Evanston’s local elections wrapped up in April, but there’s already a very short list of who could become the next mayor — assuming the current one leaves early, that is.
Incumbent Daniel Biss won his second term as mayor on April 1. About six weeks later, he announced his candidacy to succeed Jan Schakowsky as Evanston’s member of Congress. Schakowsky has represented Illinois’ Ninth District since 1999, and confirmed in May that she won’t seek a 15th term next year.
The March 2026 primary is still nine months away, and Biss faces a crowded field of fellow Democrats vying for the federal office. But he’ll have to resign as mayor if he wins that race, so questions around how the mayor’s seat would be filled, and by whom, are already simmering.
To help clarify things well in advance, here’s the RoundTable’s rundown of the acting mayor and special election process, which the city hasn’t used in more than 50 years.
Pro tem vs. acting: Different mayors for different moments
City code actually names two different temporary mayors who can take the incumbent’s place in different situations: the mayor pro tempore (meaning “for the time being” and “pro tem” for short) and the acting mayor. Both are selected from the nine members of Evanston’s City Council, and both are charged “to perform the duties and possess all the rights and powers of the Mayor” until they’re no longer needed.
The mayor pro tem is used to fill “a temporary absence or disability” of the mayor that “does not create a vacancy in the office.” In other words, it covers truly short-term instances where the mayor can’t attend one or a few council meetings because of things like illness, injury or travel.
Because this type of absence could start and end at any time, the City Council adopts a rotating schedule of mayors pro tem for the entire term, with each member having five or six months where they will serve in the role if it’s needed. Under the current term’s schedule, Councilmember Tom Suffredin (6th Ward) is the current mayor pro tem designee through October, after which the list goes through all other councilmembers, ending with Matt Rodgers (8th Ward) covering December 2028 through the end of the term in April 2029.
Meanwhile, an acting mayor is put in place when “a vacancy occurs in the office” for a permanent reason, such as death, permanent disability or, most relevantly today, resignation. This appointment is semi-permanent, lasting until a new mayor is elected by the city’s voters, and it is not predetermined like the mayor pro tem is.
The position is rare — the last (and possibly only) time the city had an acting mayor was in 1970, after incumbent Mayor John Emery resigned in the middle of his term. Emery gave his two weeks’ notice at the City Council meeting on June 1, 1970, according to the meeting’s minutes, telling councilmembers he was moving toward full retirement “because of personal and health reasons.”
“With deep regret, I announce my resignation as Mayor effective as of the close of Council meeting June 15, 1970,” Emery said, reading from a written communication to the council. “For more than 25 years I have been active with many persons in various organizations concerned with the welfare of our City and I shall remember them with affection and appreciation.”
Picking an acting mayor
A week after Emery’s announcement, the council at the time set rules for picking an acting mayor, per meeting minutes. Councilmembers would make nominations from the floor without speeches or seconds, and then vote on candidates using a written secret ballot instead of a vocal roll call vote. The nominee who received a majority vote of the councilmembers present would win outright, and successive rounds of voting would be held if no one received a majority.
These rules were used on June 15 to select Ald. Peter Jans (7th Ward) as the acting mayor over two other nominees, and Jans took over at the next meeting on June 22. Voting results were not included in the meeting minutes, but the Evanston Review reported that Jans received nine votes out of the 17 councilmembers present, and that the remaining eight voted for competing nominee Ald. Arnold Winfield (2nd).
The exact rules for a modern version of this process wouldn’t be set until they were actually needed, but even though Biss’ departure for Washington is still very hypothetical, at least one key difference is already in the works. Councilmembers are currently working on an overhaul of the City Council Rules, and, during a committee discussion on June 2, they voted 5-4 to support Parielle Davis’s (7th Ward) motion to raise the vote threshold to pick an acting mayor from a simple majority of five votes to a supermajority of six.
Those new rules haven’t been formally adopted yet, but if the change sticks, that single extra vote could significantly change the math for a councilmember to garner enough support to win the temporary post.
