City Council's 14-member Latino Caucus chooses Johnson critic as new chair

One of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s most outspoken critics, Ald. Andre Vasquez, is the newly-elected chair of the City Council’s fourteen-member Latino Caucus — and promises to turn up the heat on the embattled mayor to bolster Latino hiring and contracting.

Vasquez (40th) replaces Ald. Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez (33rd), who has had only praise for the embattled mayor, in part, because she is one of Johnson’s allies.

The loyalty has been a two-way street. Johnson chose Rodriguez-Sanchez to chair the City Council’s Committee on Health and Human Relations and resisted demands from Jewish community leaders to remove or condemn her for an antisemitic posting on social media.

It happened after Rodriguez-Sanchez posted a picture on Facebook with her son that said, “Looking for an anti-Zionist pediatrician for this baby. Give me your recs.”

“It’s challenging when people have relationships. And I think our chairwoman had personal things going on. So, I don’t think it was easy,” Vasquez said, apparently referring to health issues that have prevented Rodriguez-Sanchez from attending City Council meetings in person for months.

Vasquez said he’s “a lot more willing to call things out.”

He already has — on everything from the mayor’s handling of the migrant and mass transit issues to Johnson’s failed attempts to raise property taxes, fire Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez and install progressive firebrand Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th) as Zoning Committee chair.

Now Vasquez, who co-chairs the Council’s Progressive Caucus, will have yet another platform from which to pressure Johnson.

He plans to start by making certain Latinos get city jobs and contracts “commensurate with” their 29.8% share of Chicago’s population.

“I’d much rather look and see how things are going than come out swinging. I don’t think there’s a need to do that. Plus, there’s been enough of a racial divide that’s occurred after the migrant mission that we’re also very mindful of that. Why stoke the flames any further?” Vasquez said.

During a lengthy mid-term interview last week with the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ, Johnson acknowledged that his relationship with the City Council has been “a challenge.” But he argued that he has “engaged earlier” with alderpersons and “on a more regular, frequent level” to try and ease the ongoing tension that culminated in the City Council’s unanimous vote against his proposed $300 million property tax increase.

On Monday, Vasquez was asked whether there has been any improvement in communications between the mayor and the Council.

“I haven’t seen it. There’s a lot of situations where we didn’t think we were part of anything," he said. "The budget process went really bad…Not engaging with people who you may not agree 100% with is not a recipe for success when you need to get 26 votes…to pass legislation.”

With a $1.12 billion shortfall and $3 billion more in federal funding on the chopping block, Vasquez said he expects Johnson’s 2026 budget to face an even greater level of resistance.

“The amount of cost savings you have to show constituents before going after revenue to continue services — especially given the political climate and how people feel about the mayor — I struggle to figure out how he gets to 26” votes, Vasquez said.

“He’s back to property taxes and other fees. The garbage tax is something that’s gonna have to be looked at. If we’re paying $9.50-per-unit [each month] and the actual cost is $54-per-unit, we’re operating at a loss.”

The mayor's office refused to comment on the election of Vasquez, who already serves as Johnson's handpicked chair of the Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights.