The voters of Chicago, since 1837, went off the script on two occasions: when they elected an African American and a woman as their mayors. At least that’s how it was until 2019, when Lori Lightfoot won the elections.

With a large majority (74.2% of the votes), the lawyer, African American and homosexual won the vote of the citizens and became the leader of the city.

According to Infobae, “voters wanted to stir up the city’s political establishment, fed up with gun violence that claims more lives than in any other major American city and years of political corruption”.

Lightfoot, of course, has not disappointed. It is recalled that, in the middle of last year, Chicago registered scandalous figures: 350 murders so far in 2020; so the former president of the United States Donald Trump warned that he would take action on the matter.

The BBC explains that what Trump wanted was to carry out the Operation Legend, which consisted of deploying federal troops in the “crime nests” to reestablish the “law and order”.

Lightfoot objected to the plans.

“In a letter, he said that the deployment of undercover federal agents who ‘arrest and detain residents for no reason’ is a bad idea.” Recalls ‘La Nación.’

On the contrary, the mayor argued, what was needed was for the federal government to reform the security system regarding the use of weapons, to support public safety and to have a “outreach to the community and investment in society”.

But the concern that citizens’ rights are respected and vindicated has also made it the center of controversy.

A RADICAL DECISION

Today, and in the midst of the celebrations for his second year in office in front of Chicago, Lightfoot decided that he would only give interviews to journalists “who belong to racial minorities”.

“It is a shame that in 2021 the journalists accredited to the mayor’s office will be very mostly white in a city where more than half of the inhabitants are black, Hispanic, of Asian or indigenous origin.” He explained on Twitter.

The stance sparked criticism even among those it supposedly benefits: the National Association of Black Journalists hailed Lightfoot’s “sensitivity” to “the lack of diversity between those and those who cover local communities,” but indicated that it “cannot support this tactic ”, which moves away from its“ commitment in favor of diversity in general, equality and inclusion ”.

Hispanic-born journalist Gregory Pratt, who covers mayor for the Chicago Tribune newspaper, was one of those chosen by Lightfoot for an interview. But he announced on Twitter that he would accept it only if the conditions imposed by the mayor were lifted, according to the agency France Press.

 

Lightfoot is also questioned by Chicago residents, who claim her apparent inability to improve the city’s economy after the onslaught of the coronavirus.

PUBLIC TRAJECTORY

Lori Lightfoot was born in Massillon, Ohio, on August 4, 1962. She attended the University of Michigan, where she studied Political Science, before graduating from the University of Chicago School of Law as a lawyer.

Infobae says that “her first contact with politics was working as an advisor to Congressmen Ralph Regula and Barbara Mikulski”.

He also worked at the Mayer Brown studio, where “represented Republican Party candidates protesting unfair electoral rules that benefited the Democratic ruling party”.

To run for mayor, Lightfoot resigned from the study.

But that does not mean that she was separated from the public service.

The portal of the “Chicago Tribune” says that her experience in the State began in 1996, when she was an assistant to the federal prosecutor’s office for the Northern District of Illinois, and until 2018, when she was president of the Chicago Police Board.

“I am a person who decided not to climb the ladder of corruption of a political party. I do not hold any title, neither of commissioner nor of head of the party.” Lightfoot has boasted.

The mayor is married to Amy Eshleman and has a teenage daughter.

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