “snap curfew,” was a legally dubious measure that CPD Supt. Snelling himself said he wouldn’t use—but Hopkins pushed it anyway.

Every time someone like Ald. Brian Hopkins trots out a new curfew, a new crackdown, a new reason why the police need more tools, there’s less space to address the root of the issues, derailing real conversations about policy and services (led by youth organizers, btw) in order to get traction for moral panic + political attention seeking.

Three Bonus Links Worth Clicking: 

• Quick update on taxing the rich + last week’s weird Samantha Steele rant: no endorsement from the Dems makes this an open race.

• What’s happening in Gaza.

• An extremely fair and intentional write up on how participatory budgeting works (and when it doesn’t work) in wards across the city from the Triibe.

1 Big Question: Susana Mendoza says Illinois needs transit like Taiwan. Fine — is she down to fund transit like Taiwan does?

Susana Mendoza is running for Mayor, is she not? Okay cool, let’s run with that understanding for now.

So, like many politicians with greater ambitions right now, she’s trying to figure out what worked about Zohran Mamdani’s campaign and apply it in Chicago.

Unfortunately, like many politicians right now, her focus seems to be on the video and media parts of that campaign instead of the policy parts.

Which is probably why she made this video, highlighting Taiwan’s amazing transit system.

Question: One of the things that kind of sucks about the impending Mayoral election is that, no matter how you feel about Johnson, there is an incentive to pin major funding issues to his office, whether or not they’re actually on him. This in turn obscures all of the very real funding problems that predate Johnson — without actually addressing any of the major seismic issues in Chicago governance right now, OR dealing with funding problems that keep getting written off by Springfield as ‘not politically possible.”

Austerity is always going to be the easiest and most short term politically viable choice unless something changes.

The city needs revenue. Making the CTA like the transit in Taiwan means talking about real funding, not just blaming “mismanagement.” Is that something Susana Mendoza is willing to do?

2 Red Flags Stressing Me Out Today: Governing, Posting, It’s All Messy

1. Governing Is Hard 👍

Waleed Shahid: Waleed Shahid laid out a blueprint in The Nation for how Zohran Mamdani might govern New York if he wins in November. It’s thoughtful, smart, and unusually specific (complimentary) even if it is a long thinkpiece article about the prospect of governing in theory. It asks the question I think most people in Chicago’s progressive space are constantly thinking about: how do you build something that can govern AND win?

Why It Matters: I don’t think anyone would disagree with the statement that there’s a LOT TO DO in movement work that doesn’t start until after you win. Worth reading about how structure, staff, discipline, narrative, and a base that can absorb pain can keep moving.

2. The “Algebraic” Growth of Political YouTubers

Kyle Tharp, Chaotic Era: New data from Chaotic Era shows conservative creators outpaced progressives in Q2 for the first time this year. Benny Johnson alone added 2.2 million new subscribers—more than double the growth of anyone else. I think it’s worth noting this quote from Tharp, which has haunted me all week since I read it:

"The fastest-growing political accounts show that the platform’s architecture rewards not just relentless output, but also the creation of highly optimized, sensational videos that follow an almost algebraic formula to game the algorithm. Political actors who are able to understand and follow that formula can grow unprecedented clout and influence heading into the midterms and beyond."

Why It Matters: This is SUCH a striking quote to me, so I followed up with Kyle Tharp to ask what he thought of this, as a content creator himself: “Especially on platforms like YouTube or X, to be a successful political content creator you have to play by the rules of the algorithms. Unfortunately, that means outrage bait or lowest-common-denominator content often rises to the top.” I’m sharing this because I think there’s often a derailing conversation about how to use social, one that requires reframing. When and how do we use certain tools, and why? What is worth greater distribution and when do we need to step back?

See you next Wednesday.

_{All typos are intentional 4D chess.}

PS — What should I ask Sunjay Kumar, who’s running for IL's 13th State House District?