About

What is Chicago City Council, and how does it work?

Chicago City Council is the legislative body of the City of Chicago. It consists of 50 elected alder, each representing one of Chicago's wards. City Council meets monthly and is presided over by Brandon Johnson, the Mayor of Chicago. The secretary is Anna Valencia, City Clerk of Chicago.

Generally, Chicago City Council deals with the following topics:

• city-wide policies - usually proposed by the mayor
• local ward matters - spearheaded by Alders
• matters involving individuals - miscellaneous claims & honorifics

For the nitty-gritty on how Chicago City Council works, read about its structure and rules from the City Clerk.

Types of legislation

Below are the categories of legislation in Chicago:

Type	Description
Ordinance Ordinances are proposed changes to Chicago’s local laws. Some of these are changes to Chicago’s Municipal Code and others, called uncompiled statutes, are recorded in the Council’s Journal of Proceedings.	Ordinances are proposed changes to Chicago’s local laws. Some of these are changes to Chicago’s Municipal Code and others, called uncompiled statutes, are recorded in the Council’s Journal of Proceedings.
Claim If you are harmed by the City of Chicago, you can make a claim against the City for your costs. Minor harms, like personal injury or automotive damage, are settled through City Council as Claims. If you sue the City for harm and come to a settlement, the settlement must also be approved by the Council.	If you are harmed by the City of Chicago, you can make a claim against the City for your costs. Minor harms, like personal injury or automotive damage, are settled through City Council as Claims. If you sue the City for harm and come to a settlement, the settlement must also be approved by the Council.
Resolution Resolutions are typically symbolic, non-binding documents used for calling someone or some organization to take an action, statements announcing the City Council's intentions or honoring an individual.	Resolutions are typically symbolic, non-binding documents used for calling someone or some organization to take an action, statements announcing the City Council's intentions or honoring an individual.
Order Orders direct a City Agency to do or not do something. They are typically used for ward matters like issuing business permits, designating parking zones and installing new signs and traffic signals.	Orders direct a City Agency to do or not do something. They are typically used for ward matters like issuing business permits, designating parking zones and installing new signs and traffic signals.
Appointment Used for appointing individuals to positions within various official City of Chicago and intergovernmental boards.	Used for appointing individuals to positions within various official City of Chicago and intergovernmental boards.
Report Submissions of official reports by departments, boards and sister agencies.	Submissions of official reports by departments, boards and sister agencies.
Communication Similar to reports and used for notifying City Council of intentions or actions.	Similar to reports and used for notifying City Council of intentions or actions.
Oath Of Office Official swearing in of individuals to leadership positions at the City of Chicago, including Alders and board members.	Official swearing in of individuals to leadership positions at the City of Chicago, including Alders and board members.

Legislation tags

One of the more unusual aspects of Chicago City Council is the volume of ordinances that are introduced and passed every month. Most of these are routine items like sign permits, damaged vehicle claims, sidewalk cafe approvals and honorifics.

To help sort through all of this, we classify all legislation and tag it appropriately. If something doesn’t look like a routine piece of legislation, we tag it as Non-Routine to make it easier to discover.

We're open source!

This website is open source and on GitHub - meaning that anyone can re-use or adapt the code.

Data

If you'd like to explore the data for Chicago Councilmatic yourself, we make a SQLite database using Datasette available here: https://puddle.datamade.us/chicago_council. This data is updated nightly.

The data on Councilmatic comes from the Chicago City Clerk eLMS, a custom legislation management system built by EKI Digital that was launched in June 2023. Prior to that, the City Clerk housed their data in the Legistar Legislative Management Suite built by Granicus. The data on Councilmatic is sourced from both of these systems.

The Office of the Chicago City Clerk manages the source data, and on Councilmatic, each piece of legislation provides a link to its source for reference.

Daily, DataMade collects data from the Chicago City Clerk, which we store using the Open Civic Data standard. Built in collaboration with The Sunlight Foundation, Google, Granicus, and Open North, Open Civic Data standardizes information about people, organizations, events, and bills at any level of government.

Read the OCD documentation