The bar for appointing an acting mayor in Evanston won’t be raised after all.
City Council members shelved a proposal at their June 8 meeting to require a two-thirds majority vote for selecting a new acting mayor to take the helm if current leader Daniel Biss is elected to Congress come November.
The vote will now remain at a simple majority of five votes of the nine aldermen Council.
If Biss does win the congressional seat he is heavily favored to in the upcoming general election Nov. 3, roughly three years will remain on his current term as mayor.
The exact timing of his resignation will determine whether City Council will need to appoint an acting mayor to serve out the remainder of his term until 2029, or until mid-2027, with a special election held in April 2027 to trigger another voter-elected leader.
Changes in state law have altered the timing required for a municipal mayoral seat to be vacated in order to trigger a special election, meaning that Biss will likely need to resign from his seat in October, a decision he previously signaled he’ll do.
Per Evanston city code, an acting mayor is appointed to office when the mayoral seat is vacated for an “unexpired portion of the term.” This can be caused by multiple factors: death, permanent disability, conviction of a crime, a move, or in this case, a resignation.
A proposed two-thirds majority vote on selecting an acting mayor was up for debate two weeks ago, but stalled because Council members remained split on the decision.
Ald. Matt Rodgers, 8th, resumed the conversation on Monday to reintroduce his proposal on the ordinance change: a simple majority vote of five if a mayoral vacancy led to a special election and a two-thirds majority vote of six if there was no special election held.
But some Council members voiced that Rodgers’ amendment still didn’t resolve the central issue at play.
“What happens if we can’t reach a majority?” said Bobby Burns, 5th, participating in the discussion over Zoom.
“As I said, I would not feel comfortable with it reverting to seniority, reverting to our mayor pro tem schedule…I don’t think this current motion resolves my concerns, and so unfortunately, I have to vote against it.”
Ald. Jonathan Nieuwsma, 4th, added he also planned to vote against the amendment, preferring to keep the vote for an acting mayor at a simple majority “consistent with state law.”
“The thing that I find most frustrating and disappointing by my colleagues on the Council is that we feel that six votes is a high barrier, an inachievable barrier for someone to be elected to be mayor of this city,” Rodgers said on Monday.
“I find that very frustrating for a community like Evanston, to sort of be putting itself in these situations. The word consensus came up, six is a consensus, five is not a consensus. Five is a majority.”
Rodgers’ amendment was ultimately voted down by Council in a 4-5 vote.
Nieuwsma then offered a counter to Rodgers’ amendment by proposing Council revert back to the original requirement of a simple majority vote, which was narrowly approved in the common 5-4 Council member split with Burns, Nieuwsma, Ald. Krissie Harris, 2nd, Ald. Shawn Iles, 3rd, and Ald. Juan Geracaris, 9th, voting in favor.
Ald. Clare Kelly, 1st, Ald. Tom Suffredin, 6th, Ald. Parielle Davis, 7th, and Rodgers voted against it.
But the rare situation of selecting an acting mayor in April 2027 will only commence if Biss resigns in time to trigger the special election.
While he publicly affirmed that intention for the first time at City Council’s April 26 meeting, some aldermen pushed him further on June 8 to provide a more direct answer.
“I think this does mean a lot to the public, just to clarify, if it’s necessary, Daniel, for you to step down before the election, just to be clear, in order to trigger an election in 2027, you would, correct?” Kelly asked Biss.
Biss reiterated his prior statement, “The only consideration that I will be guided by is how to minimize the amount of time the city could have an unelected mayor.”
Kelly pushed further, “If legally they said you have to step down by Oct. 30 in order to trigger a special election, and therefore you won’t have the results [of the municipal election] to know you win, but so, would you step down if that were the case?”
“I’ve answered this question,” Biss responded.
“I don’t think you have,” Kelly said. “Does everybody think he has?” she voiced to the room.
Biss previously stated on April 26 that his resignation timing will depend upon the publication of the 2027 Illinois State Board of Elections calendar, which is set to be released at the end of June.
The calendar will include the exact dates by which candidates on the April 2027 ballot would need to file petitions for election.
“I will make a decision based on information I do not yet have, which is very frustrating, I’m sure to all of us, certainly myself included,” Biss said on June 8.
