Jeanette Taylor

Taylor was born in Chicago on May 15, 1975.[5][6] Her parents were a clerk at Chicago Public Schools and a taxi driver.[6] For high school, Taylor attended Dunbar Vocational High School.[6][7] At age 19, Taylor was elected as a member of the local school council for Mollison Elementary School, where her son attended school, and served in that position for over 20 years.[5] She has been an organizer at Kenwood Oakland Community Organization, and is a member of People United for Action and United Working Families.[5] In 2015, Taylor led a hunger strike that successfully protested the proposed closure of Dyett High School.[3][8]

Taylor took office as a member of Chicago City Council on May 20, 2019. In July 2019, Taylor and fellow alderman Leslie Hairston introduced a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) ordinance aimed at protecting affordable housing near the proposed Barack Obama Presidential Center development.[9][10] The ordinance gained the support of nearly 30 aldermen, but in January 2020, the Lightfoot administration announced that it would support a scaled-back version. Taylor opposed the scaled-back version and reiterated support for the initial CBA ordinance.[11] In July 2020, a compromise ordinance was formulated after negotiations between Lightfoot's administration, aldermen Taylor and Hairston, and community groups.[12] Taylor called the compromise ordinance a "step in the right direction" and called for further action.[13]

In November 2019, Taylor was one of eleven aldermen to vote against Mayor Lori Lightfoot's first budget.[14] She joined all five other members of the Socialist Caucus in signing a letter to Lightfoot which criticized her budget for "an over-reliance on property taxes" and "regressive funding models" that are "burdensome to our working-class citizens, while giving the wealthy and large corporations a pass."[15]