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“All right.
It’s game time.”
A 56-year-old former federal prosecutor who’s never held
elected office —
“We must break from the past.”
— has made history in Chicago.
“I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
Lori Lightfoot is the first black woman,
and the first openly gay person,
to become Chicago’s mayor.
So, who is she?
Lightfoot is a lawyer and former president
of the Chicago Police Board.
“The relationship between citizens
all over the city and our police department
is severely damaged.”
She sold herself as a political outsider,
the remedy to the city’s eight-year mayor, Rahm Emanuel.
But the two weren’t always on opposite sides.
In 2015, Emanuel picked Lightfoot
to help mediate the biggest crisis
he’s faced as mayor.
Protesters wanted him to step down,
after a Chicago police officer
was charged with the murder of Laquan McDonald.
“Laquan McDonald’s death was totally avoidable.”
Lightfoot led a review of the case
and the report resulted in a scathing indictment
of Chicago’s police force.
“Many people said that they believe
that the police that they encountered
were fundamentally racist.”
And where does she stand on other issues?
Lightfoot has said that she’d put a freeze
on new charter schools,
which were greatly expanded under Emanuel.
She’s also vowed to shake up the Chicago Police Department,
with a focus on systemic reforms
and accountability.
“It’s an opportunity for us to speak our values
and really, frankly, break from the broken political machine.”
And she wants to use her status as a rookie politician
to tackle corruption.
“The machine has been in decline for a while.
But it still has a grip on certain things.”
What does Lightfoot’s win mean for Chicago?
Her lack of political experience
means she’s a relative unknown.
Lightfoot’s platform of beating the machine
and cracking down on gun violence
seem to have paid off.
But will she deliver on promises
to tackle issues that have plagued Chicago for decades?