Zalewski. Quinn. Sposato. Mell. Burke. New Hispanic leaders?
BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter fspielman@suntimes.com January 26, 2012 3:22PM
Ald. Richard Mell (33rd) (right) and three other aldermen want to silence City Council audiences. He's shown here with Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd). File Photo. | Brian Jackson~Sun-Times
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Updated: February 28, 2012 8:17AM
The City Council’s Hispanic Caucus could nearly double in size — adding seven new members with names like Burke, Quinn, Mell, Zalewski, and Sposato — under a surprise invitation to emerge from a contentious remap process.
Ald. Danny Solis (25th), chairman of the Hispanic Caucus, said it’s high time Chicago’s eight Hispanic aldermen get their heads out of the sand and open their ranks to six white and one African-American aldermen who represent majority Hispanic wards.
“I don’t think we were very smart. We had blinders on,” Solis said, acknowledging that the invitation should have been extended a long time ago.
Last week, without a vote to spare, the City Council approved a new Chicago ward map that includes 13 Hispanic wards and two Hispanic “influence” wards” to reward Hispanics for their 25,218-person population gain in the 2010 U.S. Census.
To build on that victory, the Hispanic Caucus has opened its ranks to Aldermen John Pope (10th); Marty Quinn (13th); Toni Foulkes (15th); Edward M. Burke (14th); Michael Zalewski (23rd); Richard Mell (33rd), and Nick Sposato (36th).
Not exactly the kinds of names you would expect to find in a Hispanic Caucus. But Solis said those closed-door days are over.
“We’re in a new era,” he said. “Maybe ethnicity and race doesn’t matter as much. . . . We’ll have a fairer representation of the Hispanic voice in the city. We also bring in some very powerful aldermen. . . . That would make us stronger.”
Sposato, whose new ward would be 61.2 percent Hispanic, jumped at the chance to join the Hispanic Caucus to build credibility with his new Hispanic voters.
In fact, Sposato claimed credit for forcing the issue. He said he has been asking to join since he took office in mid-May, only to be blown off by Hispanic aldermen.
The cold shoulder was reminiscent of what happened 20 years ago, when then-Ald. Tom Murphy (18th) asked to join the Black Caucus, only to be turned away.
“They kept telling me, ‘You have to be Hispanic to join,’ or, ‘You have to speak Spanish.’ When I said I’d learn Spanish, they said, ‘You have to learn fluent Spanish,’ ” Sposato said. “Letting someone who represents Hispanics become part of the Hispanic Caucus will help me better understand Hispanics and what their needs are. That’s all I want to do. I’m not doing it to help me get elected. I’m just doing it to help the people I represent.”
Zalewski’s ward would go from 54 percent Hispanic to more than 60 percent, under the 11th-hour deal that sealed the remap compromise. Still bitter, Zalewski said he is “not sure what it would accomplish” to join the Hispanic Caucus.
In a text message to the Chicago Sun-Times, Zalewski noted that the new ward map does not take effect until the 2015 election.
“Why am I being asked now? I never got one call during the remap process trying to involve me with the Hispanic Caucus thought process,” he wrote.
Mell declined to comment. Burke, Pope, Quinn and Foulkes could not be reached.
To some, the invitation to non-Hispanics might be tantamount to diluting Hispanic power and marrying out of your race.
But Solis doesn’t view it that way.
“You know how many nieces and nephews I have that are like, what do you call it — cross breeds? I have Irish, Australian. The whole country is that way. There’s not any pure ethnic group,” Solis said.
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