Why is Chicago alderman the job few want? In February, 11 ward races will be uncontested.

The Chicago City Council is more independent than it’s ever been, forcing Mayor Brandon Johnson to issue four vetoes, cast three tie-breaking votes, accept a Zoning Committee chair he did not choose and struggle to pass two budgets with mounting resistance for a third.

Yet in spite of that transition from rubber stamp to real power, 11 wards are uncontested in the Feb.23 aldermanic election.

Ten incumbents are guaranteed re-election: Alds. Lamont Robinson (4th); Peter Chico (10th); Nicole Lee (11th); Ray Lopez (15th); Ronnie Mosley (21st); Samantha Nugent (39th); Andre Vasquez (40th), Anthony Napolitano (41st); Matt Martin (47th) and Debra Silverstein (50th).

They don’t have to raise a penny or spend a minute shaking hands, knocking on doors or attending neighborhood forums.

Neither does newcomer Elianne Bahena, chief of staff to — and handpicked successor of — retiring Ald. Michael Rodriguez (22nd).

Even more incumbents could end up running unopposed when the dust settles from petition challenges.

Other veterans are likely to face only nominal opposition from challengers with very little money. They include: Brian Hopkins (2nd); Pat Dowell (3rd); Desmon Yancy (5th); Monique Scott (24th); Felix Cardona (31st); Bill Conway (34th); Gilbert Villegas (36th); Nick Sposato (38th); Brendan Reilly (42nd); Timmy Knudsen (43rd) and Bennett Lawson (44th).

Chicago is closer than ever to the strong Council, weak mayor form of government the city code intended. And yet, only 140 candidates filed to run for City Council seats.

That’s down from 210 candidates filing nominating petitions to run for alderperson in 2023, 174 of whom ultimately survived petition challenges.

"It's possible that our constituents are pleased to see a City Council with teeth and a coalition of aldermen who are stepping up, doing the hard work and pushing back on the executive branch of government for the first time in many, many decades," said Reilly, a leader of the group that calls itself the "Common Sense Caucus."

"In other cases, maybe it's a job they simply don't want. There's so much upheaval at City Hall, perhaps some folks don't want to sign up for that circus."

Southwest Side Ald. Marty Quinn (13th), one of three veteran incumbents retiring from the City Council, is not surprised about the higher number of uncontested races. He ties the shortage of competition to the historic Nov. 3 election for 21 seats on Chicago’s first elected school board that preceded the 2027 aldermanic contests.

“Having these two election seasons intersect has taken a lot of potential aldermanic candidates off the table,” Quinn said.

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times file

“People who are real active in the community, involved in schools, LSCs [local school councils], block clubs — those are the natural aldermanic candidates. And a good number of those [were] on the ballot” for school board.

‘There’s so much negativity’

Southwest Side Ald. Matt O’Shea (19th) who is calling it quits after four terms in the City Council, bemoans how the job has changed.

O’Shea blames that same sharp turn to the left — with seven Democratic Socialists serving alongside Johnson, the most liberal mayor in Chicago history — for turning off candidates who might otherwise find it attractive to seek a City Council seat.

“You have a career that you would be leaving to go into public service, and public service is so ugly. There’s so much negativity. There’s so much distrust,” O’Shea said. “And then, you go down to City Hall and you see people arguing about issues we have no control over, half-way around the world. I would guess that would turn off a lot of people.”

O’Shea can’t help but be surprised by the lack of interest in a job that will now pay $159,264 a year at the high end after the latest pay raise, which was tied to the rate of inflation.

“When you look at communities in crisis and you look at people elected in some of those communities and they don’t have opposition? That should be startling to people,” O’Shea said. “There’s no one in a community of 50,000 people who thinks they could do a better job or want to do a better job?"

Mike Ruemmler, president of One Future Illinois, said he is not surprised that so many incumbents are running unopposed, and that the entire field of pre-challenge candidates is 66% of what it was four years ago. Ruemmler's group is a nonprofit created by business leaders to influence city and state policy, in part by electing a more conservative City Council. The group is planning to support several anti-administration Council members who seek to defeat as many as ten mayoral allies.

