Richard M. Daley

Richard Michael Daley (born April 24, 1942) is an American politician who served as the 54th mayor of Chicago, Illinois, from 1989 to 2011. Daley was elected mayor in 1989 and was reelected five times until declining to run for a seventh term. At 22 years, his was the longest tenure in Chicago mayoral history, surpassing the 21-year mayoralty of his father, Richard J. Daley.

As Mayor, Daley took over the Chicago Public Schools, developed tourism, oversaw the construction of Millennium Park, increased environmental efforts and the rapid development of the city's central business district downtown and adjacent near North, South and West sides. He also approved expansion of city workers' benefits to their partners regardless of gender, and advocated for gun control.

Daley received criticism when family, personal friends, and political allies disproportionately benefited from city contracting. He took office in a city with regular annual budget surpluses and left the city with massive structural deficits. His budgets ran up the largest deficits in Chicago history. A national leader in privatization, he temporarily reduced budgetary shortfalls by leasing and selling public assets to private corporations, but this practice removed future sources of revenue, contributing to the city's near insolvency at the end of his tenure. A “tough-on-crime” politician, Daley oversaw the creation of one of the largest police surveillance systems in the nation, but police brutality was also a recurring issue during his mayorship.