Our top 10 flops, idiots, and losers in Chicago politics
As Thanksgiving and the end of 2025 approaches, the time has arrived to take a look back over the past 11 months.
When people think of Thanksgiving, turkeys, of course, come to mind. Chicago’s political scene has many.
Here are just 10 of Chicago's political figures who we consider "turkeys."
To qualify as a Chicago turkey, one must be a current or former elected official residing in the city, a candidate for public office, or be an elected union president.
Jesus “Chuy” Garcia: This leftist hack, currently a member of Congress representing Illinois’ 4th district, forced his way onto the Turkey Day table at the last minute in true Chicago machine fashion by anointing a chosen successor, his chief-of-staff, Patty Garcia (no relation), to run unopposed in next year's Democratic primary. Despite crowning an heir, ironically Chuy spoke at Chicago’s recent "No Kings" protests.
Chuy, almost literally at the last minute, withdrew his candidacy for a fifth term in Congress, by dubiously citing health concerns. As Chuy bowed from the race, his top staffer, Patty Garcia, filed her papers to replace him.
That’s called a Chicago coincidence.
Garcia’s decades-long but vapid political career, which includes stops in the City Council, the General Assembly, the Cook County Board of Commissioners, and finally Congress, with two unsuccessful runs for mayor in the mix, were heavy in progressive posturing but very light on legislative accomplishments.
In a refreshing development, the local media almost universally condemned Garcia’s power play. Left-wing podcaster, Ben Joravsky, phrased it best on his podcast, calling it “repulsive” and a “total gangster move." Coincidentally, Garcia’s son was a street gang member in his teen years.
Melissa Conyears-Ervin: You are forgiven if you never heard of her. Conyears-Ervin is Chicago’s treasurer; she is forgettable. However, Conyears-Ervin deems herself important enough to warrant a Chicago Police Department detail. Her husband, Jason Ervin, is the alderman of the 28th Ward, who also serves as chairman of the City Council Budget Committee, which likely explains why she receives police protection. Last month, Conyears-Ervin was fined $30,000 to settle a pair of ethics cases, one involving firing whistleblowers, the other involved using government resources for political purposes.
Last week, in typical progressive form, Conyears-Ervin revealed she would disinvest in U.S. Treasury bonds over ICE immigration enforcement in Chicago. A boneheaded move that was criticized by some aldermen, Conyears-Ervin, who oversees nearly $10 billion in city assets, said "bold" action was necessary to oppose Trump.
As with the last congressional election cycle, Conyears-Ervin is a candidate for the now-open 7th district seat. Of the 17 candidates for the 2026 Democratic nomination in the 7th, she will be the only one with a CPD detail.
Chicago’s treasurer position should be an appointed, not an elected, post. In the near-term, police protection for Conyears-Ervin should be eliminated in the 2026 budget.
Delia Ramirez: While gerrymandered legislative districts clearly undermine democracy in Illinois, the 3rd congressional district, which covers parts of Chicago’s Northwest Side and some suburbs, does not reach into Central America. Or does it? Ramirez seems to think so. Chicago’s selfie queen announced at an event in Mexico City, “I’m a proud Guatemalan before I’m an American.”
As with Garcia, her list of accomplishments in Congress are as light as an underfed amoeba, but that is a blessing. When she was a member for the Illinois General Assembly in 2020, Ramirez sneaked a provision into a budget bill that gave Medicaid benefits to illegal aliens — a first in the United States. Originally expected to cost taxpayers $2 million a year, three years later the program was spending $188 million annually.
Robert Martwick: Springfield’s worst legislator — and the competition for that title is steep — Martwick was the lead sponsor of the pension sweetener bill for Tier 2 Chicago police officers and firefighters. Martwick’s bill brings pensions in line with the plans of cops and firefighters hired before 2011. One could argue these younger first responders deserve “sweetened” pensions — perhaps they do. Only Martwick, who goes by the name “Rob,” truly robbed taxpayers with this completely unfunded promise, one that will cost $11.1 billion, which Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed into law. Chicago, although the end result will probably be called something different, is headed into bankruptcy. Those newer hires very likely won’t be receiving those enhanced pensions.
In a laughable explanation of why his sweetener bill was needed, "Rob the Robber," a state senator who represents a district covering much of Chicago’s Northwest Side and some nearby suburbs, said Chicago faces a hard decision on pensions. Well, duh. “What this bill does,” Martwick told Fox Chicago, “is it forces that difficult decision onto the city of Chicago, so it must make those decisions now.”
Using Martwick’s reasoning about his bill — and he’s getting more credit than he deserves by calling his thought process reasoned — by driving these pension funds onto a path to insolvency, municipal officials will finally take notice of this longstanding crisis.
If that makes sense to you, then you must be an elected left-wing official.
Martwick’s politics are far-left, which are at odds with the views of most of his constituents, which include many first responders. And he is a staunch defender of the no-cash bail SAFE-T Act. Sadly, voters must wait three years for the opportunity to toss Martwick out of office.
Toni Preckwinkle: Boss Toni, the president of the Cook County Board and the chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party, deserves a lifetime mis-achievement turkey award for her actions against the public. Fortunately, unlike in the case of Martwick, voters can end her career in elected office next spring in the Democratic primary by voting for Brendan Reilly, the alderman of Chicago's 42nd Ward, as she seeks a fifth term as board president.
Five terms?
No Kings? No Queens?
Preckwinkle was the lack-of brain child behind the political careers of Mayor Brandon Johnson and former Cook County state's attorney Kim Foxx, two other destructive public servants.
