City of Chicago Charter Example

This page requires JavaScript to display the charter. Please enable JavaScript in your browser, or view the source on GitHub.

City of Chicago Charter Example

A starting point for conversation

Chicago doesn’t have a city charter. Most major American cities do — each with a foundational document that defines how their government works, who has what power, and what citizens can enforce. Chicago runs instead on a patchwork of state statutes, city ordinances, and unwritten customs.

Chicago already governs itself under the home rule clause of the Illinois Constitution — it doesn’t need Springfield’s permission for most decisions. But home rule authority alone doesn’t establish how power is organized. A charter does that. It sets the rules of the game: what the mayor can and cannot do, how the council checks the executive, what citizens can enforce in court. Not what the city should do — how it must govern itself.

What follows is an example charter, written in plain language Chicagoans can understand. AI was used for research using public sources cited below.

How Chicago gets a charter

Illinois HB 3656

Municipal Home Rule Charter Act

A proposed state law that would enable any Illinois home rule city over 500,000 people to adopt a charter by referendum. Not yet passed.

Filed: Feb. 7, 2025 — 104th GA
Status: Re-referred to Rules Committee

The three steps after Illinois passes HB 3656 and the Governor signs it

City Council acts. Two-thirds of alderpersons vote to create a charter commission.
Commission drafts. An elected commission has one year to write the charter.
Voters decide. 60% approval at a regular general election adopts it.

Contents

We, the people of the City of Chicago, in order to establish an accountable, transparent, and equitable government that serves all residents; to create enforceable checks and balances on the exercise of public power; to end the structural conditions that have enabled corruption; to restore democratic participation; and to build a city that works for every neighborhood — do hereby ordain and establish this Charter of the City of Chicago.

This Charter is the supreme law of the City of Chicago. Any ordinance, rule, regulation, executive order, or action of any city official inconsistent with this Charter is void. Citizens of Chicago shall have standing to enforce its provisions in any court of competent jurisdiction.