Candidate responses to the Chicago 2019 Survey
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| 2019 Chicago elections |
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| Election dates |
| Filing deadline: November 26, 2018 |
| General election: February 26, 2019 Runoff election: April 2, 2019 |
| Election stats |
| Offices up: Mayor, City Council, City Clerk, & City Treasurer |
| Total seats up: 53 (click here for other city elections) |
| Election type: Nonpartisan |
| Other municipal elections |
| U.S. municipal elections, 2019 |
We met with Chicagoans to hear their questions for the city's candidates. The residents then voted on the questions to make it clear what topics mattered most to them. This project was done in partnership with the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, Interactivity Foundation, and City Bureau, as well as insights from more than a hundred diverse citizens living throughout Chicago’s wards.
What were the survey questions?
Here is the link to the questions.
Are you a Chicago resident and want to see how your candidates responded?
Use the table below to see the candidate's survey response!
Do you want to read more about the Chicago election?
Click on the following links for more information:
- City elections in Chicago, Illinois (2019)
- Mayoral election in Chicago, Illinois (2019)
- History of Chicago's mayoral office
- City council elections in Chicago, Illinois (2019)
- City treasurer and clerk elections in Chicago, Illinois (2019)
What did a survey response look like?
Pete DeMay completed Ballotpedia's Chicago candidates survey for 2019. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by DeMay's responses.
Low-income families do not have the same choices, options, or alternatives when it comes to public school. How can this be addressed?
- We need a democratically elected, representative school board in order to address the disparities in educational opportunities between wealthier areas of the city and poorer ones. Under mayor Rahm Emanuel and the current city council, the appointed school board has provided little constructive oversight for CPS, whose CEOs have either wound up in jail or resigned in shame over misconduct. We also need to change the per-pupil school funding formula. South and west side schools need more funding than their wealthier north side counterparts in order to hire more school counselors and provide more programs and services in economically impoverished areas. The one size fits all approach to school funding is simply not working.
How would you address inequality within and between schools?
- In addition to my answer above, we need to impose a moratorium on charter school expansion and a moratorium on school closures. The closure of 50 neighborhood schools served only to destabilize many south and west side communities, and charter school proliferation has forced many neighborhood schools to lay off librarians, as well as art and music teachers. School closures and charter expansion have only further exacerbated the crisis in CPS and we as a city have to do better. Finally, it’s time to eliminate the disastrous TIF corporate welfare program, free the funds, and fully fund public education throughout the city.
How can public schools better support their teachers and work more productively with the teachers’ union, parents, and the community?
- CPS needs an elected, representative school board. The organization's current relationship with teachers and parents is antagonistic at best, and it is ludicrous that we are the only municipality in Illinois without an elected school board.
What do you believe are the greatest needs of kids in school today? How would you prioritize these needs and address them?
- The greatest problem facing kids in schools today is poverty at home. It's hard to learn - even in a great school - if you are hungry or your parents are suffering from stress due to economic conditions. There are 17,894 homeless CPS students. 78% of CPS students come from low income households. Clearly, we need to urgently address the economic conditions in our city if we hope to promote and support learning in the classroom.
What are your proposals for supporting children before and after school? What would be your ideal afterschool programs?
- We need to fully fund programs like After School Matters so kids can get some exercise or exposure to the arts before they head home. I know that for my first grader, the school day is long and he physically needs exercise focused programs to unwind.
Do you believe that there is corruption in Chicago politics, such as pay-to-play practices when the city awards bids? If so, how would you address it?
- The corruption in Chicago politics is well documented. We need to empower the inspector general to initiate investigations of city council committees and the programs they oversee such as the workers comp program. It is shameful that Alderman Cardenas voted AGAINST this increased oversight in 2016. I also think we need publicly financed elections in order to minimize the current reliance on developer and corporate cash for campaign funds. We should also prohibit alderman from holding outside employment because it creates many conflicts of interest and finally, there should be term limits for alderman and the mayor.
How would you make the city’s policies more responsive to community input instead of donors or special interests?
