The Chicago City Council will likely approve legislation in February to expand the scope of the Inspector General's role to include oversight of aldermen. In January, two aldermen used a procedural rule to delay the vote, but many expect it to pass in February. Oversight has been unpopular with some aldermen in the past. However, the vacancy left by the legislative inspector general has led more aldermen to support oversight. Previous attempts at oversight were stifled, but growing support from aldermen and the mayor indicates that oversight will pass.

1. OVERSIGHT OF CHICAGO CITY COUNCIL COMING SOON
At its next meeting in February, City Council will likely approve legislation to expand the scope
of the inspector general’s role to overseeing aldermen.
On Jan. 14, a pair of Chicago aldermen made use of the City Council’s Rules of Order and
Procedure to delay a vote that could subject aldermen to oversight by Inspector General Joe
Ferguson. The rule invoked in this case, Rule 27, allows any two aldermen to defer a matter
until the subsequent Council meeting, thereby allowing them additional time to gain support
for their cause. Despite this procedural maneuver, however, many anticipate that the City
Council will vote on, and pass, this oversight measure at its meeting on Feb. 10.
Watchdog oversight has been unpopular among a set of City Council members – so why is it
likely that aldermen will vote in favor of oversight now? The deafening exit by City Council’s
only official watchdog has left a vacuum, and an ever-growing group of aldermen has been
making the necessary moves to ensure aldermanic oversight.
Public outcry for oversight led to City Council’s creation of the role of Legislative Inspector
General, or LIG, in 2010. City Council hired Faisal Khan as LIG in 2011, although the
Chicago Tribune and others have argued that the LIG position was a “toothless tiger.”
Nonetheless, some oversight is surely better than none.
The City Council has gone without oversight since November when it allowed Khan to depart
without engaging him for an additional term. However, before Khan’s term expired,
aldermen had moved to merge the Office of the Inspector General with the Office of the
Legislative Inspector General, giving Inspector General Joe Ferguson, whose office oversees
other city employees, oversight over the City Council. Even before aldermen proposed this
merger, other aldermen had on several occasions in 2015, attempted to introduce oversight
measures. Each time, those attempts were stifled either by inaction or by direct opposition.
Prior to the January City Council meeting, Alderman Michele Smith, 43rd Ward, showed her
cards by publicly declaring her intention to invoke Rule 41, another procedural maneuver
used to call dormant legislation to the floor of City Council for a vote. Rule 41 has two
elements: 1. To force a vote on an issue that has stalled in committee and 2. To call to a vote
legislation that has already passedcommittee but has either been held by the chairman or has
been deferred and published pursuant to Rule 27.
The City Council is no stranger to procedural maneuvers. The LIG fight only serves as an
example of aldermen using parliamentary rules as delay tactics. Smith will still have to invoke
Rule 41 to bring this issue to a vote in February; otherwise, the merger legislation will
languish in the same way its predecessors have. But the growing list of aldermen in favor of
reform, combined with the express support from Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s floor leader,
indicates that true oversight is coming to the City Council, and soon.