Both Mayoral Contenders Failed to Respond to Reform for Illinois Ethics Questionnaire
With Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Congressman Chuy Garcia both facing significant ethical clouds in recent weeks, it’s no surprise that they each failed to respond to the candidate questionnaire from Reform for Illinois, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to government accountability. Mayor Lightfoot also failed to respond to a questionnaire on civil rights and government transparency by Chicago Applesed. By ducking these important questions, Lightfoot and Garcia are once again confirming that they have no plan to make city government more accountable and transparent. Mayoral frontrunner Paul Vallas, however, is committed to greater government accountability and is releasing his full ethics plan today.
Vallas’ plan can be found here: paulvallas2023.com/ethics
“Chicago has a well-earned reputation for corruption and I’m the only major candidate running for Mayor with a real plan to finally make our city more accountable, more transparent and more ethical,” said Vallas. “I’ve always been a political outsider and I have stood up to the machine and called out corruption on many occasions, so I know how important it is to bring accountability to our city. As Mayor I will work to pass public financing of city elections to take money out of local politics, stop employees of city contractors from making unlimited contributions, adopt ranked choice voting and start the process of modernizing our government structure, among other reforms.”
Highlights of the Vallas ethics plan include:
Initiating the process to create a citizen-led Charter Commission charged with evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of our existing governance structure and making recommendations for approval by mandatory citizen referendum to once and for all lift it from its past and situate Chicago to meet the future
Initiating public financing of city elections
Barring employees of city contractors from making unlimited campaign contributions
Carrying through on Lightfoot's abandoned 2019 commitment to consolidating Inspector General functions across the City and Sister Agencies
Adopting Ranked Choice Voting
Creating a commission to modernize city government structure
Preventing gerrymandering with independent redistricting
Mandating that mayoral candidates and their spouses release their tax returns
Reforming City Council to become a co-equal branch of government