Less than two months into this term, the current council already appears to be split almost evenly between two voting blocs aligned with and against Mayor Biss. In just their first three meetings since inauguration on April 28, councilmembers have split or tied on several contentious votes, including two votes of 5-4 and 6-3 to buy the 801 Main St. property for redevelopment, another 6-3 vote to loan tax increment financing funds to Free Flow Kitchen, and a 4-4 tie broken with a yes vote from Biss to appoint Rev. Luke Harris-Ferree to the Land Use Commission.
Given Biss’ centrality in how these voting blocs are split, either group finding a path to six votes for their acting mayor choice could prove a tall order — especially if the acting mayor ends up serving two years instead of only a few months.
Timing is everything
The acting mayor would serve until a permanent successor is elected by the voters of Evanston. How long that would take to happen, though, comes down to when Biss resigns as mayor if he wins the congressional seat.
In 1970, the election timing was straightforward: a special race for the remainder of Emery’s term through the regular 1973 elections was added to the ballot of the national midterm election that November. This race was won by former Ald. Edgar Vanneman, Jr. (7th Ward) with 17,646 votes over sitting Ald. Shel Newberger (9th) with 12,148 votes. No mayoral election winner since then has recorded more votes than either candidate, and turnout for the race was no doubt boosted by its attachment to national races at the top of the ticket.
But that timing wouldn’t happen today, as state law gives cities only two options for electing a new mayor to fill a vacancy: either in a special race added to the next local election on April 6, 2027, which would usually only include school board seats, or the next regular city election in April 2029.
Under state law, a vacancy has to begin at least 130 days before the 2027 election for it to be on the ballot, setting a deadline of Nov. 27, 2026. In practice, this means that if Biss wins the congressional seat in the general election on Nov. 3, 2026, he would have to resign as mayor within the next three weeks, well before congressional inauguration in January, for a special election to be held in April 2027.
If this were to happen, the acting mayor would only serve for around six months before a new, permanent mayor took office for the last two years of Biss’ term. But if Biss were to stay in his Evanston post beyond the Nov. 27 deadline, the acting mayor would serve out his entire term until the next regular election in 2029, leaving the council down a voting member for more than two years.
Despite special election talk remaining a theoretical exercise for now, there are still signs that some councilmembers are already looking at how the situation could shake out if it comes to fruition.
In that same discussion on council rules, Councilmember Davis suggested putting the acting mayor on a rotating schedule similar to the mayor pro tem, and also banning the acting mayor from running in a subsequent special election. Davis called the acting mayor position “kind of sticky” and said it could provide whoever is picked “a big leg up in the subsequent election” if they decided to run.
But city staff responded that neither of those ideas appears to be viable. Liza Roberson-Young, the city’s chief legislative policy advisor, said election qualifications are set by state law, and Corporation Counsel Alex Ruggie added that she doesn’t believe the acting mayor could rotate through multiple people. Ruggie said staff would research the matter further, though.
This entire process would only occur after (and if) Biss wins the general election in November 2026. But based on the history of the Ninth District, preparations would likely start months earlier if Biss were to win the Democratic primary in March.
A map shows the current boundaries of Illinois’ Ninth Congressional District. Credit: Ballotpedia
The Ninth Congressional District has been represented by Democrats without interruption since 1949, when former U.S. Rep. Sidney Yates flipped it after just one term of Republican control. Yates then held the seat for all but two of the next 50 years, stepping aside in 1999 after serving twenty-four total terms and making way for Schakowsky. Throughout her 14-term tenure, Schakowsky’s lowest performance in a general election was her 66.1% of the vote in the 2014 midterms.
While a Republican win is technically possible, the district’s history indicates that whoever wins the Democratic primary is virtually certain to win the general election in November. So if Biss wins the primary on March 17, mayoral hopefuls could very well start making moves on March 18, eight months before an acting mayor could be picked and more than a year before a permanent successor could win the remainder of the term.
City government 101: What happens if Biss goes to Washington is from Evanston RoundTable, Evanston’s most trusted source for unbiased, in-depth journalism.
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