Did Mayor Johnson pull the rug out from under Ald. Emma Mitts?

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times (file)

When it comes to frequently shooting himself in the foot, Mayor Brandon Johnson might well give Wile E. Coyote a run for his money.

The latest example: The eyebrow-raising Sun-Times report this week that Johnson, after offering Ald. Emma Mitts (37th) the chairmanship of the City Council's Housing Committee a month ago, decided to instead give the post to Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th) — his close mayoral ally who was booted from a council leadership position last year for supposedly bullying and intimidating Mitts.

And to pour salt on the wound, turns out Johnson, according to Mitts' story, didn't even personally tell her about the change. Instead, he dispatched mayoral aide Jason Lee to deliver the news.

For his part, the mayor on Wednesday denied Mitts' claims, though he backed Ramirez-Rosa as "a leader. He's one of my strongest allies."

On Tuesday, Mitts told her story to reporter Fran Spielman. "What you’re doing is [saying], 'We forgot about this. We’ll move the pieces around and we’ll still put Carlos in. We’ll just put him in another place,' " Mitts said.

"If that was the case, why did the mayor ask me to take Housing?" Mitts said. "Where did the change come up and why wasn’t I included? Why didn’t the mayor come back and say, `I’ve had a change of mind.’ But don’t tell me somebody else caused the mayor to change his mind. Who’s running the city?"

This all might seem like he-said, she-said, inside baseball of little consequence to everyday Chicagoans, but it isn't. The episode seems yet another example of the peripatetic and near helter-skelter way the Johnson administration has done business, from the handling of the migrant crisis to the ShotSpotter issue — which sparked another council revolt, with alderpersons voting late Wednesday to defy Johnson and move to keep the technology in wards that want it — to the abrupt firing of former city health commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady.

Ramirez-Rosa resigned as Johnson's City Council floor leader and as Zoning Committee chair last November after he was accused of grabbing Mitts to keep her from entering Council chambers during a special meeting on Chicago's sanctuary status.

He narrowly survived being censured for the incident, saved by Johnson casting a tie-breaking vote against the move.

For his part, Ramirez-Rosa said he blocked Mitts' path and likely brushed the alderman's arm, but did not grab her.

"Those allegations took on a life of their own," he said then.

Ramirez-Rosa ‘rewarded for bad behavior’?

Mitts said Johnson asked her to lead the Housing Committee because he wanted current chair Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th) to take over the Zoning Committee.

But, according to Mitts, mayoral aide Lee withdrew the offer last Tuesday, saying the council's Latino Caucus "didn’t want to lose what they already had," and that Ramirez-Rosa would now be Johnson's pick to replace Sigcho-Lopez as Housing Committee chair.

Mitts said she feels "bamboozled" by the whole affair.

"The mayor asked me and he never came back and told me [otherwise]. I had no knowledge of what was going on. That’s sort of like a back-door slap. … I don’t think I should be used as a pawn here.”

Ald. David Moore (17th) said giving Ramirez-Rosa another leadership position was "a slap in the face to the residents of Chicago and to the City Council."

Added Moore: "We voted that he should not be in a leadership role for his actions. You don’t get rewarded for that bad behavior. ... Not in a million years."

An unpopular mayor making his way through a rough first term needs a solid, working relationship with as many City Council members as possible. But Johnson's unnecessarily ham-fisted ways have once again gotten the better of him.

There was talk, particularly during the Mayor Richard M. Daley era, that City Council members should select their own leadership.

That makes sense. Chicago could have benefited then from a more independent — and thus, hopefully stronger — City Council.

And if Johnson handled the Mitts situation the way she claims, it's a potential move that's well worth revisiting.

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