![\"Scott](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/CTC-L-STANTISCARTOON-071325-01.jpg\")
Scott Stantis editorial cartoon on Ald. Walter Burnett’s retirement for Sunday, July 13, 2025<\/p>\nFor the second time in his long political career, Ald. Walter Burnett Jr. is maneuvering to find employment for one of his grown children in the \u201cfamily business.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burnett has been in the news lately as Mayor Brandon Johnson\u2019s preferred choice to lead the Chicago Housing Authority. The 27th Ward alderman, 61, who serves as Johnson\u2019s vice mayor and Zoning Committee chairman, has said he will resign his aldermanic seat at the end of this month whether he gets the CHA job or not.<\/p>\n
And, in true Chicago political tradition, he has someone in mind to succeed him as alderman following his 30 years in that post: That person, naturally, just happens to be a blood relative. Burnett wants his 29-year-old son, Walter Burnett III, appointed, and Johnson has signaled he plans to follow Burnett\u2019s wishes.<\/p>\n
If all goes as expected, Walter Burnett III will be the second of Burnett\u2019s grown children to be appointed to elected office without first winning an election. In 2019, Burnett worked to get his stepson, Jawaharial \u201cOmar\u201d Williams, appointed as Illinois House representative for the West Side\u2019s 10th District, succeeding Melissa Conyears-Ervin when she won election as Chicago treasurer.<\/p>\n
Back then, in justifying his push for his stepson, Burnett let forth one of the Freudian slips for the ages when it comes to Chicago politics: \u201cI don\u2019t know of any other family business \u2014 I shouldn\u2019t say family business \u2014 but if your kids work hard \u2026 that\u2019s what I work for, to promote my kids, help my kids if they do well.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI shouldn\u2019t say family business.\u201d<\/p>\n
No, Ald. Burnett, you shouldn\u2019t. And you knew at the time that wasn\u2019t the right thing to say, even though it revealed precisely how you and so many others (as you repeatedly emphasize) who\u2019ve won elected office in this city view what\u2019s supposed to be a public trust \u2014 as an enterprise transferable by birth or family relation. Like some kind of medieval baron.<\/p>\n
The effectiveness of appointing people to open seats (in this case, left open deliberately by Burnett to pass onto his son) is undeniable. Williams, Burnett\u2019s stepson, faced opposition in the first Democratic primary following his 2019 appointment. But he ran unopposed in both primaries after that. The seat presumably is his as long as he wants it.<\/p>\n
Assuming he\u2019s appointed 27th Ward alderman, Walter Burnett III will be in an even better position than his stepbrother. He\u2019ll have the same name as the guy who preceded him for three decades.<\/p>\n
By all means, we\u2019d have no problem with Burnett\u2019s son running on his own for the seat, and his name likely would give him a distinct advantage in that scenario. But handing the post to him in this fashion would confer an almost insurmountable edge. That\u2019s by design.<\/p>\n
We should say here that we believe Walter Burnett Jr. has served the city well over his three decades. He\u2019s a voice of reason on the City Council and someone who has earned respect from people on both the left and right. We don\u2019t agree with him on everything, of course, but we consider him an asset to the council.<\/p>\n
We strongly disagree with his views on the divine right of family members to enter the \u201cfamily business,\u201d however. Burnett naturally references families with names like Daley to justify his unapologetic nepotism. Fair enough. There are plenty of other families that have done the same \u2014 the name Jackson comes to mind. So does the name Stroger.<\/p>\n
Burnett points, too, to the same dynamic in private enterprise. Certainly in family-owned businesses, preference given to the next generation for leadership is a feature. But here\u2019s the difference: Those businesses are owned by the families. As in any other line of work, the owners are the ultimate decision-makers.<\/p>\n
Scott Stantis editorial cartoon on Ald. Walter Burnett’s retirement for Sunday, July 13, 2025<\/p>\n
In politics, officeholders are supposed to be strictly occupants of a seat. They aren\u2019t owners of their offices, instead owing their professional allegiances to taxpayers and constituents, even over and above their families. At least that\u2019s how it\u2019s supposed to work.<\/p>\n
That brings us to Burnett\u2019s namesake son. What are his qualifications? His father points to experience with Goldman Sachs. According to the LinkedIn profile for Walter Burnett III, he worked at Goldman for four years in New York but left the company nearly three years ago. There is no professional experience listed on his profile since then. Ald. Burnett put us in touch with his son, who tells us he\u2019s been consulting for developers in the hospitality and retail worlds, as well as rap artists, and has done some consulting work for nonprofits.<\/p>\n
Walter Burnett III says he wants to give back to the community and sees a role for younger people like himself to get involved in politics. And, confirming our misgivings about this whole affair, he said of politics, \u201cThat\u2019s my family\u2019s business.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s very attentive, he\u2019s very well-read,\u201d the elder Burnett told Tribune reporters,<\/a> referring to his son. \u201cIt\u2019s not about money for him, because he gave up a lot of money to come back home and be connected to his neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n We understand both Burnetts\u2019 arguments, but these are not compelling qualifications to be appointed to the City Council. Let\u2019s be honest: The younger Burnett\u2019s qualifications to be alderman are his first and last names.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not sufficient for this plum. The old school of Chicago politics has gotten a well-deserved drubbing of late, with powerhouses like former Ald. Ed Burke and House Speaker Michael Madigan, once viewed as untouchable, convicted of felonies in the conduct of their offices.<\/p>\n Read the room, Ald. Burnett and Mayor Johnson. It\u2019s no longer appropriate \u2014 if it ever was \u2014 for influential local pols to treat their offices like personal heirlooms to bestow.<\/p>\n Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here<\/a> or email letters@chicagotribune.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the second time in his long political career, Ald. Walter Burnett Jr. is maneuvering to find employment…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":62334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,6083,5386,1818,1269],"class_list":{"0":"post-62333","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-editorials","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-illinois","12":"tag-opinion"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114846180524630517","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}