All Chicago mayoral candidates participate in heated WCPT forum

All nine candidates took part in WCPT 820AM’s Chicago mayoral forum on Thursday, where a combative Mayor Lori Lightfoot faced criticism on all fronts. 

The first half of the forum consisted of Lightfoot, U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” García, former CEO of Chicago Public Schools Paul Vallas, Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson and businessman Dr. Willie Wilson. WCPT hosts Joan Esposito, Santita Jackson and Patti Vasquez made up an all-female moderator panel.

Crime has been a main focus of this election, as murder rates continued to see record numbers in 2022 as police vacancies mount. Each candidate expressed their desire to fill these vacancies, something Lightfoot has been struggling to accomplish after four years. 

Despite repeated calls for new leadership in the Chicago Police Department, Lightfoot doubled down on her support for her hand-picked superintendent, David Brown. All other eight candidates have pledged to replace Brown if elected.

“David Brown has been through hell and back, as we have,” Lightfoot said. “He is in this moment leading our department, and I stand by him. But the important thing is I stand by our police officers, and I stand by the other people who are working tirelessly every day to keep our neighborhoods safe.”

In his first live candidate forum appearance since saying the CPD should be able to chase criminals and “hunt them down” like rabbits at an ABC7 forum last week, Wilson doubled down on the controversial comments, invoking his son Omar’s murder in 1995 to gun violence.

“You don’t understand. When you lose a 20-year-old son killed by gun violence, it’s emotional,” Wilson said. “When I said ‘hunt them down like a rabbit,’ I should have said more than that. I am tired of people making excuses out here for people committing crime. All you hear is excuses, excuses. In major corporations, if you don’t do your job, you fire them jokers.”

Pressed by both moderators and Lightfoot, Vallas significantly downplayed his relationship with the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) and its president, John Catanzara. The FOP endorsed Vallas, a former FOP contract negotiator, earlier this month; Catanzara has previously defended the Jan. 6 Capitol rioters and compared vaccine mandates for police officers to the Holocaust. Lightfoot would later call Catanzara “one of the most repugnant people we’ve seen in our city for a long time.”

“I don’t agree with [Catanzara] … I was invited by the FOP to come in,” Vallas said. “I think I’ve demonstrated by being able to negotiate with the FOP … that I can negotiate with just about anybody. You’re not going to be able to have real police reform unless you get cooperation with the FOP.”

Moderators also asked García to respond to allegations by the Lightfoot campaign that he allegedly supported movements to defund the police. He vehemently denied them and spoke about his personal tragedies with gun violence. 

“I have never supported any such movement,” García said. “On the contrary: I know about gun violence. Forty years ago, my best friend [and] my political mentor, Rudy Lozano, was assassinated in the kitchen of his home in front of his two-year-old son, my godson. Four years ago, a young man was killed in front of my house. While I was on my way home, my wife called desperately. That murder, never solved. One of the many in Chicago.

“The difference between my plan and the mayor’s plan is that it recognizes that we need new leadership in the police department. She’s hanging on to the leadership that’s proved to have failed Chicago.”

Johnson tried to set himself apart from the other candidates by focusing on his budget plan, and addressing how the other candidates supported Lightfoot during her last run. 

During a spat between Lightfoot and García over the latter’s connections to indicted former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, Esposito joked, “We love a spirited, passionate give-and-take.” Johnson interjected, “Especially between allies,” referring to Lightfoot and García.

In the second half of the forum, the remaining candidates — Alderwoman Sophia King, State Rep. Kam Buckner, Alderman Roderick Sawyer and community activist Ja’Mal Green — took the stage. Crime, public transportation and local government restructure were the main topics of discussion in the less confrontational second panel. 

The fieriest moment came from Green, who called to amend aldermanic prerogative, or the unspoken rule that alderpeople have final say over projects in their wards. He said that it was being abused by criminal alderpeople.

“What’s been happening is in the city of Chicago is you have a lot of alderman that are holding on to land,” Green said. “And the reasons why, obviously we know, when we look at some of the indictments that are coming down. We’ve got to really step in and really do something when it comes to aldermanic prerogative, because it is a real problem.”

King took offense to Green’s comments, joking that she doesn’t “look good in orange or black and white” before arguing that without aldermanic prerogative, Chicago’s controversial new casino would have been built in her ward without community input.

Sawyer, meanwhile, argued that the mayor has too much power and that as mayor, he would grant more powers to the city council and implement term limits so that the mayor could only serve two terms.

Moderators asked Buckner to defend his CTA expansion plan when many voters just want to see less delays, “ghost buses” and to get back to pre-pandemic functionality. Buckner, who said he took the Red Line train to the debate, argued that the CTA’s issues are not with resources but with reliability.

“We continue to pump more and more money into CTA, and we have not seen the results,” Buckner said. “We are leaving so much on the table. Our CTA should be clean, safe and accessible, and it also has to be a catalyst for growth.”

Buckner’s transportation plan includes Red and Blue line extensions, a new Metra line, an all-electric bus fleet, new bus routes and real-time surveillance camera monitoring.

The forum took place on the first day of early voting in the city. Election Day is Feb. 28.

Disclaimer: Brandon Johnson previously hosted a weekend program, “Sunday Mornings with Brandon Johnson,” on WCPT 820AM prior to his mayoral campaign. Rickey Hendon, a campaign advisor for Dr. Willie Wilson, previously hosted a weekend program, “The Rickey Hendon Show,” on WCPT prior to Wilson’s campaign. And Edwin Eisendrath, host of “The Big Picture with Edwin Eisendrath” on WCPT, endorsed U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García in the race. None of these influenced and will not influence Heartland Signal’s editorial process in covering the 2023 Chicago mayoral election.