Chicago city council members passed an ethics ordinance this week that would punish lobbyists who donate to the political campaigns of mayoral candidates, the latest example of the council moving against Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration.
The Ethics Committee, chaired by Councilman Matt Martin, 47th, a Johnson ally, unanimously approved a bill on Thursday that would fine or suspend lobbyists who violate rules already codified in a 2011 executive order banning campaign contributions to the mayor’s political fund. The bill will go to the City Council for a final vote this month.
The commission’s action came after the city’s Ethics Commission in April dismissed several cases of registered lobbyists making improper contributions to Johnson’s political committee, saying the commission lacked the legal authority to enforce the 2011 rules. Council members voted in favor of the ordinance even as Johnson’s administration was at odds with Martin over codifying the regulations.
“The mayor’s office has made it very clear that they don’t want to move forward with anything. I have asked multiple times for amendments to come up with a solution that works for both sides, and the mayor’s office has refused,” Martin told reporters after the vote. “The mayor’s office has made it very clear that they can’t propose any changes that would be agreeable to the mayor’s office. At the end of the day, it’s important to me that we move this forward.”
Other city council members and good government advocates also criticized Johnson’s team for not supporting the bill, saying leaving it alone would set back ethics reforms at City Hall.
But Mayor Johnson’s office released a statement Friday denying the mayor’s opposition to stricter rules on lobbyist contributions and saying Martin and others don’t want the ordinance extended to city council members and other elected officials.
“An ethics ordinance that targets specific public officials rather than the entire elected office is unusual and potentially misses an opportunity to implement best practices and extend the ordinance to other elected officials in the City of Chicago,” wrote Ronnie Reese, a spokesman for Mayor Johnson. “We appreciate the City Council members’ commitment to ethics reform and look forward to them being open to reforms that apply across the entire City leadership.”
“That’s not accurate,” Martin told the Tribune on Friday afternoon, claiming that the administration only made the request on Monday — a month after he and the Ethics Committee formally submitted the bill to the Johnson administration in mid-May. The councilman also said that Johnson’s team had not sent him any specific proposals for amending the ordinance.
“This is a very careful and well-thought-out item that has been long overdue and cannot be made at the last minute,” Martin said. “It’s disappointing that ethics reform has not been a priority for the Johnson Administration, and even more concerning is that they have actively sought to roll back a policy that has been in place since 2011 and has spanned three mayoral terms.”
Chicago Ethics Commission Executive Director Steve Berlin told the Tribune in a statement Friday that the Johnson administration never asked the commission to uphold an amended ban that would apply to all elected officials.
Under the proposal passed by the committee, lobbyists could be fined three times the amount of the donation unless they return it within 10 days and could be suspended for 90 days for a second violation.
And unlike a 2011 executive order issued by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the new ban applies to all mayoral candidates, not just the sitting mayor, and to companies that hired lobbyists in the year prior to the donation or in which lobbyists own more than 7.5% of the business.
Martin, a progressive who was appointed by Johnson to chair the Ethics Committee, recently criticized the administration for its inaction on the issue, from filling vacancies on the Ethics Committee to advancing badly needed reforms that he had hoped to address this spring. On Thursday, the committee approved two of Johnson’s appointees to the Ethics Committee, a month after Martin criticized the administration for moving too slowly.
Martin and the Ethics Committee are backing a comprehensive reform bill that would tighten rules on city contractors, campaign fundraising and advertising, in addition to banning lobbyist contributions to the mayor and mayoral candidates, though the bill remains stalled in committee.
The changes include banning contractors working for aldermen from involvement in city decisions that benefit their own financial interests or other clients or employers, and were prompted by a Tribune report about the widespread use of aldermen’s expense accounts to hire contractors.
Strengthening City Hall’s ethics code has been a topic of discussion among elected officials for years, but it took on new urgency after the FBI’s 2019 investigation of now-retired and convicted City Councilman Edward Burke shone a spotlight on corruption in public office. At one point during their terms, three sitting City Councilmen — Burke, Carrie Austin and Patrick Daley Thompson — were indicted on corruption charges.
On Thursday, former colleagues criticized the Johnson administration, arguing the mayor is undermining progress in efforts to eradicate City Hall’s notorious history of money politics.
“Well, I want to commend the speaker for her efforts to work with the administration,” said Rep. Brendan Reilly (R-42), a frequent critic of Johnson. “It’s unfortunate that the current administration has not embraced the good ethics policies that were put in place by her predecessor. I think this is a missed opportunity.”
During public comments at Thursday’s meeting, Brian Zarrow, policy director for the Better Government Institute, said the Johnson administration also blocked the Institute’s proposal to support the ordinance. Berlin, meanwhile, noted that in his “more than 30 years on the Ethics Commission and in my work in this unique area of law — government ethics and campaign finance — I have never seen ethics reform halted or rolled back.”
The Chicago Tribune’s Jake Sheridan and A.D. Quigg contributed.
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