Welcome to another episode of Sidelined Sanity with me, Michelle Tafoya.

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Today, we are talking to someone from Chicago.

And why are we doing that?

A couple reasons.

Chicago just went under this mayoral election. And you may have heard that Lori Lightfoot did not win reelection.

I think it was the first time in 40 years that an existing mayor did not get reelected.

She says it's because she's a black woman in America.

So when she got elected, was she still a black woman in America?

I think so.

I don't think that's changed.

So it didn't hurt her when she got elected, but now that she's not elected, it did hurt her.

We all can see through that, but Chicago politics is really interesting.

It affects the entire state of Illinois, And it can serve as sort of a

blueprint for every other really liberal city and state in America. So Miley Smith is with the Illinois

Policy Institute. She is the senior director of labor policy and she's a staff attorney and she's

really smart. And she's going to tell us what's going on in Illinois.

Are there signs that should be making us hopeful about the way people see politics in

their communities?

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