Chicago aldermen pass 2026 spending plan including debt sale over Mayor Brandon Johnson's opposition

Alice Yin and Jake Sheridan, Chicago Tribune on Dec 19, 2025

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CHICAGO — The budget counterproposal crafted by opponents of Mayor Brandon Johnson won a critical first vote before the full City Council on Friday, setting the mayor up to soon concede their remarkable weekslong fight — or issue Chicago’s first mayoral veto of a budget in decades.

Aldermen voted 29-19 to approve the revenue piece of an alternative 2026 spending plan that does not include Johnson’s corporate head tax. That’s shy of the 34-vote threshold needed to override a potential mayoral veto, however, leaving the door open for the City Hall standoff to escalate further still.

And with under two weeks until an end-of-year deadline to approve a budget, all factions agree Chicago is inching too close for comfort to a government shutdown.

When the moment came, aldermen debated for mere moments before quickly passing the plan.

“The city of Chicago’s financial position is at a critical juncture, and I think we have emerged today with the budget plan that protects programs which are vital to those,” said Ald. Pat Dowell, Johnson’s handpicked budget chair who played a critical role in the effort that out-muscled him.

The $16.6 billion aldermanic package contains a debt sale measure that Johnson called Thursday “morally bankrupt” and a “red line.” His budget team warned such a novel proposal should not be counted on to raise any money at all, on top of attacking other components of the alternative budget that they argue is unbalanced and would require midyear amendments next year.

Whether the plan requires a veto, in Johnson’s eyes, is the question of the hour.

“I don’t want people to take this as some sort of tool that is being taken lightly,” he told reporters on Thursday. “It needs to be used when necessary, and I will find that tool necessary if there is something that is presented in front of me that doesn’t hold to our values as a city.”

Johnson advisers said Friday the mayor had still not made up his mind on a veto. He will not reveal his decision until after the full budget package faces a vote likely to occur on Saturday.

The mayor introduced a revised budget plan of his own Friday that would replace the debt sale plan with his proposal to reinstate a corporate head tax. In the plan, the city would make a full advanced pension payment Johnson had earlier proposed halving, not legalize video gambling terminals and count on slot machines being placed at a Midway Airport lounge.

The historic rebuke of the freshman mayor will likely draw further condemnation from his leftist allies who have been admonishing aldermen for what they say is siding with rich corporations and billionaires over working-class Chicagoans. But even the progressives were not united with Johnson, who first introduced his own $16.6 billion package in October but failed to make the case that his pitch to reinstate the city’s head tax, among other new revenue measures, was Chicago’s best hope to stand up to President Donald Trump.

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