We recently looked at the ongoing battle between Chicago's liberal Mayor Brandon Johnson and the City Council over the future of the ShotSpotter technology installed through some of the Windy City's most dangerous neighborhoods. The technology is very popular with the police in the city, as well as a large majority of the city's Aldermen. ShotSpotter has led to the resolution of many reported crimes and the confiscation of multiple illegal weapons and caches of ammunition. Emergency response times are down where the system is in use. But the Mayor is sticking to a campaign promise he made and vowing that the technology must be removed as soon as the current contracts expire. This week, the City Council met and voted overwhelmingly to allow the city's police superintendent to renew the contracts, but the Mayor continues to insist that only he has the authority to engage in such contracts and he will block the recently voted upon resolution. (National Review)

Chicago’s city council voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to allow the police superintendent to renew the city’s ShotSpotter contract in a last-ditch effort to keep the gunshot-detection technology that far-left mayor Brandon Johnson remains committed to getting rid of.

After more than an hour of debate, the council voted 33–14 to pass the ordinance allowing police superintendent Larry Snelling to renew, extend, or enter into a new agreement to keep ShotSpotter or another replacement system. Johnson rejects the premise that the council has the authority to sidestep his contracting authority, and vowed to veto the ordinance, which fell a vote shy of a veto-proof majority.

The ShotSpotter system uses acoustic sensors to detect gunshots in wards around Chicago and to alert first responders to their location. Supporters say it often sends help to gunshot victims even when no one has called 911.

To sweeten the deal, ShotSpotter's parent company has put forward an offer of a new contract with a 48% discount to keep the system in operation. Just taking a look at the vote by the City Council, it's easy to see how Johnson is clearly coming down on the wrong side of history. A vote by the City Council that results in a 33-14 passage isn't even close. The aldermen want to keep the system in place, as do a significant majority of the residents. The Police obviously want to retain it. I find it difficult to imagine how this wound up being the hill that Brandon Johnson wants to die on.

Yet this issue is far from being resolved. The dividing factor is the Mayor's vested power to approve such contractual arrangements. The City Council's resolution would grant an exception to that authority and transfer the power to renegotiate the contract to the police superintendent. But the vote fell one short of providing a veto-proof majority. That means that Mayor Johnson can still step in and invalidate the transfer of that negotiating power to the police superintendent. That would put the City Council right back where they started from when this all began.

The council's novel plan can't simply be managed without the proper procedural steps being taken. Beyond that, their options appear to have run out. If they couldn't muster enough votes to prevent a mayoral veto, they certainly won't be able to muster the votes to take any more drastic, punitive action against the Mayor. For the time being, the Aldermen are mostly playing nice. Some of the speakers at this week's meeting reiterated how Johnson still has their support and their hopes that he will succeed. One said he was confident that Mayor Johnson would see the light and "do the right thing." But that doesn't appear to be happening, or at least not yet.

The only alternative beyond that would be to vote Johnson out of office. But he's barely a year into his first term. A recall effort could be launched from the grassroots level, but this is a battle of Blue-on-Blue Democrats fighting each other. Chicago politics are hardly neat and tidy on the best of days, but this sort of internecine warfare is heavily discouraged. So the voters of Chicago will be left to decide precisely how much they value ShotSpotter and how much pain they're willing to go through to keep it.