ABSTRACT
The split within the African-American community and splits within the reform coalition that had elected Harold Washington led to the election of Richard M. Daley as mayor in 1989. Mayor Daley began his term in 1989 by cutting the budgets of the city council committees, adopting limited campaign finance reform, agreeing to continue the patronage hiring and firing limitations of the Shakman Decree, and setting up the Office of Municipal Investigation. After the first two meetings of the new Daley council, Alderman Burke claimed that "the city council is not a rubber stamp but a certain amount of cohesion in the council is important.". In the first election after the 1992 ward remap, the aldermen who were elected were overwhelming pro-Daley. The 1999 elections brought another triumph for Mayor Daley. Richard M. Daley was elected mayor after Council Wars, a time of pronounced racial and political polarization in the city and the city council.
