The Mystery of Mayor Daley

After 15 years in office, his popularity and his power have never been greater. Insiders say Richard M. Daley could crack down on the cronyism and ethically questionable deals that threaten to undermine his legacy. Why doesn't he? A special report

By Shane Tritsch

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How could the mayor clean things up? The most obvious, most effective solution comes from someone who ought to know: Daley himself. In his first successful campaign for mayor, Daley demonstrated that he understood perfectly well how to put an end to the kinky dealing at City Hall. "We don't need more studies or more investigations," he said during a campaign speech in 1989. "We need strong leadership at the top that sets the tone for everyone else below."

The former administration veteran concurs: "You need to have a system that says you're not going to tolerate it, and you really have to mean it." Says Judd Miner, a lawyer who served as corporation counsel in the Harold Washington administration: "It starts with setting the tone and making clear you expect employees to step forward and report wrongdoing, and you provide incentives for them to do it. And you set up a mechanism to investigate complaints." Adds the minority alderman: "He would have to send a message that we're going to be fair. And we're going to come after people who behave badly—before the press embarrasses us into it."

Without question, the scandals have "sullied [the mayor's] reputation as a good manager," says Joe Moore, the Rogers Park alderman. Indeed, if the Hired Truck Program has done nothing else, it has put to rest the notion that Daley is a sort of super CEO in public servant's clothes. "I think the mythology is long gone what an astute, great manager he is," says the legislator. "There's an inconsistency when all these scandals come up and you say, 'Oh, I didn't know anything about it, but I'm a hands-on manager with everything else.'"

Yet what makes the portrait of the mayor particularly complex is the fact that he is said to be genuinely tormented by the scandals. "He is so sensitive when he takes these hits," says the legislator. "When he's under attack or under pressure, like with the Hired Truck Program, he hates it. He absolutely hates it. He becomes a different person. He's unhappy. He's stressed. And he's mad at everyone."

"Deep down inside, it appalls him to see the illegal activity," says a West Side alderman, referring to the Hired Truck debacle. "It really ticks him off. I've seen him blow up, so that part of it is genuine. But when it comes to fixing the system, that's when it gets a little murkier. That's where it's harder to ascertain whether he really wants to fix it."

Why does Daley not act? What does he gain from shadowboxing at the corruption swirling around him but never landing any mortal blows, meanwhile absorbing the real blows to his image? The legislator puts the question another way: "His politics is always about self-interest, 100 percent of the time. And he never spends political capital to help another person. So why is he spending political capital to continue to help all these people?"

My interviews around town yielded a variety of explanations.

Chicagoans have low expectations. "If half of [the scandals under Daley] had happened in Minneapolis or Milwaukee or other places known to be politically clean, this regime would have ended ages and ages ago," says Don Rose, a consultant and frequent mayoral critic. Yet with each election, as the list of scandals lengthened, Daley has only gotten stronger. In 1989, he was first elected mayor with 55 percent of the vote. Last year, against three lightweight contenders, he rolled to re-election with 79 percent.

"From the mayor on down, no one likes what happens when there is something like the Hired Truck scandal," says Pete Giangreco, a political consultant. "But when these problems crop up, people give him a pass because the city has never worked more efficiently or more equitably for everyone."

But to some, that explanation shows only how little Chicagoans expect of their elected leaders. "The average voter is not saying, 'We've got to get Jeremiah Joyce a no-bid contract so he can make millions of dollars,'" says the AIP's Bryan Doyle. "What we're left with is being happy with the garbage being picked up and the snow being plowed."

No political opposition. When a single party or administration dominates the political landscape over a long period of time—a fact of life in Chicago under the Democrats and Daley—"studies have shown that corruption more easily flourishes, because you don't have the check and balance of party competition," says the University of Illinois' Jack Knott. "The stronger the party competition, the less corrupt politics you have."

The Republican Party can't make hay out of Daley's scandals because there is virtually no Republican Party in Chicago politics. And Daley has compounded his dominance by pacifying almost all other potential checks on his power. Among Democrats, no strong leader in years has emerged from the African American community to challenge Daley. The same holds true for the Hispanic community. And there are no white progressive reformers agitating against Daley the way Bill Singer and Dick Simpson once did against his father. The City Council—19 of whose 50 members were originally appointed by Daley—is also no longer an effective counterweight to the mayor. That legislative body has been compared variously to a rubber stamp, a puppy dog that rolls over for Daley, and a pack of trained seals. The county commissioners, one of whom is Daley's brother John, don't challenge the mayor, either.

Lack of opposition means "there is no great fear of consequences" for Daley, says the BGA's Jay Stewart. The former Daley administration veteran puts it another way: "Rich doesn't believe anyone can touch him. And when you've come to that state of mind, that's dangerous."

