Richard Michael Daley (born April 24, 1942) is an American politician who served as the 54th mayor of Chicago, Illinois, from 1989 to 2011. Daley was elected mayor in 1989 and was reelected five times until declining to run for a seventh term. At 22 years, his was the longest tenure in Chicago mayoral history, surpassing the 21-year stay of his father, Richard J. Daley. As Mayor, Daley took over the Chicago Public Schools, developed tourism, oversaw the construction of Millennium Park, increased environmental efforts and the rapid development of the city's central business district downtown and adjacent near North, near South and near West sides. He also approved expansion of city workers' benefits to their partners regardless of gender, and advocated for gun control. Daley received criticism when family, personal friends, and political allies disproportionately benefited from city contracting. He took office in a city with regular annual budget surpluses and left the city with massive structural deficits. His budgets ran up the largest deficits in Chicago history. A national leader in privatization, he temporarily reduced budgetary shortfalls by leasing and selling public assets to private corporations, but this practice removed future sources of revenue, contributing to the city's near insolvency at the end of his tenure. Police brutality was a recurring issue during his mayorship. Early and personal life Richard M. Daley is the fourth of seven children and eldest son of Richard J. and Eleanor Daley, who later became Mayor and First Lady of Chicago in 1955. Born on April 24, 1942, he grew up in Bridgeport, an historically Irish-American neighborhood located on Chicago's South Side. Daley is a brother of William M. Daley, former White House Chief of Staff and former United States Secretary of Commerce under President Bill Clinton; John P. Daley, a commissioner on the Cook County Board of Commissioners and chairman of the Board's Finance Committee; and Michael Daley, an attorney with Daley & Georges, a law firm founded by their father Richard J. Daley, that specializes in zoning law and is often hired by developers to help get zoning changes through city hall. 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. Maggie Daley Park in the Chicago Loop commemorates her, and her nonprofit After School Matters continues to