Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced Tuesday he won’t see re-election next year, saying he’s ready to move on to other challenges.
“This has been the job of a lifetime, but it is not a job for a lifetime,” he said at a press conference, ending plans to seek a third term.
Mr. Emanuel had been an adviser to President Clinton, then a congressman from Illinois and then President Obama’s first chief of staff before leaving to run for the mayorship, first winning in 2011 and then winning re-election in 2015 in a race that had to go to a runoff.
Mr. Obama, whose political career also grew out of Chicago politics, praised his former staffer as “a tireless and brilliant public servant.”
Mr. Emanuel, with his wife Amy at his side, said he took pride in local advances such as longer school years and universal kindergarten and prekindergarten.
On the national stage, though, he will more likely be remembered for controversial decisions involving the city’s policing, and a crime wave that saw the murder rate surge in 2016.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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