The nationwide search the fledgling civilian oversight panel is conducting for David Brown’s permanent replacement is strictly on the up and up. The fix is not in, according to Anthony Driver, president of the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability. “They have not tried to influence our process. They have not tried to submit names. In fact, the extent of the communication with incoming Mayor Johnson is that it’s really important that we have a robust community engagement process,” Driver told the Sun-Times.

“We definitely don’t expect to make wholesale, universal changes within the city departments…You’re unlikely to see the kind of wholesale changes that…Daley brought in,” said Jason Lee, a senior adviser to Johnson’s mayoral campaign and transition team.

Finance Committee Chair Scott Waguespack (32nd) is among those who could be on the chopping block to make way for more City Council committee chairs loyal to Mayor -elect Brandon Johnson. But, Waguespack warned Johnson to “leave this alone” or risk starting off on the “wrong foot” with the Council—just as Mayor Lori Lightfoot did.

Campaign manager, Brian Towne, and veteran Democratic political strategist, Joe Trippi, discuss the Vallas campaign while senior advisor, Jason Lee, and Brandon Davis, senior media strategist, discuss the Johnson campaign with Sun-Times City Hall reporter Fran Spielman.

Ald. Tom Tunney (44th), the powerful chairman of the City Council’s Zoning Committee and a key member of Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s leadership team, is retiring from City Council but plans to remain in public service in this interview with Sun-Times City Hall reporter Fran Spielman.

As an unpaid negotiator for the Fraternal Order of Police, Jim Franczek said Paul Vallas was singularly responsible for convincing the Fraternal Order of Police to accept a host of police accountability measures as part of the eight-year police contract that ended the longest labor stalemate in Chicago history.

Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates said Thursday she expects vanquished mayoral challenger Jesus “Chuy” Garcia to endorse Brandon Johnson in the April 4 mayoral runoff, bringing Chicago’s fractured family of progressives back together.

Sun-Times City Hall reporter Fran Spielman is joined by her colleagues, Sun-Times' chief political reporter Tina Sfondeles and WBEZ's political reporter Dan Mihalopoulos to recap Tuesday's historic Mayoral election.

David Axelrod has helped to elect mayors, senators and the nation’s first Black president. While not ready to “write the epitaph” of incumbent Mayor Lori Lightfoot, he said: “She definitely has a very, very steep uphill climb.”

On the November day when Garcia finally entered the race, he told the Sun-Times that he would love to unite the progressive movement had has championed for a lifetime, but he was prepared to go it alone if it was too late for that in the first round of the mayoral sweepstake. He expressed confidence that he could force Lightfoot or someone else into a runoff and that the progressive family would reunite behind him then.