'07 ELECTION Gutierrez decides to back Daley - Congressman turns around on mayor he once criticized

'07 ELECTION Gutierrez decides to back Daley - Congressman turns around on mayor he once criticized
By Gary Washburn
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
Published February 13, 2007



U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), who strongly criticized Mayor Richard Daley when Gutierrez was considering a run for mayor, on Monday gave the incumbent a glowing endorsement.

Gutierrez said he and Daley "don't see eye to eye on every issue," but he praised the mayor for seeking to improve the city's public schools and spread the benefits of a possible 2016 Olympics into Chicago's neighborhoods. He also cited Daley's "unwavering" support of immigration rights.

On the issue of City Hall corruption, another subject of Gutierrez's earlier criticism, the congressman asserted Monday that "the mayor has taken aggressive steps to deal with that."

Gutierrez said Daley called to ask for his support and that he decided to endorse after the two had a Saturday morning breakfast about a month ago to discuss issues.

The subjects included low high school graduation rates among Hispanic students, something that Gutierrez said Daley wants to remedy.

Daley said Monday that "we both are concerned about the low number of Hispanic students, especially young men, who are not going on to higher education. We have to do a better job for them and our city."

Daley said he has appointed an advisory committee that will work with public school officials to address the problem.

Overall, the mayor has accomplished much, Gutierrez said.

"If you leave Chicago and go to London or Berlin or Paris and you say you were from Chicago, people don't think about Capone," he said. "You know what they think about? What a clean, vibrant, energetic city Chicago is."

Last May, however, Gutierrez took the mayor to task, saying Daley has been "distracted" from the task of improving the school system by "less important priorities" such as the development of Millennium Park and the 2016 Olympics. He also took an apparent jab at Daley's longevity.

"Government suffers from having the same leadership too long," the congressman said last May. "That same leadership talks to the same people, hears the same ideas, trusts the same advisers. ... It is time to get a bigger table with new seats that lead to new ideas."

Dorothy Brown, who along with William "Dock" Walls is challenging Daley in the Feb. 27 election, said she was "very disappointed in [Gutierrez] and really baffled by his decision."

"Nothing has changed" since his critical assessment of Daley when Gutierrez was considering a run last year, Brown said. "There has not been any improvement in the education system, which was his No. 1 concern."

After the endorsement announcement at Daley's downtown campaign headquarters, Gutierrez said he decided against a mayoral run of his own after the Democrats won control of the House in November. But he acknowledged that polls showed the incumbent would have defeated him, with a second poll showing higher support for the mayor than an earlier one.

The only chance of forcing Daley into a run-off would have been if both he and U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) waged vigorous campaigns that resulted in Daley receiving less than 50 percent of the vote, Gutierrez said.

But Jackson also decided not to run. He cited the November elections, which he said promised him more influence over important legislative matters. But veterans of Chicago politics believe that Jackson, too, saw poll results giving Daley a convincing win.

Gutierrez in the past was a strong opponent of the Hispanic Democratic Organization, a pro-Daley group whose members have benefited from city jobs and promotions for their political work, according to a federal probe of fraudulent City Hall personnel practices.

Gutierrez would not criticize Daley for his support of the organization but, "given its history, it should never have existed," he said. "I think they wanted to be godlike and omnipotent. Anybody who tries to acquire that much power and that much influence is going to go awry."

But in the wake of the investigation, "I don't know that it exists anymore," Gutierrez said.

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gwashburn@tribune.com