Boss Toni’s latest offense against Cook County residents is the months-long delay in mailing county property tax bills. A company with ties to a onetime powerful lobbyist, Jay Doherty, who is now a federal inmate, was supposed to modernize county property tax billing, but clearly that connected firm isn’t up to the task.
The delay forced Preckwinkle to create a no-interest bridge fund to finance local government bodies because Cook County couldn’t get the job done on time.
Those delayed bills are expected to be mailed this week.
Stacy Davis Gates: The Chicago Teachers Union president was reelected to another term this year and she was also elected president of the CTU’s parent organization, the Illinois Federation of Teachers. This gives the "Notorious SDG" control of two massive union political war chests.
Preckwinkle plucked Johnson from obscurity, Gates arguably got him elected mayor.
SDG is easily the most ruinous union boss in Chicago history.
CTU’s own rules require annual audits. However, the CORE-led CTU has not released one in five years. What are they hiding? Fortunately, some CTU members have sued to find out.
Is the IFT the next union to go dark with audits?
Walter Burnett Jr: The dean of the Chicago City Council retired from his post as 27th Ward alderman this summer, partly, he says, because he maxed out his generous Council pension benefits. But mostly he quit so he could have his son, Walter “Red” Burnett, replace him. What was that again about “No Kings?” Johnson duly nominated Red to succeed dad, and the City Council, sadly, unanimously approved the nomination.
And another motivation for the elder Burnett to quit was for him to be named president of the Chicago Housing Authority — presumably there could be another pension waiting for him there. But earlier this month, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Burnett is unlikely to land the job. HUD has also objected to his appointment, citing possible conflict of interest concerns.
In September the Chicago Sun-Times revealed Burnett and his wife, Darlena Williams-Burnett, a onetime congressional candidate, have been recipients of $210,000 from the CHA as housing voucher landlords since 2007.
J.B. Pritzker: As with Preckwinkle and our next turkey, Illinois’ governor is also worthy of a lifetime mis-achievement award. The Gold Coast billionaire seemingly spends more time on social media and friendly media outlets than governing.
Yet that may be a good thing, because Pritzker signed Martwick’s catastrophic police and firefighter pension bill into law. We need less governing from the governor. Pritzker blamed Johnson for his boneheaded move, claiming the mayor never objected to the bill. That’s not entirely true, as Fox Chicago’s Paris Schutz reported. But the Johnson administration’s opposition to Martwick's folly was feeble.
Pritzker’s office cited, correctly, that the pension sweetener passed the General Assembly with a veto-proof majority. But a real leader — unlike Pritzker — would have vetoed the Martwick bill and placed the burden on the state legislature to override it. And then dared them to do so.
The governor is running for a third term. Wise voters, who are currently in short supply in Illinois, should send Pritzker packing.
Pritzker’s support among voters is illusory. He reminds us of the old saying about the Platte River: The governor’s political base is a mile wide but only an inch deep. The Platte River sometimes runs dry. Pritzker’s supply of good ideas usually runs dry too.
The governor can be defeated.
Brandon Johnson: Earlier this year, a poll from M3 Strategies showed that Johnson’s approval rating was a woeful 6.6 percent. Even with the backing of SDG and Preckwinkle, it was still a near miracle that he was elected mayor of America’s third largest city. But as Paul McCartney sang on an early solo album, “You took your lucky break and broke it in two.”
Johnson’s failures are manifold. His most recent is his insistence Chicago, despite its anemic business climate, needs an employee head tax. Two mayors ago, Rahm Emanuel abolished the same tax that was despised by the job creators.
And every time Johnson paints himself into a corner, which is often, he falls back on false claims of racism and the historical memory of slavery.
Kat Abughazaleh: Our Turkey of the Year is Texas-born carpetbagger, Chicago’s performative idiot, its "Wonder Woman of the Woke," and the city’s agitprop airhead. Abughazaleh, the former Media Matters television watcher, was indicted last month by a federal grand jury for allegedly attempting to “prevent by force, intimidation, and threat” federal agents from performing their official duties during a protest outside the ICE detention center in suburban Broadview.
Abughazaleh is one of over a dozen Democratic candidates running for the open 9th congressional district seat, even though she lives in the 7th district. Until her indictment, much of her campaign time was spent protesting. If elected, presumably she would sort-of earn her paycheck as a public official as a full-time protester, just as some far-left members of Chicago’s City Council currently do.
Looking back to the 1970s, as the Watergate Scandal was laid bare, observers at the time wondered if it was hubris or stupidity — or a combination of the two — that led President Richard M. Nixon to record himself committing crimes, and then not destroying the evidence of his lawbreaking as soon as the existence of the Watergate tapes became public.
Abughazaleh goes far beyond Tricky Dicky. Not only did she allow herself to be recorded allegedly committing crimes at the Broadview protest, but she also uploaded video of that incident onto her social media feeds for millions to see.
Tricky Dicky, meet Clueless Kat.
What a turkey.
Returning to Chuy Garcia, I’d like to go back to Joravsky’s podcast. “Bolshevik Ben” said of Garcia, “And this is a guy who supposedly was a reformer.” No, Chuy, on one of his few good days, is at best a careerist, serving only himself and his cronies.
Joravsky is a slow learner.
Sadly, so are most Illinois voters, because the other nine turkeys on this list present themselves as reformers.
The time to back up the truck and clean house in Chicago and the rest of the state has long passed.
Start with the so-called reformers.
