Lori Lightfoot, who has for three years headed up the Chicago Police Board, resigned from the Board on May 7 in what many insiders believe is a preliminary step towards a mayoral run. If she does run for mayor, she would be the first openly lesbian, African-American woman to do so in Chicago.
Lightfoot's resignation from the nine-person body was reported May 7 in Chicago Sun-Times. She has reportedly also hired staffers to assist her in a run.
Lightfoot has butted heads with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel on several occasions since he first appointed her to her post in 2015. In April, Chicago Tribune reported that, when asked about a run, Lightfoot said that "this is a decision that has to be made by me and my family, because we're going to be putting ourselves out there and asking citizens of Chicago to take us seriously."
Lightfoot is a former federal prosecutor who specialized in white-collar and violent crimes. At an October 2017 gathering for the Victory Fund, Lightfoot spoke about the main principle inspiring her work: "If people don't feel safeif they don't feel like they're safe in their homes, if they don't feel like they're safe in the way they can walk down the street and claim the geography under their feetnothing else matters."
If she runs for the mayoral post, Lightfoot would be up against presumably Emanuel and a number of other challengers. Were she to win, she would be the first openly lesbian mayor of Chicago. E. Denise Simmons, elected as mayor of Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2008, was the first openly lesbian Black mayor in America.
Chicago Sun-Times' article is at bit.ly/2rs19UW . Chicago Tribune's article is at trib.in/2rsBATs .