If Mr. Dooley came back to Chicago — the fictional Irish bartender who used to offer his blarney in Finley Peter Dunne’s Chicago Evening Post column — he might have this to say about the City Council’s resolution in favor of a ceasefire in Gaza: “Th’ City Cooncil is meddlin’ in foreign policy agin’. These little aldermin and alderwimmin, who ought to be spindin’ their time fillin’ potholes and takin’ payoffs for liquor licenses, have decided they know more aboot whut the U.S. of A. should do aboot the Middle East thin the prisident hisself. Now I thinks these aldermin and alderwimmin needs to larn their place. Do ye think the prisident would ever tell Chicago how to do its bizness, by givin’ his opinion on how much we should tax millon doll’r mansion sales?”

Yes, once again, our alderpeople, who have been called the “lowest form of political life” (per Mike Royko), and whose No. 1 job is making sure the trash gets collected in their wards, are venturing into foreign policy. Last month, the Council passed a resolution calling on Congress and the president to “facilitate a lasting peace in Gaza starting with a permanent ceasefire.” The resolution was modeled on a United Nations resolution opposed by the United States. In the City Council, it was supported by the left/socialist contingent that has come to define Chicago politics in the Age of Johnson. The vote was 23-23, with Mayor Johnson himself casting the tie breaking vote in favor. 

“I condemn the actions of Hamas,” the mayor said. “But at this point now, I believe we’re at 25,000 Palestinians that have been killed during this war, and the killing has to stop. So, yes, we need a ceasefire.”

The resolution was condemned by pro-Israel groups. Israel doesn’t want a cease fire because it wants to exterminate Hamas, which it says broke an existing cease fire in October. Israel has more guns than Hamas, so why should they quit shooting before they win? 

“While this resolution will have no impact in the Middle East, it will create more division among communities in Chicago and inspire more antisemitism, as we saw on the floor and in the galleries of City Hall today,” the Israeli Consulate in Chicago said.

The Chicago City Council has a long history of offering its opinion on matters beyond its jurisdiction. In 1984, Danny Davis, then an alderperson from the West Side, passed a resolution condemning apartheid in South Africa: “BE IT RESOLVED that the Chicago City Council in meeting this 3rd day of December, 1984, do hereby condemn the illegal and immoral system known as apartheid and we join with other voices across the world calling for the immediate release of all illegally detained persons who were arrested either for their participation in the trade union movement, and specifically the recent strike, or for their opposition to apartheid.” This was during Council Wars. The Council was divided into racial factions, but it united to condemn racism across the Atlantic Ocean.

Even before the Iraq War began, in January 2003, Alderman Joe Moore proposed a resolution “denouncing the drive toward war with Iraq.” It passed, 46-1. Moore appeared on Today to plead for peace. Completely ignoring the will of 46 Chicago alderpeople, President George W. Bush invaded Iraq two months later. The Council, it turned out, was unable to stop American warmongering. The Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank, took up the question of whether it was even entitled to an opinion on the matter. 

“The potential of making and influencing national and international policy at the local level excites progressives in particular,” wrote Karen Dolan and Emily Schwartz Greco. “Is the making and influencing policy at the local level constitutional? Opposition to state and local involvement in foreign policy has focused largely on the supremacy clause of the Constitution and the legal doctrine of preemption of state and local statute by federal statute or law.”

Michael Shuman, founder of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, believes that the 10th Amendment – “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, and to the people” – may give municipalities the authority to spout off on Gaza, Iraq, or any other overseas war zone. “Nowhere in the Constitution is foreign policy delegated or restricted,” Shuman says.

According to Mr. Shuman, the City Council has the right to pass a resolution on Gaza. Yet more than a week after 23 alders called for a ceasefire, the Israel-Hamas War continues. As Mr. Dooley might have put it, “The prisident don’ give a hoot nor holler whit the aldermin and alderwimmin think. They should stick to pickin’ up the trash.”