League Still Working to Bring More Transparency to City Council

After efforts by the League, along with the Better Government Association and the Civic Federation, we thought that the City Council was going to increase transparency by amending its Rules to limit the use of Direct Introduction Items and to require public notice of the text of any such items prior to the applicable meeting of a City Council Committee. These changes were included in the Rules that the 2019-2023 Council approved in March, which were supposed to be in effect for the new 2023-2027 Council that took office in May.

However, when the new Council instead adopted its own Rules in May, the provisions regarding Direct Introduction Items did not include any of the changes approved in March. Instead, they are the same as what had previously been in effect. This month, the League has seen several instances where Direct Introduction items were included on an agenda, but the text of such items was not made available to the public prior to their approval by the Committee and then the full City Council.

Next Steps

The Chicago League’s City Government Committee is working with the League’s Board to develop and implement a strategy to have the City Council amend its Rules to again increase transparency regarding Direct Introduction Items. Watch for updates.

What are Direct Introduction Items?

Under the Council’s current Rule 41, the Mayor or city department may submit an item directly to a Committee, bypassing the normal procedure requiring all proposed items to be submitted first to the City Council, which will then refer the items to the appropriate Committees for consideration. This allows time for public review and Committee consideration before the full Council takes a vote.

The Direct Introduction procedure is intended to be used only “to facilitate an expeditious hearing on a matter where an emergency exists.” “Routine” or “repetitive matters” may also be directly introduced.

There have been two problems with Direct Introduction under the past and current Rules. 

• In most cases, the texts of such items are not available to the public prior to the Committee meeting and often not until after the full Council has voted on them. As a result, the public does not know what is being voted on and clearly has no opportunity to provide comments to the lawmakers. 

• Further, the League has observed that Direct Introduction in the past has been used for items that are not routine and do not appear to need expeditious consideration. 

The changes which the League had supported previously addressed both these problems.

The League wants Direct Introduction to be used only when clearly appropriate and, even then, only when the public can see what is being voted on.