A major overhaul of Chicago’s Governmental Ethics Ordinance advanced without opposition Friday after Mayor Lori Lightfoot backed a revised version of the measure designed to root out the corruption that has led to the conviction of 37 members of the Chicago City Council since 1969.
The Ethics and Government Oversight Committee unanimously endorsed the reworked version of the proposal authored by Ald. Michele Smith (43rd Ward), the panel’s chair, and backed by the Chicago Board of Ethics. A final vote by the full City Council is set for Wednesday.
The measure would hike the maximum fine for violating the city’s ethics ordinance from $5,000 to $20,000.
“Many of these new laws would place Chicago solidly in the vanguard of government ethics regulation,” Chicago Board of Ethics Executive Director Steve Berlin said during Friday’s brief hearing that followed months of behind-the-scenes negotiations.
Smith’s proposal had been stalled since April after it ran into a brick wall of opposition from Lightfoot, who declined to answer questions from WTTW News about her concerns. The logjam broke after Chicago Board of Ethics Chair William Conlon said June 13 the package of reforms should be “swiftly” passed by the City Council and signed into law.
Bryan Zarou, the director of policy for the Better Government Association, said the revised measure is weaker than the original.
“This is still a strong set of updates, though not as effective in cleaning up city government as the original language,” Zarou said in a statement.
If the measure is approved, it would mark the second major overhaul of the city’s ethics laws under Lightfoot, who campaigned on promises to end City Hall corruption.
The City Council voted 50-0 in July 2019 to overhaul the city’s ethics laws by giving the inspector general the authority to investigate alderpeople and committees by hiking the fine for violations from $2,000 to $5,000. That measure also banned members of the City Council from working as property tax attorneys — a provision that was aimed squarely at indicted Ald. Ed Burke (14th Ward).
But those changes were less far reaching than originally proposed by the Ethics Board, and Lightfoot promised more reforms were in the works. However, concerns about ethics have fallen nearly completely off the mayor’s agenda amid the continuing COVID-19 pandemic and a public safety crisis that sent violent crime to the highest levels in nearly 25 years.
The measure expands the number of companies doing business with the city that would be limited to contributing $1,500 annually to include those doing business with all of the city’s sister agencies, including the Chicago Transit Authority, the Chicago Public Schools and Chicago Housing Authority.
The proposal directs the city’s Department of Assets, Information and Services to compile a list of contractors for the Chicago Housing Authority and the Public Building Commission, to allow Chicago elected officials to comply with the limits, Smith said.
However, the revised measure does not expand the limit on campaign contributions to subcontractors with the city’s sister agencies as Smith originally proposed, since there is no database of those firms, Berlin said Friday.
The measure also expands the city’s rules against nepotism to prevent city officials or employees from taking any action that benefits their domestic partner or relatives and prohibit firms from hiring relatives of city officials to skirt the rules.
But those elected officials will not have to physically leave the City Council chambers or the virtual meeting when that item is discussed and voted on. Instead, the official will have to file details about the conflict of interest with the Chicago Board of Ethics within 24 hours. That information will be made public, according to the revised measure.
That proposal got a significant amount of push back from members of the City…
Read More: Push to Tighten Chicago’s Ethics Rules, Boost Fines to $20K Clears Key Panel |