Big box & ballot box

Chicago recently was treated to a rare display of constitutional democracy.

Aldermen passed an ordinance, the “big box” or “living wage” ordinance, which Mayor Richard M. Daley opposed. The ordinance would
have required large retailers to pay employees $10 per hour plus $3 per
hour in benefits. The Mayor vetoed the ordinance, and the City Council
failed to override the veto.

Aldermen who backed the ordinance did so to help Chicago’s lowwage
workers. Aldermen who opposed it did so for one of two reasons—
either they genuinely felt such an ordinance would keep big box stores out of the neighborhoods needing them most, or they are in the pocket of big business, doing what the corporations demand and sneering at what the people want.

Particularly sneering was Alderman George Cardenas of the 12th Ward, who not only voted against the ordinance but ridiculed groups favoring it, annoyed the common people would actually question his will.

There was no mistaking what the people wanted. According to a poll by the highly respected Washington, DC, firm Lake Research Partners, 71% of Chicagoans favored the ordinance. Of those in favor, 90% said they strongly favored it.

What can be done when elected officials so blatantly disregard the will of the people? “Vote them out of office” is the idealistic response, but we all know that sounds easier than it is. Many people think President George Bush was voted out of office in 2004, but that rigged or faulty voting machines in several states kept him in, as detailed in several Gazette articles about Professor Ron Baiman, formerly of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Baiman believes he has proven mathematically that Bush did not win in 2004.

According to another polling firm, the Poneman Group, 25% of Americans have no or little confidence in America’s voting machines—a significant percentage for the country that is supposed to be the beacon of democracy. Even more frightening, a whopping 81% of security professionals feel that way.

We know how well the new voting machines worked in Cook County in March. Anybody any more confident about November?

One way to help assure we may indeed be able to “vote them out” is a simple little law called the Emergency Paper Ballot law. Whether passed by the Federal government, the State, the County, or the City, such a law would make emergency paper ballots available at the polls. When voting machines fail (as they did in March) or when they aren’t set up in time (happens in every election), voters could vote on a good old-fashioned paper ballot. What could be simpler?

Paper ballots would not guarantee that Aldermen who sneer at the will of the people would be voted out. But they sure would help. As we have argued earlier, elected officials in danger of losing their jobs (which too often has not been the case in Chicago) suddenly start working a little harder to keep them.

For example, if the Mayor and those who sustained his veto thought their actions would have hurt them at the polls, they actually might have negotiated a compromise with some of the big box retailers instead of just voting the ordinance down flat. Why couldn’t the Mayor and Aldermen have indicated to big box retailers that were threatening to close their Chicago stores if the ordinance stood that the City would negotiate other concessions, like tax breaks, to those retailers or their rivals? We have a feeling that all would have come to a deal rather quickly.

The results of one more study are worth mentioning. UIC’s Center for Urban Economic Development proved that low wage jobs cost Illinois taxpayers more than $2 billion per year in the form of public assistance programs that workers have to use to help them meet basic household expenses.

The big box ordinance would have helped alleviate some of this expenditure. Remember that when you vote in November and February—no matter what form your ballot takes.