Lori Lightfoot, Chicago’s Democratic Mayor-Elect, has shattered glass ceilings of all kinds in 2019’s election. She’s the first black woman and openly gay person to become Mayor in America’s third largest city.
An endorsement from the Chicago Sun-Times before the election helped push her to victory, “She has the vision, values, qualifications, and policies to be an effective leader for the whole city, from the hedge fund managers to the fast-food workers,” the newspaper’s editorial board wrote.
“She is calm, focused, principled and independent.”
Chicago Sun-Times
In a New York Times article about Lightfoot, Dan Rose, a senior adviser to the Lightfoot campaign, said she’d benefitted from recent corruption scandals in Chicago. Rose said, “It was the perfect situation for some kind of outsider who would capture that mantle and consolidate the reform-minded vote. People got fed up.”
Mayor-Elect Lightfoot speaks on her priorities for Chicago
Career Highlights
Lightfoot, who campaigned as a political outsider in Chicago, has had plenty of experience working within the city
- 2015-2018: President of the Chicago Police Board
- 2016: Co-Chair of the Police Accountability Task Force
- 2005-2018: Senior Equity Partner in the Litigation and Conflict Resolution Group at Mayer Brown LLP
- 2005: First Deputy of the Chicago Department of Procurement Services
- 2004-2005: Chief of Staff and General Counsel of the Chicago Office of Emergency Management and Communications
- 2002-2004: Chief Administrator of the Office of Professional Standards, Chicago Police Department
- 1996-2002: Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois
Education
- B.A., University of Michigan
- University of Chicago Law School
Considering the history of violence, scandal
Source: Facebook