Big box down -- foie gras ban next?
Big box down -- foie gras ban next?
BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter
September 15, 2006
Copyright by The chicago Sun Times
No sooner had the City Council sustained his big-box veto than Mayor Daley was gearing up for the next legislative battle: to repeal a foie gras ban lampooned around the world.
Daley was clearly feeling his oats. After months of pushback by aldermen emboldened by corruption scandals, the mayor was back on top.
"After foie gras, this became the laughingstock of the nation. That's another one they're going to take care of, too. I mean -- that was ridiculous. That was the funniest law they ever passed in the City Council. Then, of course, they passed [an aldermanic] pay raise, and then they did this" minimum wage mandate, the mayor said after the big-box vote.
"All the sudden, they all got together, and they became the laughingstock of the country. And this is a good legislative body."
Daley denied he had hatched a plot to make the City Council look ridiculous -- even after a columnist noted he could have vetoed the foie gras ban, too, but didn't.
"No, no. They're independent. They're all well-intelligent. They get paid well. They voted their conscience, and they did it," Daley said.
"Now they realize that you can eat it at home. You go to a restaurant. You can't buy it, but they can put it on your salad. You buy the salad for $25, but the foie gras is not charged. Does that make any sense?"
If Daley is truly prepared to roll up his sleeves after being disengaged from City Council action, the foie gras ban has a good chance to be reversed, according to Ald. Bernard Stone (50th), who co-sponsored the repealer.
"He can be of great assistance to us in helping us repeal it. I still feel that, if he had jumped on board earlier on big box, we could have stopped it earlier and not required the veto," Stone said of the minimum-wage movement that started two years ago with the battle over Wal-Mart's entry into Chicago.
"Whatever distracted [Daley], he's back, and that means some of this silly stuff is going to get squashed -- not with a strong arm anymore, but with reason. . . . That's the reality of what exists today. It's a different ballgame."
'Sure. What the heck'
Unlike the big-box ordinance that stirred real emotions on both sides, the foie gras ban was a product of City Council etiquette.
If an issue is important to a colleague, and the "personal crusade" doesn't step on anybody else's toes, aldermen generally go along with it. In the case of foie gras, the anti-animal cruelty crusader was Ald. Joe Moore (49th), who just so happens to be the big-box champion, too.
"When Joe Moore came to us and said, 'This is an injustice. Could you sign on to it?' [the answer was,] 'Sure. What the heck.' It happens every single day. People sign on because of courtesy," one alderman said.
"I'll certainly take another look at it after all the ridicule in the press and by the mayor. But at the time, it wasn't that big a deal."
After public hearings and full-page ads to shine light on the force-feeding of ducks and geese, Moore pushed for a vote on the foie gras ban because he was convinced a corruption-weakened Daley could not afford to waste his diminishing political capital to stop it.
Thursday, Moore said he does not sense a "strong desire on the part of his colleagues" to revisit the foie gras issue.
And he disagreed with the notion that Daley had reasserted control over a City Council once viewed as his rubber stamp, simply because Daley managed to persuade three big-box supporters to cross over and sustain his veto.
"We still had over 60 percent of the City Council cast a vote against the mayor's strongly held position," Moore said. "I would hardly call this an overwhelming political victory for Daley."
fspielman@suntimes.com
BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter
September 15, 2006
Copyright by The chicago Sun Times
No sooner had the City Council sustained his big-box veto than Mayor Daley was gearing up for the next legislative battle: to repeal a foie gras ban lampooned around the world.
Daley was clearly feeling his oats. After months of pushback by aldermen emboldened by corruption scandals, the mayor was back on top.
"After foie gras, this became the laughingstock of the nation. That's another one they're going to take care of, too. I mean -- that was ridiculous. That was the funniest law they ever passed in the City Council. Then, of course, they passed [an aldermanic] pay raise, and then they did this" minimum wage mandate, the mayor said after the big-box vote.
"All the sudden, they all got together, and they became the laughingstock of the country. And this is a good legislative body."
Daley denied he had hatched a plot to make the City Council look ridiculous -- even after a columnist noted he could have vetoed the foie gras ban, too, but didn't.
"No, no. They're independent. They're all well-intelligent. They get paid well. They voted their conscience, and they did it," Daley said.
"Now they realize that you can eat it at home. You go to a restaurant. You can't buy it, but they can put it on your salad. You buy the salad for $25, but the foie gras is not charged. Does that make any sense?"
If Daley is truly prepared to roll up his sleeves after being disengaged from City Council action, the foie gras ban has a good chance to be reversed, according to Ald. Bernard Stone (50th), who co-sponsored the repealer.
"He can be of great assistance to us in helping us repeal it. I still feel that, if he had jumped on board earlier on big box, we could have stopped it earlier and not required the veto," Stone said of the minimum-wage movement that started two years ago with the battle over Wal-Mart's entry into Chicago.
"Whatever distracted [Daley], he's back, and that means some of this silly stuff is going to get squashed -- not with a strong arm anymore, but with reason. . . . That's the reality of what exists today. It's a different ballgame."
'Sure. What the heck'
Unlike the big-box ordinance that stirred real emotions on both sides, the foie gras ban was a product of City Council etiquette.
If an issue is important to a colleague, and the "personal crusade" doesn't step on anybody else's toes, aldermen generally go along with it. In the case of foie gras, the anti-animal cruelty crusader was Ald. Joe Moore (49th), who just so happens to be the big-box champion, too.
"When Joe Moore came to us and said, 'This is an injustice. Could you sign on to it?' [the answer was,] 'Sure. What the heck.' It happens every single day. People sign on because of courtesy," one alderman said.
"I'll certainly take another look at it after all the ridicule in the press and by the mayor. But at the time, it wasn't that big a deal."
After public hearings and full-page ads to shine light on the force-feeding of ducks and geese, Moore pushed for a vote on the foie gras ban because he was convinced a corruption-weakened Daley could not afford to waste his diminishing political capital to stop it.
Thursday, Moore said he does not sense a "strong desire on the part of his colleagues" to revisit the foie gras issue.
And he disagreed with the notion that Daley had reasserted control over a City Council once viewed as his rubber stamp, simply because Daley managed to persuade three big-box supporters to cross over and sustain his veto.
"We still had over 60 percent of the City Council cast a vote against the mayor's strongly held position," Moore said. "I would hardly call this an overwhelming political victory for Daley."
fspielman@suntimes.com
posted by Carlos T Mock @ 9:35 AM
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