We get a bit of a history lesson Jim Edgar was Governor of Illinois from 1991 to 1999 and he had to work with Mayor Richard M. Daley during that time who was Chicago Mayor from 1989 to 2011. In Edgar's own words as far as his relationship with Daley.
Daley and Edgar had other flash points as well. Daley wanted the state to pay for a Soldier Field rehab for the Bears but Edgar refused, preferring a multi-purpose facility at McCormick Place. Daley wanted to close Meigs Field (which he eventually did after Edgar left office) but Edgar fought to keep it open. After the infamous Loop flood, Daley wanted Edgar to promise to pay half the repair costs. Not knowing what the costs were and unwilling to sign a blank check with the state practically broke, Edgar refused. And Daley wanted Edgar to sign off on a bill rushed through the statehouse limiting the power of rebellious City Treasurer Miriam Santos. Edgar again declined.
“Daley told me, I really need you to sign this bill,” Edgar said. “I said, Mayor, I got all the Hispanic leaders leaning on me. They feel like this bill is an attack against them. I got half the Hispanic votes in a close election. I felt pretty close to the Hispanic community. I vetoed the bill. He thought it was a personal slap. From then on, things were pretty tense.”
Then we have Governor Pat Quinn who served from 2009 to 2015 and his relationship with Mayor Rahm Emanuel who served from 2011 to 2019. At least in the above case we're talking about a Chicago Mayor and Illinois Governor from different parties Edgar is a Republican and Daley is a Democrat. Gov. Quinn and Mayor Emanuel are both Democrats and they didn't get along great either
Quinn had known Emanuel since 1980 but the initial meeting between Quinn as governor and Emanuel as mayor got off to a rocky start.
“I invited him to the governor’s office. He was name dropping and all that. Talking about experiences in Washington,” said Quinn. “But then he started swearing at my budget director, Jerry Stermer, with other top staff in the room. I thought that was way out of line. I told him to stop it. He was highly disrespectful. He certainly never suffered from modesty.”
In Springfield, Emanuel chose to work around Quinn rather than work with him. Often, Emanuel would run his legislative agenda through Senate president John Cullerton, a close friend.
In 2014, said Quinn, “Cullerton was having breakfast at the Governor’s Mansion in Springfield and said, 'I’m going to run a bill this week raising property taxes for Chicago. The state legislature will vote for it. It will be veto proof whether you like it or not. I’ve run it by Madigan, too. It’s going to be the law.'”
Quinn hardly wanted to raise Chicago property taxes in 2014 when he was running for re-election. “That was on a Monday. By the end of the week, the whole plan had fallen apart. That was typical of Rahm and Cullerton to try to bypass my administration. But it generally wasn’t a successful proposal. It’s a big state. I had more friends in the legislature than he did, especially as time went on,” said Quinn.
As I saw from the press reports of that period of time I got the impression they didn't get along very well. I got the idea that Mayor Daley didn't get along very well with another Democrat Governor Rod Blagojevich. If the Gov of Illinois and Mayor of Chicago are of the same party and without a "political boss" you're going to have a situation where both of those two important leaders of this state will bump heads.
Yeah the Mayor of Chicago represents the city and is himself (or in the current case herself) a very important and visible public figure not just in the state, nationally also as we are the third largest city in America. However in this state the Mayor of Chicago isn't only chief executive of a local gov't unit. In that I'm counting municipalities (cities or villages), counties, or even townships for example. In contrast there is only one Governor of this state.
As I see in the comments to the article as it was shared on CapFax this morning everyone seem to point to the Governor for anything as a fulcrum of a bigger picture or they own. The Mayor of Chicago or any city mayor for that matter have to look out for their municipality. The Governor has to look out for the whole state.
I would urge you to read this piece written by a former Chicago political reporter Derrick Blakley who goes into the relationship between Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Mayor Lori Lightfoot. I won't say their relationship is rocky but it's not solid either. They've also reportedly not seeing eye-to-eye on everything. I'll let you read Blakley's article to find out what he says about that.
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