Q Toon: Lightfoot Tango

Last week, Chicago elected former prosecutor Lori Lightfoot as their next mayor by a landslide: she won nearly 74% of the votes and carried all 50 wards over Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle.

Chicago elected a woman mayor once before, and a black once before; but this is the first time Chicago has elected someone who is both (as is Ms. Preckwinkle for that matter), and a lesbian to boot. Both Jane Byrne and Harold Washington won election by challenging the Chicago Machine's preferred candidates, and neither had an easy time dealing with Chicago City Council. We can expect that Ms. Lightfoot will have her work cut out for her as well.

I would have liked to have come up with a cartoon that also acknowledged that Madison, Wisconsin also elected a lesbian mayor last week. Satya Rhodes-Conway ousted the straight male incumbent who was once dubbed "Mayor for Life," 62% to 38%. Sadly, nobody has written a popular musical about Madison yet (either the town nor Jemmy, although I can't be sure that there isn't one about Dolly). Besides, Madison has been represented in Congress by a lesbian and a gay man for 20 years, so the LGBTQ thing is pretty old hat around our capital city.

Lightfoot and  Rhodes-Conway join Pete Buttigieg, Phoenix's Kate Gallego, Salt Lake City's Jackie Biskupski, Seattle's Jennie Ann Durkin, and at least ten others as out LGBTQ mayors in the United States (Wikipedia's list here includes several former mayors). And there is a good chance that their number will grow later this year.

I'll try to remember that whenever the news out of D.C. makes me fear for the future of the country.