How’d We Get This Way? A History of Chicago’s Ward System
With 50 aldermen representing 50 wards, Chicago’s City Council is unusually large among major US cities. Each council member represents fewer constituents than in any of the other ten largest cities. Los Angeles, for instance, has over a million more residents than Chicago, but only 15 city council members. New York City’s council is slightly larger, with 51 members, but its population is three times that of Chicago.
How did Chicago get so many municipal divisions?
Our ward system dates from Chicago’s incorporation in 1837. The city was split into North, South, and West districts, each with two legislative areas called wards. The wards would be represented by aldermen sitting on what was then called the “Common Council.”
As the city grew in population and by annexation, the number of wards increased to 9 in 1847, 10 in 1853, 16 in 1863, 20 in 1869, 35 in 1889, and finally 50 in 1923. Redistricting was carried out as population and political power shifted.
In the early years, each ward had two aldermen serving alternating two-year terms, giving the council 70 aldermen around the turn of the 20th century. There were constant aldermanic campaigns. The 50-ward system with one alderman each was established in 1923, and the aldermanic four-year term in 1935, with each alderman elected on a nonpartisan basis.
The system hasn’t changed since then, but the ward map changes every decade. State law requires that ward boundaries be redrawn after each federal census to ensure roughly equal representation, with a current target of 54,000 constituents per ward. If it were just about numbers, however, Chicago wards would look more regular on a map.
“Ethnic identity and clout play a role in remapping, and the Chicago machine was built around ward and precinct organization, so some wards have been drawn to maintain a ward’s ethnic makeup and protect power, often resulting in torturous shapes,” observes Geoffrey Baer, whose WTTW programs inform local citizens about their city.
Gerrymandering has not gone unchallenged. In the 1970s and 1980s, there were five court-ordered partial redistrictings to redress the underrepresentation of racial and ethnic minorities in the redrawn maps. In 2013, the League of Women Voters of Chicago challenged the most recent redistricting plan in federal court.
According to the Encyclopedia of Chicago, “Chicago is unusual in having maintained its ward system while many cities were experimenting with at-large voting systems and smaller councils.”
Chicago aldermen are extremely powerful within their wards, controlling city services and decisions. They have been described as akin to mayors or feudal lords. The “aldermanic privilege” their City Council colleagues afford aldermen about decisions affecting their wards has been in play a long time.
Defenders of the system say it protects local interests; critics say it facilitates bribery and backroom deals. To mention one deleterious effect of aldermanic privilege, it has been a powerful tool in perpetuating racial segregation, as aldermen find ways to restrict the development of affordable housing in their wards.
There have been proposals over the years to reduce the number of wards or even eliminate the ward system. During the Progressive Era, City Club reformers suggested a new system of nine at-large council members and a city manager. Party leaders defended the ward structure, arguing that it ensured that every ethnic group would be represented on the City Council.
The Better Government Association has called for cutting the council in half, largely to reduce costs. In the last mayoral campaign, candidates William Daley and Bob Fioretti suggested reducing the number of wards to 15 or 25, respectively. Whether a reduction could ever be enacted, however, is doubtful, since some council members would be out of their jobs.
Chicago’s ward boundaries were last redrawn in 2012, and the new map took effect in 2015. When the 2020 census data are received, another remapping will begin. LWV Chicago supports a call to have more citizen participation in the process.
LWV Chicago in the Courts Last Time Around: The League brought suit but lost its case over last remap
The League of Women Voters of Chicago challenged Chicago’s most recent ward remap but lost in federal court.
The lawsuit, filed in 2013, said that the redistricting map violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The new map had a population fluctuation of 8.7 percent from the largest to the smallest ward.
The League also said that the map was improperly implemented before voters had a chance to elect aldermen from the new boundaries.
The US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois ruled against the League in August 2013, and the decision was upheld by the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals in July 2014. The appeals court noted that the US Supreme Court had determined that a population deviation of less than ten percent per district was constitutional.
The League had also argued that the remap targeted independent aldermen for elimination by redrawing their districts, but the court said that redistricting is by nature political, and “there are bound to be winners and losers.”
The court noted that the lawsuit did not allege that specific groups of voters were harmed.