Chicago Mayor Daley Elected to 6th Term

02/28/2007

CHICAGO (AP) - Mayor Richard M. Daley won a sixth term Tuesday, overcoming a City Hall corruption scandal and putting himself on course to eclipse his legendary father's record as the city's longest-serving mayor.

Serving out another full four-year term would keep him on the job for 22 years. His father, Richard J. Daley, died in office in 1976 at age 74, having served 21 years.

After voting near his home on the city's South Side, Daley, 64, shrugged off questions about setting the mayoral record.

"You don't run for office just to be there and say I beat a record," said Daley, first elected in 1989. "You really want to accomplish things."

Daley's lesser-known challengers in the nonpartisan election - Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown and William "Dock" Walls, an aide to the late Mayor Harold Washington - had hoped to deny Daley that milestone.

With 90 percent of precincts reporting, Daley had 72 percent of the vote. He had 290,626 votes, compared with 79,811 for Brown and 34,886 for Walls.

Daley, first elected in 1989, had been expected to collect more than 50 percent of the vote, avoiding an April runoff.

His opponents tried to make an issue of corruption and the federal investigation that started with bribes paid to city officials for trucking work and expanded to City Hall hiring practices.

Daley has not been accused of any wrongdoing, but the investigation has snagged dozens of people, including his former patronage chief and a former city clerk.

The mayor has blamed the wrongdoing on a "few bad apples" and points to his efforts at retooling the city's hiring system and limiting fundraising.

Daley would have been looking at a much tougher re-election bid if two other formidable opponents - Democratic Reps. Luis Gutierrez and Jesse Jackson Jr. - had gotten into the race. But they both decided to keep their jobs in Washington after Democrats won control of Congress in the last election.

Jackson's wife, Sandi Jackson, ran for City Council and received 57 percent of the vote to her opponent's 33 percent, according to unofficial returns with 97 percent of precincts reporting.

All 50 aldermanic seats in the Chicago City Council were up for re-election.

One incumbent, Arenda Troutman, was recently charged in a federal bribery case for allegedly taking a $5,000 payoff to help a bogus developer move forward on a building project. She maintained her innocence, but trailed an opponent 63 percent to 32 percent with 96 percent of precincts reporting.

Meanwhile, two former aldermen convicted of graft fell short in their bid to get their old jobs back: Percy Giles, who was busted in the federal government's Operation Silver Shovel investigation in the 1990s, and Wallace Davis Jr., convicted of extortion and taking bribes in a separate federal probe in the 1980s. Late Tuesday, Giles finished third in a crowded race and Davis was trailing far behind in his ward.