Too many yes men. As troubling as the lack of opposition is the shortage of dissent within Daley's administration. Many of the seasoned political veterans who once had the mayor's ear have moved on to other challenges—in some cases the challenge of using their connections to enrich themselves. Daley "listens to a very small group, and that's a problem, because you don't have the free flow of ideas," says the former administration veteran. Aside from the lack of experience, those new hands may lack the stature or confidence to tell Daley things he doesn't want to hear. "He needs adults who feel comfortable enough to express ideas good and bad—and to be able to tell him that the Hired Truck Program is screwed up," says the administration veteran.

Cleanup could be messy. In the aftermath of the Hired Truck scandal, Daley meted out a few wrist-slaps, shuffled some personnel, and pledged reform. Meanwhile, he was asked how and why a former gang member named Angelo Torres had wound up in charge of the $40-million-a-year program. The question went to the heart of the scandal, because the answer could shed light on the high-level people who had devised and authorized the program. Yet the mayor's response never varied: He had no interest in finding out how Torres got put in charge—the important thing was that the program was being fixed.

Daley's profound lack of curiosity about Torres would seem to fly in the face of sound management principles—unless, of course, he knew the answer would prove even more embarrassing than lamely playing dumb. "Do you really think Angelo Torres was the only unqualified or crooked person involved in the Hired Truck scandal?" asks the minority alderman. "A whole bunch of people all along the line had to know about this or be involved in some way." Adds the legislator, "There's nothing of any substance in the contract world that [Daley] is not aware of."

If he truly wanted to clean up the system, Daley would have to "worry about stepping on the wrong toes," says Bob Crawford, retired political editor at the news radio station WBBM. "Guys like Daley try to get away with the least reform possible because they don't want to hurt those campaign contributions. There are very few profiles in courage in politics, and Richie Daley isn't one of them."

Never enough votes. As impressive as Daley's victory margins are, the number of people voting for him has actually dwindled substantially. When Daley won 55 percent of the vote in 1989, 576,000 people cast their ballots for him; last year just 363,000 voters gave him his landslide—a 37-percent drop. While the decline reflects the electorate's apathy—why bother voting when the outcome is already ensured?—Daley must constantly worry about threats beyond the horizon, and he is always watching his flanks.

Critics contend that the mayor uses the Hispanic Democratic Organization—the patronage army whose members permeated the Hired Truck Program and occupy high-level positions in many city departments—to protect one flank. Daley "doesn't want to find out who put Torres in there," says the former administration veteran. "He set up this organization to blunt any opposition from the Hispanic community, and to make sure candidates elected [with HDO's help] would always be loyal to him. So he doesn't want to dismantle that."

Never enough money. The UIC's Simpson recently analyzed the money Daley raised in the last election cycle. He found that about a third came from "global economy" sources—lawyers, financial institutions, insurance companies, commodities traders—whose principal interest was that Chicago be an attractive place to live, work, or visit. Another third flowed from miscellaneous contributors. The final third came from "old economy" sources—contractors, construction firms, developers, construction unions—remnants of the old Democratic machine who often give with the expectation of being rewarded with city business. Though virtually all the contract scandals that have clouded Daley's tenure are clustered in this group, the mayor is dependent on money from these sources to keep his war chest full.

"At the end of the day, whoever is mayor needs to raise about $5 million for re-election, on the chance there is real opposition," says the West Side alderman. Daley "lets the other money stuff"—pinstripe patronage and the attendant scandals—"happen because he needs it to happen. [The mayor and his team] need to be able to raise money for their state senators and state representatives and their aldermanic candidates."

"This mayor can't be too precise in saying, 'We've got to check each [contractor] to make sure they're not getting too much money,'" says Leon Despres. "If you're too severe, the contractors don't have enough money for contributions."

It's all about the power. The patronage army he wields through HDO and the system of alliances, favors, and money that constitute the Chicago way are at the heart of Daley's grip on power, and if the resulting scandals cause him to take some PR hits and occasionally answer awkward questions in front of the TV cameras, the gains still outweigh the costs. "What drives him is his constant need to maintain and maximize his position of power and to cut his losses," says the legislator. "This is not somebody who's coming in and saying, 'I'm going to change the world in two terms and leave my mark.' This is about a person whose goal is to be carried out with his boots on, in the same way his father was."

It's really OK. The most hidden explanation may also be the most revealing: Deep down, Daley doesn't really think anything bad is going on. This is a man who learned politics at the knee of his father, and he has "adopted the approach of his father, which is that you're going to have a certain amount of corruption in government—that your friends will now and then try to get rich," says Don Rose. "What you try to do is keep a lid on it rather than eliminate it. I don't think he benefits from it [financially], but he doesn't want to stop his family and friends from benefiting by it."

When a media furor leaves Daley red-faced over an ethically shaky deal for one of his pals, "he's angry because he's been made to look bad," says Matt Piers, a lawyer who served as deputy corporation counsel under Harold Washington, "not because there's corruption."

By this argument, Daley's worldview is so caught up in the history of Chicago as to be indistinguishable from it. The Chicago way is the Daley way.

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