Chicago has run City Hall for nearly two centuries without a document most major American cities take for granted: a city charter. That could change under a bill now before Illinois lawmakers that would let Chicago voters elect a commission to write one and then vote on whether to adopt it.
State Rep. Kam Buckner's Municipal Home Rule Charter Act, known as HB 3656, would allow Illinois cities with more than 500,000 residents to adopt their own constitution, according to FOX 32 Chicago. The bill creates a pathway for voters to elect 10 members to a commission tasked with drafting a city charter, the station reports. Any charter the commission produces would then go back to voters for final approval.
A legislative hearing was held Tuesday in Chicago to discuss whether the city should have a charter at all, per the same report. Buckner, an Illinois state representative, told FOX 32 Chicago that the measure gives Chicagoans an opportunity to have a voice in the process, and he was careful to frame it as institutional rather than personal: Buckner said the proposal is not about any particular mayor or City Council body.
What a Charter Could Change
According to the station's report, a Chicago charter could address mayoral and City Council powers, term limits, ward maps, access to financial records, and the balance of executive power over the City Council. Those are the kinds of structural questions that, in Chicago's case, currently get settled through a patchwork rather than a single governing document.
That patchwork is the whole reason the idea has drawn attention from good-government researchers. The Civic Federation describes Chicago's governing framework as originating “in a hodgepodge of sources” in the absence of a city charter, relying instead on Illinois home-rule authority, state statutes, and the Chicago Municipal Code. The city's existing structure includes a mayor, clerk, and treasurer as citywide elected officers, plus a 50-member City Council, the Civic Federation notes.
Chicago's Outlier Status
Chicago is a home rule unit of government under the Illinois Constitution, according to the Office of the Chicago City Clerk, whose records trace the city's 50 wards back to the six wards established under Chicago's first charter in 1837. Yet charter-based municipal governance itself is permitted in 44 states and exists in 5,305 cities nationwide, per the Civic Federation — and Illinois is not currently among those 44 states. New York City and Los Angeles, by contrast, have operated under charters since 1898 and 1925, respectively, the research group notes, and the Civic Federation separately describes Chicago as the only major U.S. city operating without one.
A charter, if Chicago eventually adopted one, could recalibrate those structural questions in ways the current patchwork doesn't easily allow — including redefining which officials are elected versus appointed, according to the Civic Federation's analysis.
What Happens Next
Buckner expects the bill to be taken up by the General Assembly in January, FOX 32 Chicago reports, though that timeline remains his own expectation rather than a confirmed legislative calendar. How the commission itself would actually be formed is murkier: while the station describes voters electing 10 commission members, a separate Illinois General Assembly bill-status summary describes a qualifying municipality creating a charter commission, a discrepancy the available record does not resolve. The General Assembly's own summary of HB 3656 states that a home-rule municipality with a population over 500,000 may adopt a charter to govern municipal affairs, with that charter serving as the municipality's organic law and required to remain consistent with the Illinois Constitution.
Any such change would also have to clear a constitutional hurdle beyond the bill itself. The Civic Federation points to Article VII, Section 6(f) of the Illinois Constitution, which requires voter referendum approval for any change in the form of a home-rule unit's government — meaning even if HB 3656 becomes law, Chicagoans would still need to sign off at the ballot box before any new charter took effect.
