The Bring Chicago Home initiative was as a key pledge from the mayor who hoped it would be a big early win.
Mayor Brandon Johnson arrives for a City Council meeting, March 20, 2024, at City Hall. The mayor and council members wore purple flowers in honor of Women’s History Month. Mayor Brandon Johnson acknowledged Wednesday that hope was waning for the Bring Chicago Home referendum but remained defiant, saying his progressive agenda would go on regardless of whether the tax hike to fund homelessness services prevails.
Facing TV cameras, an unapologetic Johnson told friends and foes of his progressive agenda to “buckle up” and joked about an “ongoing debate” over whether he or former Chicagoan and ex-President Barack Obama was the better organizer. The Bring Chicago Home campaign released a statement Tuesday evening that stopped short of conceding but acknowledged the lackluster performance. The group had no updates Wednesday.
Early returns show the opposition to the ballot question came from downtown, the city’s bungalow belts near the Southwest Side and Far Northwest Side airports, the Southeast Side and the north lakefront. At the coalition’s election night headquarters inside a West Side sports arena, the mood was a far cry from Johnson’s victory party last April that gave the city’s long-excluded progressive movement its biggest jolt in decades. Referendum backers put up a unified front as they chanted, “I’m in this till the wheels fall off,” before eventually packing up for the night.
A defeat at this stage would certainly be cast by opponents as a referendum on Johnson’s tenure as mayor just as much as on the specific proposal to raise taxes — always a thorny ask. The ballot question’s structure could have also been confusing, while the March primary that saw uncompetitive races and an unpopular incumbent at the top of the ballot may have been the wrong moment for Bring Chicago Home to strike.
And though United Working Families and other progressive groups had a formidable ground game, Gov. J.B. Pritzker — and his political war chest — stayed away from the Bring Chicago Home race after seeing his graduated tax amendment fail in a 2020 statewide referendum. Purchases between $1 million and $1.5 million would have a 0.6% levy on the first $999,999 of the price and 2% on the rest. Properties above $1.5 million would be taxed 0.6% on the first $999,999, 2% on the next $500,000 and 3% on the rest.
While the real estate interests won an initial victory with its lawsuit in Cook County court, it ultimately lost on appeal. However, the weeks following Cook County Judge Kathleen Burke’s ruling in BOMA’s favor — invalidating the question until the Illinois Appellate Court reinstated the referendum — may have dealt damage to voter turnout.
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