In the spring of 1987, in Chicago's municipal elections, Vrdolyak, rather than seeking re-election as alderman, was the Solidarity Party's candidate challenging Washington for mayor. Washington won re-election, and Washington allies won twenty-five city council seats. Burke led opposition in the city council, but Washington supporter Alderman Timothy C. Evans replaced Burke as Chairman of the Committee on Finance. Ousted from the spacious Finance Committee staff offices, Burke never used the relatively modest office allocated to him in City Hall and instead worked out of his private law office two blocks away. In the days following the death of Mayor Washington in office, Burke supported the Council's selection of Alderman Eugene Sawyer over Evans to serve as mayor. Sawyer prevailed, but Burke was the alderman who least often voted in support of the legislative agenda of Mayor Sawyer, Chicago's second black mayor. After Richard M. Daley was elected mayor in the spring of 1989, Daley nominated Burke as Finance chairman, a position he had held until January 4, 2019, a day after he was charged with attempted exortion of a Burger King operator to gain more property tax appeal business for his private law firm, Klafter & Burke.