Liam Stanton enters Chicago's 2027 mayoral race

Small business owner Liam Stanton has entered Chicago's 2027 mayoral race as a political newcomer.

Stanton, who was born and raised in Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood, said he has spent his career "building and fixing organizations, bringing people together to get things done." 

Stanton said while being mayor of the third largest city in America is a huge job, he believes the city is also ready for something new.

'I think we've tried a lot of these kind of career politicians and people that are sort of beholden to special interests," he said. "I think we're ready for something new, and what I bring is I'm rooted in our neighborhoods."

Stanton noted that his father was a Chicago police officer and also a deacon in his church — a "real community leader."

"So I bring a little bit of that, that value. But I also bring experience from outside of politics that I think is really relevant now — a sense of urgency, creativity, the ability to sort of get people to do things and get things done," he said. "So I think right now, the city needs something new and fresh, and that's what I offer."

Among Stanton's priorities is shrinking city government to keep taxes low, but also set aside money for new programs. Stanton argued that money is now being misspent.

"So I think when we look at costs we want to cut, we spend millions of dollars on external consultants. We spend millions of dollars on office space we don't use. We spend millions of dollars not buying things collectively — we buy them in pockets — and all those things add up," Stanton said. "So if we do those things and reform that, we're going to save millions of dollars to not only keep taxes low, but fund new child care."

As a dad of two, among Stanton's focuses are universal childcare and affordable family-sized housing. He said he would love to pivot to universal childcare to keep families from being priced out of the city due to childcare costs.

Stanton also endorsed shrinking the city payrolls and specifically shrinking the size of the City Council.

"You know, if you look at the size of City Council, we've had 50 City Council members for about 100 years, and during that time, we had about 1 million more citizens," he said. "Do we need that many City Council members? That's an area I think we'd look at. We have a redistricting coming up in 2030. I think that should absolutely be part of the conversation."

Shrinking the City Council is a proposal that comes up from time to time. Former U.S. Commerce Secretary Bill Daley proposed the idea when he ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2019, prompting a Chicago Tribune endorsement that spoke approvingly of "downsizing the City Council into a more crisp legislative body."

Stanton has also called for imposing term limits on Chicago elected officials and moving municipal elections to November to increase voter turnout. Term limits, experts noted, are certain to get pushback from City Council members, given that many make being an alderperson into a career lasting decades.

But Stanton said it is time to "start challenging some of these ways of working." Specifically with the time of the election, he called holding municipal elections in wintry, miserable February "completely ridiculous."

"Let's have more people taking part in democracy," he said. "Move this to November, I think that is an absolute no-brainer."

Among other proposals Stanton has included on his platform are placing 600 police officers back on the street by civilianizing desk jobs, bringing back ShotSpotter gun detection technology, installing fare evasion gates and improving public safety on the Chicago Transit Authority system, reimagining the Loop by turning alleys and other liminal spaces into vibrant destinations, and declaring a financial state of emergency rather than borrowing money to pay bills.