He’s the new guy with keys to the Windy City. After scoring first place, while previous Mayor Lightfoot fell to third, he’s making considerable promises to help get Chicago back on the right track.
CBS News reports, “In his victory speech on Tuesday night, Chicago’s newly elected mayor Brandon Johnson, a progressive Democrat, emphasized his commitment to tackling crime by investing in schools, jobs, and mental health. The former teacher won the election by less than 20,000 votes, marking the city’s closest mayoral race in 40 years.”
However, winning the election may have been Johnson’s job’s easiest part. He’s now mayor of a city with record-high crime levels. Chicago has been tackling crime, especially violent crime, for years now.
Johnson is not taking a tough-on-crime stance. Instead, he said it’s all about critical thinking and investing smartly. He wants to invest more in mental health and youth employment, which he says will reduce crime.
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Previously, Johnson expressed support for defunding the police. However, now he says that the statements also come from how specific policies, such as body cameras and dash cams, were not implemented.
However, more funding for police officers isn’t one of his campaign promises. Instead, he wants social workers to be able to respond to calls that require their area of expertise.
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Johnson also blames big corporations for the high crime rate in Chicago. Fox News says, “‘We have large corporations. Seventy percent of large corporations in Chicago — in Illinois, did not pay a corporate tax,’ Johnson said during a Thursday appearance on CBS Mornings.” According to Johnson, the lack of tax money has driven the city into poverty, and where you have high rates of poverty, you have high rates of crime.
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He’s promised to go hard on sanctuary city policies, too—the corporations Johnson blames for the high crime rate will likely pay for these policies. When asked how he planned to pay for these policies, Johnson responded that the money would come from the wealthy and those with the means to pay higher taxes.
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