“People probably see the job and say, `Why would I want to do that? Why would I want that job?’ What about it would make somebody want it?” Ruemmler said. “It’s been a rough four years. A lot of rancor within the Council. Tough budgets to deal with. And it takes a lot to say, `I want to serve.’ It doesn’t seem like a desirable job to have these days.”

Lee is grateful for the vote of confidence at a time when she is fighting to keep the White Sox in the Bridgeport area and a planned Amtrak maintenance facility out of the Bridgeport community. Amtrak wants to relocate its South Loop rail yard to Bridgeport, and if that happens, Sox minority owner Justin Ishbia would like to build a new White Sox ballpark in Amtrak's old South Loop rail yard site.

Being an alderperson is "not a cakewalk sort of job as some people may have thought of it years ago, Lee said. "This is technically a part-time job. And when I talk to people about that, I tell them it's more like two full-time jobs."

Violet Miller/Sun-Times

The cost of running for alderman

Veteran political consultant Delmarie Cobb ties the lack of interest to the cost of an aldermanic campaign. The days when you could run for a City Council seat by knocking on doors and “just being visible” are long gone, she said.

“It’s the gated communities. More and more buildings are locked. You can’t knock on doors. People aren’t answering their doors. They’ve got cameras out there. They see who it is. They don’t even come to the door. People used to volunteer for campaigns. They don’t do that anymore. So you have to spend the money,” Cobb said.

“The idea of getting $300,000 — where am I gonna get that? How am I gonna run a viable campaign if the incumbent chooses not to appear at forums, which might be my only possible opportunity to do a one-on-one where people can see a comparison?”

Cobb recalled what happened when she ran the 1999 aldermanic campaign that helped Ald. Anthony Beale (9th), who is now the City Council dean, unseat incumbent Robert Shaw.

“If it hadn’t been for the forums, there’s no way he would have won,” Cobb said of Beale. "Now a lot of incumbents refuse to do them with their opponents. They figure, `You can’t afford to really run against me, so why should I give you this unnecessary publicity.’”

Rodriguez is delighted, but not all that surprised, that nobody filed to challenge Bahena, his chief of staff. Bahena was the leading vote-getter in her down-ballot race for the local police district council and is “very well known” in the 22nd Ward, which includes Little Village and North Lawndale.

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

“It’s good to be endorsed by Chuy Garcia and Mike Rodriguez in Little Village and the 22nd Ward. But it’s also the police district council, being my chief of staff and fighting for the community to the extent that the Gestapo detained her a year ago for seven hours,” Rodriguez said, a reference to federal agents carrying President Donald Trump’s deportation campaign. “She has a stellar resume and she’ll be the first female in that seat. I think that has kept people out.”

Nugent has managed to balance the demands of her Far Northwest Side constituents and navigate the outcry about the homeless encampment in a local park, while also helping to lead the 31-member bloc of conservative and moderate alderpersons who rejected Mayor Brandon Johnson’s corporate head tax last year and have threatened to do the same this year.

By maintaining that balance, Nugent believes she has earned the political pass.

“I’m a workhorse. I’m out in the community all the time. I love representing my community and the residents and families and I think they know I don’t take their support for granted,” Nugent said. “ Hopefully, no opposition just reflects that they know I’m there to support them.”

Vasquez, a former battle rapper once known for his homophobic and misogynistic lyrics, attributed the high number of uncontested races, including his own, to how much time City Council members are now spending on what he called “crisis management.”

“Maybe they understand how bad the budgets are looking,” Vasquez said.

Four years ago, five ward races were uncontested at the close of filing, but ballot challenges doubled that number to ten.

The open seat in the 21st Ward drew 14 candidates. Thirteen candidates vied for the vacant seat in the 6th Ward.

The modern-day record for candidates filing to run for Chicago alderperson was set in 2011, the year that Richard M. Daley’s retirement set the stage for the election of Rahm Emanuel. The field of 351 candidates filing for a Council seat was ultimately reduced to 239 candidates after petition challenges.

In 2023, the City Council welcomed 16 newly elected alderpersons, an unusually large turnover that followed a wave of retirements, resignations and defeats.

The lowest turnover in modern history occurred in 2003, when the freshman class included just three new members — Manny Flores (1st); Howard Brookins (21st) and Rey Colon (31st).