Chicago City Council Votes Down Mayor’s Property Tax Increase Proposal 50-0 in Humiliating Rebuke

By Illinois Review

In a stunning and unprecedented rebuke, the Chicago City Council rejected a $300 million property tax increase proposed by Mayor Brandon Johnson by a vote of 50-0 – leaving the mayor and his team humiliated and struggling to come up with alternative solutions to address the nearly $1 billion budget shortfall.

After the vote, Johnson told reporters that he wasn’t “intimidated” and called the results a “good thing for Chicago.” However, the unanimous rejection of his proposal only further cements his status as an ineffective leader as his approval ratings plunge to the lowest levels of any mayor in history.

32nd Ward Alderman Scott Waguespack didn’t mince words after the vote when evaluating the significance of the moment, saying,

“A devastating loss for Mayor Johnson. I’ve been here, you know, going on 17 years. I’ve never seen this kind of vote take place. And I think in many of our lifetimes, we’ve never seen this. So it sends a message that that massive property tax increase he was looking for, it’s not going to happen.”

The mayor is in dire need of a solution to avoid having to lay off city workers, including police officers and firefighters as he struggles to find ways to fund his budget. But the city council were all in agreement: that he wasn’t going to fund his budget by increasing property taxes on a constituency that’s already hurting under the Biden-Harris economy.

Johnson and his defeated team are still looking for additional tax increases to fund his budget, but that won’t be easy either. The city council will have until the end of the year to approve a 2025 budget.