News about Jane Byrne

Conservatives in Windy City are rejoicing that Chicago's notoriously tough on crime mayor had a landslide. Mayor Lori Lightfoot won just 17.6% of the vote in the 2010 city hall election, sparking a run-off between Paul Vallas, a former schools CEO and Brandon Johnson, a Cook County commissioner, on April 4. Lightfoot was the first elected Chicago mayor to decline a reelection bid since 1983, when Jane Byrne, the city's first female mayor, lost her Democratic primary. Lightfoot, the first black woman and first openly gay person to serve in the city, received her first term in 2019 after promising to put an end to decades of graft and backroom drama at City Hall. Opponents blamed Lightfoot for an rise in crime in cities around the United States after the pandemic, and criticised her as a divisive, overly cynical figure.