- We need publically financed elections in Chicago and significant municipal election reform. Otherwise, you will continue to see officials like Alderman Cardenas building $300,000 "war chests" with developer, polluter, and corporate money. Alderman Burke has over $10 Million in his war chest and consequently, has gone virtually unchallenged for 50 years! How can normal citizens hope to participate in this process?
How would you handle the “recurrence of unaddressed racially discriminatory conduct by officers” identified in the U.S. Justice Department’s investigative report of the Chicago PD published in 2017?
- Just as we need an elected, representative school board (ERSB), we need elected an elected Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC) that has the power to hire and fire the Chief of Police. The City of Chicago has to dole out millions of unbudgeted dollars in financial settlements each year to families who lost loved ones due to police misconduct. Clearly, this is not sustainable, and can be rectified if every police district has more civilian oversight and input on how their neighborhoods should be policed.
What sort of proposals would help reduce police shootings and fatalities?
- Again, just as we need an elected, representative school board (ERSB), we need elected an elected Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC) that has the power to hire and fire the Chief of Police. The City of Chicago has to dole out millions of unbudgeted dollars in financial settlements each year to families who lost loved ones due to police misconduct. Clearly, this is not sustainable, and can be rectified if every police district has more civilian oversight and input on how their neighborhoods should be policed.
What ideas do you have to reduce the availability of illegal or unregistered guns in Chicago?
- I don't have any good ideas on how we can reduce the availability of guns in Chicago. The NRA's lobbying power in Washington makes firearms readily available throughout the country and that is tough to change locally. We can however, reduce DEMAND for firearms by ensuring that all Chicagoans have access to decent jobs that pay a living wage and benefits. We can also reduce the demand for firearms by ensuring that our schools have enough counselors so at-risk kids have a caring adult to talk to. We can also promote and fund summer jobs programs, because summer jobs programs have been proven to decrease violent crime. We can invest in the residents in our neighborhoods instead of sending TIF dollars to corporations. That's what will reduce poverty and hopelessness and lead to less demand for illegal firearms.
How will you help to rebuild trust in the police department and to encourage the community to work with police?
- Again, just as we need an elected, representative school board (ERSB), we need elected Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC) that has the power to hire and fire the Chief of Police, and provide input and oversight on how our individual neighborhoods should be policed. When we have elected, civilian representatives empowered to help run the department, residents in the neighborhoods will feel more ownership of the CPD. Consequently, there will be more community trust and cooperation, more homicides will be solved, and rates of violent crime will decrease.
How would you address criminal justice issues such as prison reform and the reintegration of formerly incarcerated persons into city life?
- I support the legalization of cannabis and I think we should release all non-violent drug offenders from prison. We should use the money saved on incarceration to hire social workers to help the formerly incarcerated reintegrate into society and find living wage employment. A "Green New Deal" for Chicago could create thousands of good jobs that could be filled by people who have served prison time. The so called "War on Drugs" has been a complete failure and has only served to increase the prison population with black and brown people. It's time to heal the Chicago communities that have been devastated by racist drug policies and time to treat drug addiction for what it is - a public health problem.
How would you address the displacement of people of color and long-term residents from their neighborhoods?
- To address displacement, we need an increase in both living wage jobs and affordable housing. To create living wage jobs, I support a "Green New Deal" for Chicago to give residents assess to prevailing wage work - such as replacing lead service lines. To promote affordable housing, I support lifting the ban on rent control, and mandating that new developments in the ward be required to build 30% affordable units, indexed to local AMI - with no opt out option. I also support freezing property tax rates. The last rate hike, which Alderman Cardenas supported, displaced both homeowners and renters in Little Village, Brighton Park and McKinley Park. Finally, I support incentives for the repair and/or construction of owner occupied 2 and 3 flat buildings. When 2 and 3 flats are converted to single family buildings it eliminates affordable rental options and eventually displaces renters.
How would you care for the most vulnerable Chicagoans?
