[5][6] Daley was married to Margaret "Maggie" Corbett until her death on Thanksgiving Day, November 24, 2011 after a decade-long battle with metastatic breast cancer, which had spread to her bones and liver.

[18][19] According to journalist Rick Perlstein, in June 1972, Daley led a mob on behalf of his father's Democratic Party regulars against pro-McGovern reformers meeting in a church in Illinois' Fifth Congressional District.

[40][41] The candidates in the three-way Democratic primary, which included incumbent Mayor Jane Byrne, a former protégée of his father, and Congressman Harold Washington, held a series of four televised debates.

On December 2, 1987, the Chicago City Council appointed Alderman Eugene Sawyer as mayor until a special election for the remaining two years of the term could be held in 1989.

Patrick told the relatives he was staying with friends, drove his father's new sports utility vehicle to the Daley second home in Grand Beach, Michigan and threw a party Saturday night without parental consent or adult supervision.

[74]Patrick pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of furnishing alcohol to minors and disturbing the peace and was sentenced to six months' probation, 50 hours of community service in Grand Beach, fined $1,950[d] and ordered to pay restitution to his parents for property damage.

When Vallas left the post to run for governor, Daley chose the relatively obscure Arne Duncan, who later became the U.S. Secretary of Education under Barack Obama, to lead the district.

[9][77] The first major public corruption scandal of Daley's tenure as mayor involved the circumstances of the resignation of his City Council floor leader, Alderman Patrick Huels, in October 1997.

[79] In the summer of 2007, in reaction to ongoing indictments and convictions of aldermen, Daley and Huels shepherded a package of ethics reforms through city council.

Huels and Burke authorized $633,971[f] in legal consulting fees from their respective Council committees to attorney Michael A. Pedicone, a long-time officer of SDI.

On Sunday, March 30, 2003, shortly before midnight, transport trucks carrying construction equipment moved onto Meigs with Chicago Police escort.

The city's 50 aldermen, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Homeland Security were not consulted on the plan.

[107] Daley argued that the airport was a threat to Chicago's high-rise cityscape and its high-profile skyscrapers, such as the Sears Tower and the John Hancock Center.

[48][54][108] "The signature act of Richard Daley's 22 years in office was the midnight bulldozing of Meigs Field," according to Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn.

[110] "The issue is Daley's increasingly authoritarian style that brooks no disagreements, legal challenges, negotiations, compromise or any of that messy give-and-take normally associated with democratic government," the Chicago Tribune editorialized.

Daley defended his actions by claiming that the airport was abandoned, in spite of the fact that the Chicago Fire Department had several helicopters based on the field at the time, in addition to the dozens of private aircraft left stranded.

[115] Mark Gyrion, Daley's second cousin, was a superintendent of garages for the city's Water Management Department, and among his duties was deciding when City-owned trucks should be sold for scrap.

[121][122] "It is fair criticism to say I should have exercised greater oversight to ensure that every worker the city hired, regardless of who recommended them, was qualified and that proper procedures were always followed," Daley admitted a few days later.

[123][124] Weeks later, David Axelrod, a Democratic political consultant whose clients included Daley, defended patronage in an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune.

[125][126] Mayor Daley's son Patrick R. Daley was an MBA student at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business working as an unpaid intern at Cardinal Growth, a Chicago venture capital firm, when he profited from two Cardinal Growth ventures formed to win city contracts while concealing his role.

[129] Before departing, Mayor Daley read a statement to reporters, his voice cracking, fighting back tears, I did not know about [Patrick's] involvement in this company.

[142][143] The Chicago Sun-Times dubbed the Park Grill the "Clout Cafe"[144][145] and included the contract award process in a year-end review of 2005 Daley administration scandals.

[159] In September 2008, Chicago accepted a $2.52 billion[w] bid on a 99-year lease of Midway International Airport to a group of private investors, but the deal fell through due to the collapse of credit markets during the 2008–2012 global recession.

[160][161] In 2008, as Chicago struggled to close a growing budget deficit, the city agreed to a 75-year, $1.16 billion[x] deal to lease its parking meter system to an operating company created by Morgan Stanley.

[190][191] On the first day of City Council hearings on Daley's 2009 budget proposal, several aldermen questioned the administration's public relations spending.

[192] On November 4, 2008, Jacquelyn Heard, the mayor's press secretary, said the city would halt spending on 10 public relations contracts that could have paid as much as $5 million[ag] each.

[196] Daley proposed a 2011 budget totaling $6.15 billion,[am] including spending all but $76 million[an] of what remained of the parking meter lease proceeds, and received a standing ovation from aldermen.

[216] According to Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman, "Daley lasted 22 years in office partly because he resolved to ingratiate himself with black Chicagoans.

"[218] Daley focused on Chicago as a tourist destination as opposed to a manufacturing base, improved and expanded parkland, added flower planters along many primary streets, and oversaw the creation of Millennium Park on what had previously been an abandoned train yard.

[220][221] Days after leaving office, the University of Chicago appointed Daley a "distinguished senior fellow" at the Harris School of Public Policy.