Chicago’s $80M grocery tax grab, and how to stop it

City Council members are back from August recess with two big questions on the table for their Sept. 25 meeting: whether to legalize “granny flats” citywide, and whether to hit Chicagoans with a 1% grocery tax.

The roll calls for both questions are still up in the air, which means you can have a significant impact on how your Council member votes.

Here’s how.

The grocery tax

Illinois’ sales tax system is way too complicated. But it used to be even worse. As Illinois Issues reported in 1988:

The Illinois system of state and local sales taxes is a mess. Different rates are in effect in different parts of the state. Different items are taxed from place to place. Different governments use different forms to collect local taxes.

So the state passed reforms to streamline the system, which took effect in 1990. One ingredient: the grocery tax. Illinois barred most local governments from imposing their own special grocery taxes. And in exchange for limiting local governments’ taxing authority, lawmakers created a 1% tax on all grocery purchases statewide and distributed the proceeds to local governments.

That system remained in place for decades. Then COVID hit. In 2022, Illinois suspended its 1% grocery tax for a year. And state lawmakers in 2024 decided to end the grocery tax permanently, beginning Jan. 1, 2026. Here’s the catch: local governments now (again) get to choose whether to impose their own grocery taxes.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and his team have been pushing City Council to approve the tax, which they estimate will take $80 million from shoppers next year. But the mayor is extremely unpopular. That makes it a political landmine — a straight up-or-down vote that puts every alderman on record, with liabilities on the order of Cook County’s short-lived soda tax.

Chicago must notify the state by Oct. 1 whether it intends to impose its own grocery tax next year. So the Sept. 25 meeting is the mayor’s last chance to get approval from City Council.

To tell your alderman to reject Johnson’s grocery tax proposal, click here.

Granny flats

Part of the unofficial Chicago Abundance Agenda is removing red tape around accessory dwelling units, or ADUs.

The city’s current ADU pilot program restricts development to a few small pilot areas and creates unfair limits on development in the South and West sides. The results have been pitiful. In the past four years, Chicago has permitted just 262 ADUs. Meanwhile, Los Angeles has permitted more than 27,000 ADUs since 2016.

The city should allow Chicagoans to build granny flats on their own land. Tell your alderman to legalize ADUs here.

In the news

I joined The Mincing Rascals podcast on WGN last week.

On the mayor’s appointment of Walter “Red” Burnett to his father’s seat in City Council:

In no other big city does the mayor get to pick who fills City Council vacancies. And that gives too much power to the executive over the legislative branch … we have no term limits and low turnout, so the appointment power really matters a lot. And to give it to the mayor is just anti-democratic. Every other big city has this [process] in their city charter, their constitution, their rules of the road. In Chicago, this process is governed by state law, which is really bizarre. And that’s because we don’t have a city charter.

On Darren Bailey’s rumored run for governor:

Darren Bailey is, by all accounts, JB Pritzker’s ideal opponent. That’s why he spent millions of dollars telling the entire state that Darren Bailey was too conservative, so that he could boost him in the [2022] Republican primary … The Bailey camp will try to play [critics of his campaign] as ‘they just hate [downstate].’ I have great affinity toward Effingham. The Berg family farm has been just outside Effingham in Altamont for over 150 years. Shout out to Effingham. Amazing people in Effingham. But the writing’s on the wall. Darren Bailey got shellacked in that election, which is why JB Pritzker supported him.

My “green light” recommendation: The Battle of Algiers (1966).

Listen to the full episode here.