Petition drive launched to give Chicago voters power to recall mayor
Mayor Brandon Johnson delivers his inaugural address on May 15, 2023. Not a year later, a Lake View man has launched a long-shot effort to give voters the option to recall him before his four-year term is up.
Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Mayor Brandon Johnson has his hands full with the migrant crisis, a persistent robbery surge, negotiations on a new teachers' contract and an increasingly restive City Council. Now, he faces another potential headache: a recall.
A former technology salesman who lives in Lake View has formed a political action committee to raise money and at least begin the formidable challenge of putting a binding referendum on the Nov. 5 ballot asking Chicago voters whether they want the power to recall their mayor.
Daniel Boland said the recall effort is about “helping and empowering” the people of Chicago — not about “hurting” Johnson. But he acknowledged he's disappointed with the mayor’s performance.
“Just the crime. People can’t go out and even go to the grocery store without getting mugged. People can’t sell their tamales out on the street without getting accosted by people who are armed. These armed juvenile thugs. That’s one reason that just put it over the top for me,” Boland, 58, said Wednesday.
“Really, the thing that motivated me more than anything else was when the mayor had a meeting scheduled with your editorial board at the Sun-Times and then canceled it because you wouldn’t go off the record. I thought that just violated every principle of honor and integrity.”
The mountain confronting Boland will not be easy to climb.
To get a recall referendum on the November ballot, he needs at least 56,464 valid signatures by Aug. 5. If it gets on the ballot, and the question is approved in November, Chicagoans would be empowered to recall any present or future mayor.
But Johnson still wouldn't be removed. Boland would have to launch yet another petition drive, collecting at least 122,503 valid signatures . If he clears that hurdle, Chicago voters would be empowered to recall Johnson in the next regularly scheduled election — March 2026.
Boland predicted an effort to recall Johnson stands a good chance. He pointed to recent public opinion polls showing Johnson’s approval rating in the 20% range and to the defeat of the mayor’s binding "Bring Chicago Home" referendum that would have authorized the City Council to raise the transfer tax on high-end real estate transactions to combat homelessness.
“People got sold a bad bill of goods. Didn’t Mayor Johnson run on a platform of transparency and accountability? If he’s not doing either one of those things, he’s not doing his job and we’re gonna hold him accountable to that. This is a wake-up call for him,” Boland said.
“It’s apparent that he’s owned by the CTU. We want to make him accountable. We want him to cut the strings and stop being a puppet for the CTU and for [Toni Preckwinkle], the Cook County Board president.”
Johnson’s political director Christian Perry said the mayor is “not concerned” about the recall effort. He's “laser-focused on delivering for the working-class people of Chicago,” Perry said.
“Mayor Brandon Johnson represents a movement of people who’ve been fighting against the status-quo for some time…This is another attempt from folks who do not want to see working class families and democratic ideals be successful in the city of Chicago,” Perry added.
“I don’t know this gentleman [Boland]. I still have to do my research. I don’t know who is involved in propping this up. We’re still researching that. … [But] we are not concerned.”
In discussing the recall effort, Boland repeatedly used the word “we."
Pressed to identify his cohorts, he mentioned Cherie Travis, Chicago’s firmer commissioner of Animal Care and Control, and Andrea Rayla, a former candidate for Cook County assessor.
Boland also said he got pivotal help in “how to do this” from former Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, who led the drive to empower Illinois voters to recall their governor, a referendum that passed by a 2-to-1 margin.
“I got it done. I was the one. I believe in this. … I believe in the power of recall. I have a lot of credibility on this, having done it for governor and been the governor,” Quinn said.
And though he knows the task Boland faces is "daunting," he argued, it’s “not insurmountable.”
The former governor advised Johnson to embrace the recall referendum and not be threatened by it.
“Having a recall amendment on the city law books is an accountability device," Quinn said. "Recall isn’t always used as much as it informs the incumbent that they are accountable to the voters — not just on election day, but 365 days a year."