Joe Ferguson: Chicago’s broken budget process is rigged for rubber-stamping – Civic Federation

"If the Council chooses to acquiesce to the Mayor, as is the long prevailing customary practice, the existing system works just fine. But as soon as the Council breaks with the administration, the system falls apart —and that’s exactly what we saw last fall. The alders who defied the Mayor and passed their own alternative budget were structurally handcuffed from achieving more."