Mayor Lori Lightfoot defended a website she launched shaming Chicago aldermen who voted against her first budget, casting it as a civic tool for the public despite criticism that it was petty and bullying.
“The fact of the matter is, since when is letting voters and residents know how aldermen voted bullying?” Lightfoot told reporters Thursday. “That’s just silly.”
Light PAC, a political action committee Lightfoot launched to promote her political agenda, published chicagobudgetvotes.com last week. The site lists information about Lightfoot’s first citywide spending plan and features a tool for residents to look up their alderman, along with information on their budget vote.
If the alderman voted against her budget, Lightfoot’s website includes criticism that says they “voted NO on a progressive, responsible budget that maximizes the efficiency of our city’s government, ensures we maintain the quality of services our residents depend on, and does everything it can to prevent hard-working Chicagoans from bearing the burden as we strive to put our city finances back on track.”
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Lightfoot’s first spending plan passed the City Council 39-11, with much of the opposition coming from progressive aldermen who argued it doesn’t go far enough toward addressing the mayor’s campaign promises on issues including the reopening of mental health clinics.
“The reality of a $838 million budget deficit means that we cannot do everything in a single year,” Lightfoot wrote in a message to supporters last month. “There are a handful of aldermen who are unable to accept that reality and opposed the many important and progressive steps this budget takes because of the few areas we are not yet able to address.”
The mayor’s committee launched the shaming website last week, prompting criticism from aldermen and political observers, including the Sun-Times editorial board, which compared Lightfoot’s move to bullying.
First term Ald. Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez, 33rd, told WTTW-Ch. 11, “We don’t have time to engage in petty discussions or arguments. We have work to do, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
Her fellow freshman, Ald. Daniel La Spata, 1st, also took issue with the mayor’s characterization of their opposition.
“We were putting a lot of revenue options on the table — options four, five months back we were willing to fight for,” La Spata told WTTW. “We can disagree on the budget, but to say we didn’t put forth alternatives is not truthful.”
On Thursday, Lightfoot was asked why she launched the website when her budget passed by a large margin.
“It’s not about winning the vote. It’s about making sure that people in this city have access to basic information about how the government functions. This is not a political exercise for me,” Lightfoot said. “This is about educating the public about what happened. We just spent more than $10.5 billion of taxpayer money. We need to educate them about what we’re doing and make it transparent.”
The mayor also said she isn’t worried about alienating aldermen with the website.
“I am putting out information about how they voted. Pure and simple. They voted. It’s a record,” Lightfoot said. “If they’re upset about how they voted, and that people know about it, that’s on them, that’s not on me.”
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