Mayor Brandon Johnson cast the tiebreaking vote as the Chicago City Council narrowly passed a resolution calling for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza Wednesday, bringing a monthslong battle over the symbolic declaration to an end.
Johnson unknotted a 23-23 deadlock to give the controversial, symbolic legislation a one-vote majority after he once again cleared the council chambers because of disruptions from a crowd filled mostly by pro-cease-fire spectators.
The vote makes Chicago the largest American city to call for a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel, and delivers a razor-thin progressive win for Johnson and his aldermanic allies, as well as the pro-Palestinian community groups that have led large downtown protests since war in Gaza broke out.
But it also further highlighted the stress in a closely divided City Council where some critics say they should be dealing with Chicago’s many problems rather than weighing in on international politics.
Speaking just before the tight vote after more than an hour of debate, resolution sponsor Ald. Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez, 33rd, said she tried to work with aldermen opposed to the cease-fire language to reach a compromise that would get more support.
As a progressive, Democratic city, Chicago should be on the forefront of calling for a cease-fire, she said.
“Why is it urgent that we pass this resolution? Over 26,000 Palestinians now have been killed. The majority of them are women and children,” Rodriguez-Sanchez said. “There are people that are still digging through the rubble, for their loved ones, for their babies. Weeks of digging through the rubble,” she said.
Opponents of the resolution successfully delayed the vote last week. Ald. Debra Silverstein, 50th, the council’s lone Jewish member, led a council majority to request postponement because of a conflicting vote on an International Holocaust Remembrance Day resolution.
But Silverstein, said Wednesday that her suggestions about the cease-fire resolution were not taken into consideration. The final wording of the legislation had only minor tweaks, despite pressure from Silverstein and others to show greater support for Israel and criticism of Hamas.
“The resolution you are being asked to consider is not a compromise,” she said. “We all want peace in the Middle East. We all want an end to the bloodshed and an end to the war. But it is vital to understand what caused the conflict.”
The council voted to consider a revised version of the resolution penned by co-sponsor Ald. Daniel La Spata, 1st. Its language called for a permanent cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, humanitarian aid and the release of all hostages as the war in Gaza rages on for a fourth month. It also included support for a United Nations cease-fire resolution that’s opposed by the federal government.
While La Spata said he doesn’t have any illusions that the council’s vote will influence international policy, he held out hope skeptics will see that supporters of the cease-fire language “vote with hope, we vote with solidarity, we vote to help people feel heard in a world of silence.”
Despite the high-minded rhetoric on the council floor Wednesday, the fight to win the symbolic vote was a classic Chicago political power struggle.
The final push to pass the resolution included an endorsement Monday from powerful unions like the Chicago Teachers Union and a widespread school walkout Tuesday that included cease-fire calls from hundreds of high school students. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who attended the start of the meeting, also threw his support behind the resolution.
It’s the second time Johnson has broken a council tie when aldermen came up even for and against. In November he cast the deciding vote to save council ally Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, 35th, from an official censure for bullying and threatening colleagues.
It’s also the second time he has cleared the council chambers. Johnson ordered spectators to leave during an October meeting where aldermen passed a resolution declaring support for Israel following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.
Aldermen expected a close count and a tense meeting, and they got both. Spectators filled the council chamber’s upper and lower viewing levels early Wednesday, many wearing Palestinian kaffiyehs to signal their cease-fire support.
As Silverstein spoke, one pro-cease-fire spectator stood up and shouted at her, calling her a liar.
The man moved to leave as police approached to kick him out. Moments later, as Silverstein continued her remarks, more disruptions broke out.
Suddenly, Johnson called the meeting into recess.
“Sergeant-at-arms, please clear the room,” he ordered.
Most spectators promptly left, though a group of young pro-cease-fire spectators initially refused to exit as police stood around them.
“Does this look like democracy to you?” one shouted.
After an hourlong delay, the council’s meeting began again, with spectators filling only the chamber’s upper viewing area behind windows. The meeting resumed with Silverstein giving the same speech that had earlier abruptly ended.
Many aldermen who voted for the resolution, including Ald. Jessie Fuentes, 26th, condemned Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, but they echoed Johnson’s comment last week that the mounting Palestinian death toll requires action.
“Standing for this resolution doesn’t make us antisemitic,” Fuentes said. “In fact, we are saying that we value life and the cease-fire is absolutely necessary in a moment in which we are watching too many innocent civilian lives be taken, more than half of them being Palestinian children.”
But Ald. Samantha Nugent, 39th, shared a letter signed by 23 aldermen that argued the resolution’s move to counter U.S. policy “sends a dangerous precedent” and undermines President Joe Biden’s influence.
Ald. Scott Waguespack, 32nd, who opposed the resolution, said the cease-fire debate has strained council relationships, echoing concerns aldermen on both sides shared in the run-up to the vote.
“I hope that we can get back to a day when we speak with respect to each other and not with the toxicity that has really gone too far in this body,” he said.
Aldermen Walter Burnett, 27th, Pat Dowell, 3rd, Stephanie Coleman, 16th, and Emma Mitts, 37th, were not present when the council voted, though Burnett, Dowell and Coleman had attended the start of the meeting.
Burnett declined to comment on why he didn’t vote, while Coleman and Mitts could not be reached for comment. Dowell said she didn’t vote because she felt the resolution and an opposing one penned by Silverstein “lacked nuance, compassion and compromise.”
Spectators on the third floor erupted in cheers when Johnson cast the deciding vote. Afterward, they celebrated in City Hall’s lobby, before moving across the street to Daley Plaza, where they marched and chanted.
Silverstein said afterward she was disappointed in the mayor.
“He had an opportunity to be a unifier. He could have sat down with us and come up with a solution that could have potentially gotten all of us a unanimous vote,” she said.
Meanwhile, Rodriguez-Sanchez was hugging a young Johnson staffer who had been moved to tears of joy. The council has “taken hard votes before” and will come together again, she told reporters. Aldermen know that they can’t directly influence foreign policy, she said.
“But we also know that what we say matters,” she added. “Taking this on as a council also legitimizes the struggle of people who are desperate, desperate to see the bombings stop.”