- As alderman, I will have the courage to allow zoning for homeless shelters, affordable housing, affordable senior housing, SRO housing, and food pantries - despite the inevitable opposition. I will also advocate for legislation that provides for citywide universal health care (like in New York and San Francisco) until we can achieve Medicare for All at the federal level. Finally, I will look to strengthen the Welcoming City ordinance to ensure that CPD is not coordinating with ICE. We have thousands of undocumented neighbors in Chicago whose situation is especially precarious, and they need additional protection.
How would you ensure that development benefits residents in their neighborhoods and not solely the developers and other interests?
- I will insist on a truly inclusive community process for new development in the Ward, and I will insist a community benefits agreement for major developments as well as project labor agreements.
How would you distribute revenue fairly between neighborhoods?
- If elected, we will have participatory budgeting in the 12th Ward to insure that "menu money" is evenly distributed between the neighborhoods.
How do you propose to resolve the city’s underfunded pension plan for city employees?
- If elected, I will advocate taxing the rich so that we can fully fund those pensions. A pension is a promise, and shame on those elected officials who defunded the pensions over the last 15 years and put us in this current predicament.
What’s your opinion on tax increment financing (a program that funds development using any additional property tax revenue that results from an increase in appraised property values)? What, if any, changes would you make to the use of TIF?
- I advocate eliminating the TIF corporate welfare program. There are certainly instances where the city should fund economic development, but those proposals should be transparent, subject to public scrutiny, and detailed in the annual budget.
How would you assess the city's finances, and if your proposals would require new spending, how would you pay for them?
- Chicago has too much debt and too much of the budget is going towards debt service and policing. Chicago’s municipal finances are a man-made disaster and should be treated as such. For years, elected officials have kicked the can down the road and the banks have enabled it. Austerity and regressive taxation will not get it us out of this situation. In fact, it will only make it worse. To stimulate the economy, we need to ensure that residents can afford to stay in the city and that they have access to living wage employment. To pay down our debt and finance the additional programs I have outlined in this questionnaire, I propose:
- A financial transaction tax of $3 per trade
- A 5% real estate transaction tax on real estate sales over $750,000
- A corporate head tax on large employers
- A public bank so the city can capture interest revenue
- A City income tax of 1%for individuals earning over $125,000 per year and households earning more than $250,000 per year
Would you be in favor of freezing property taxes, at least for low-income households, so that people can stay where they are living?
- Yes.
How would you increase access to quality food and urgent care in all parts of the city?
- I don't think there should be any tax breaks for supermarkets that don't make a commitment to serve the entire city and open stores in food deserts.
How will you address public health concerns such as contaminated drinking water, rat infestation, and lead poisoning?
- We need to replace all of the lead service lines in Chicago. While costly, we can leverage infrastructure funding through the state revolving fund and start this important project which will provide thousands of living wage jobs to stimulate the economy and get lead out of our water. As for rats, there need to be an extensive, grassroots community education program on how neighbors can work together to create rat free blocks. Currently, no such program exists.
How would you make Chicago a cleaner city with less waste and pollution?
- We need a “Green New Deal” for Chicago that will help bring our city into a less fossil fuel dependent future. We also need to improve and expand our public transportation infrastructure to make fossil fuel powered cars more obsolete – decreasing air pollution. As a transportation hub, we should also focus on air pollution from trucks at inter-modal hubs. For example, the BNSF Intermodal facility on Kedzie and 42nd is notorious for its diesel truck traffic, fumes and CO2 emissions. We need to lean on the owners of these facilities (BNSF is owned by Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway) to switch to electric powered trucks to decrease air pollution. They have the money – that’s for sure.
What would be your first steps for improving the transit system in terms of affordability, accessibility, and safety?
- According to several reports, Chicago is poised to become a world mega-city by 2030. Clearly, we need to leverage federal transportation funding in order to upgrade and improve our public transportation infrastructure in order to support a much larger population, and ensure that everybody can move about the city affordably and safely.
Full list of Chicago candidates and responses
Click on the link in the third column (Completed survey?) in the table below to see the candidate's survey response!
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit candidate survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked as such to the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org.
