May 8, 2006 7:21 pm US/Central
Gutierrez Blasts Mayor Daley
Congressman Still Hasn't Confirmed Run For Governor
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
Congressman Luis Gutierrez is sounding an awful lot like a candidate for mayor.
On Monday, he blasted incumbent Mayor Richard Daley.
As CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery reports, Gutierrez accused Daley of losing his focus.
Illinois's first and only Hispanic congressman told a City Club of Chicago luncheon that he's considering a campaign for mayor because, after 17 years in office, Richard Daley is now ignoring important voices.
"Government suffers from having the same leadership too long. Not enough of you are being listened to," Gutierrez said. "It's time to get a bigger table with new seats that lead to new ideas."
Gutierrez said he's tired of hearing about problems with Chicago's hiring practices and it's time for the city to privatize the process.
Gutierrez told The Associated Press today that recent headlines about patronage hiring and Chicago's history of such problems show that the system can't be fixed and it's time to try something new.
Downtown's new Millennium Park may have won international acclaim and helped stimulate a real estate boom nearby, but Gutierrez claimed at the luncheon that Daley's work on that and a bid for the 2016 Olympics have "distracted" him from what's really important: Improving public schools.
"Every hour spent on the Olympics is an hour that can be spent on improving our schools. Every dollar used to build world-class bicycle racing tracks can be redirected to improving the wages and salaries of our teachers," Gutierrez said.
"I am not afraid to be critical of the direction that the city has taken," he said.
Gutierrez talked about raising Chicago teacher salaries to $70,000, even if it means raising property taxes.
"If that's necessary, that is something that I think you cannot simply say no to. It would be irresponsible to say no to," he said.
Mayor Daley has presided over big increases in property taxes to pay for teacher raises, but the system is currently cannibalizing more than 1,000 teacher jobs because it can't afford big pay raises negotiated.
Congressman Gutierrez is running for an eighth term on Capitol Hill said he will make up his mind on a run for mayor between Labor Day and the Nov. 7 election.
He said he'll decide by this fall whether he has the ideas, energy and commitment needed to do the post justice.
But he said he doesn't have to be in a mayoral race to suggest ideas for how to improve the city.
Jury selection is set to begin Wednesday in the trial of former Daley patronage chief Robert Sorich and three other men accused of trying to side step a court order that prohibits awarding city jobs based on clout instead of merit. All the men have pleaded not guilty. Daley has never been accused of wrongdoing.
Daley, who took office in 1989, has not announced whether he will seek re-election, but it would be stunning news if he decided not to run again. Nominating petitions for mayoral candidates are due in December, according to the Chicago Board of Elections.
One alderman who attended Gutierrez's speech said he hopes to see him run for Chicago's top job.
"He would make a great mayor," Alderman Billy Ocasio said.
One of Gutierrez's ideas is to turn responsibility for city hiring over to a private company. He said the city's personnel department should be abolished and a private firm put in place to handle hiring for all employees covered by the so-called Shakman Decree, which bans political patronage as a basis for hiring all but about 1,000 of 38,000 city employees.
"We should just take it out of the hands of city government and we should privatize all hiring for the city of Chicago," Gutierrez told the AP.
A Daley spokeswoman said there would be no comment on Gutierrez's comments.
On another front, Gutierrez, a leader in Congress on immigration reform, told the AP that organizers want to build on the success of recent immigrant rights marches by calling for a National Citizenship Day on July 1.
The goal is to set up workshops across the country on the weekend before the Fourth of July to help the 8 million people he said are permanent residents become U.S. citizens.
"Instead of marches in 50, 60, 70 cities, we're going to set up citizenship workshops in 50, 60 70 cities," Gutierrez said.
The Democrat said recent marches in which hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in cities nationwide were successful. In Chicago, police said about 400,000 marchers participated in a May 1 rally and there were no arrests.
(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
