Dissing Dick Simpson

As Alderman Dick Simpson was questioning Chicago Public Works Commissioner Marshall Suloway during a 1978 City Council Finance Committee meeting, Alderman Michael Bilandic, the Committee Chair, said to Suloway, “The Alderman is a political science professor, therefore he knows very little about government. Speak to him in simple terms.”

That was Suloway’s cue to be less frank than he had been and to not answer Simpson’s questions directly.

(This account can be found in the chapter, “Tales from the Council” in “Chicago Political Stories: Devious, Comical, and Just Plain Memorable.”