Michael Anthony Bilandic (February 13, 1923 – January 15, 2002) was an American Democratic politician, judge, and attorney who served as the 49th mayor of Chicago from 1976 to 1979, after the death of his predecessor, Richard J.

Bilandic served as an alderman in Chicago City Council, representing the eleventh ward on the south-west side (Bridgeport neighborhood) from June 1969 until he began his tenure as mayor in December 1976.

Bilandic was born in Chicago to Croatian immigrant parents Mate "Matthew" and Milka "Minnie" Bilandžić) from southern Croatia.

After his time in the Marine Corps, Bilandic returned to school; receiving his bachelor's degree from St. Mary's University of Minnesota in 1947.

Bilandic began working in the city's eleventh ward was asked by then–committeeman Richard J. Daley to aid the Democratic party in 1948.

[8][12] At the same meeting that it appointed Bilandic, the council also voted for the other aspects of the compromise: naming Frost as chairman of the finance committee, Vrdolyak as president pro tempore, and Laskowski as vice mayor.

[citation needed] In the Democratic's primary election, he won 51.1% of the vote, handily defeating challengers Edward Hanrahan, Anthony Martin-Trigona, Roman Pucinski, Ellis Reid and Harold Washington.

A 1993 survey of historians, political scientists and urban experts conducted by Melvin G. Holli of the University of Illinois at Chicago ranked Bilandic as the twenty-first-worst American big-city mayor to have served between the years 1820 and 1993.

[17] Bilandic also had to face social unrest in June 1977 when an FALN bomb exploded in City Hall and started a two-day riot among the Puerto Rican community.

[19] During January 1979, a blizzard struck Chicago and effectively closed down the city, dropping a total of twenty-one inches of snow over a two-day period.

Additionally, as part of attempts to deal with the storm, Bilandic ordered Chicago 'L' trains to bypass many intermediate stops, particularly affecting black neighborhoods on the South Side of the city,[20] and angering that large voter base.

These plans included the construction a new State of Illinois office building on the site occupied by shuttered Sherman House Hotel.