Mayor Brandon Johnson’s marketing campaign fund has returned most of a $50,000 contribution it accepted a 12 months and a half in the past from a political motion committee led by a Metropolis Corridor lobbyist whose regulation agency has a metropolis contract to gather excellent utility payments.
Chicago ethics guidelines bar marketing campaign contributions to a mayor by metropolis lobbyists and metropolis contractors. The Pals of Brandon Johnson marketing campaign fund seems to have repeatedly violated these restrictions since Johnson took workplace in Could 2023, prompting tens of 1000’s of {dollars} in refunds, the Chicago Solar-Occasions has reported.
The newest give-back seems to have been prompted by Metropolis Corridor Inspector Common Deborah Witzburg discovering that the $50,000 given by the Chicago Latino Public Affairs Committee in June 2023 “exceeded the contribution limits set forth in” Chicago’s metropolis code.
That regulation “prohibits an entity and its subsidiaries, mum or dad firm or in any other case affiliated firm who has executed enterprise with the town throughout the previous 4 reporting years from making marketing campaign contributions in an combination quantity exceeding $1,500 to any candidate for metropolis workplace,” in keeping with a letter the inspector common despatched in November to the PAC, led by legal professional and lobbyist Homero Tristan.
The inspector common’s letter instructed Tristan’s committee it had 10 days “to request the return [of] the surplus monetary contribution of $48,500 from Pals of Brandon Johnson.”
Tristan says when he discovered the “contribution was in extra of allowable limits and that we must always notify the mayor’s marketing campaign, we promptly complied and are deemed to not be in violation of the ethics ordinance.”
The $48,500 was returned by Johnson’s marketing campaign to Tristan’s fund in late December, in keeping with a report filed with the Illinois State Board of Elections this month.
Witzburg’s workplace wouldn’t remark.
Tristan says his committee, which says it helps “the development of Latino points, coverage and politics,” has backed “quite a few candidates and officers over time in any respect ranges of presidency” and that the contribution to Johnson didn’t come “from any private cash or regulation agency funds.”
His committee is predicated in the identical Loop workplace as his regulation agency, Tristan & Cervantes LLC. Tristan is the political fund’s chairman and treasurer, data present.
The inspector common’s letter says the company “decided that Tristan & Cervantes, LLC maintains a excessive diploma of management over” Tristan’s political fund, so the 2 “are handled as a single particular person for functions of the foundations at challenge.”
Tristan & Cervantes does lobbying work at Metropolis Corridor, the place, data present, Tristan lobbied members of the Chicago Metropolis Council in 2024 on behalf of Oracle, the software program big.
Tristan’s agency additionally has a contract with Metropolis Corridor to assist accumulate excellent utility payments.
Ethics guidelines put in place by then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2011 ban metropolis lobbyists and contractors from contributing to any mayor’s marketing campaign fund. However enforcement has been spotty, and it’s unclear whether or not the restrictions apply on this case as a result of neither Tristan nor his regulation agency gave on to Johnson, with the $50,000 coming from the political fund Tristan runs.
Johnson aides gained’t remark.
Tristan’s committee is the defendant in a lawsuit the state elections board filed final 12 months in search of almost $50,000 in penalties for not following the general public reporting tips required of political committees. That seems to be unrelated to the Johnson contribution and refund.
Tristan’s political fund has given about $700,000 to politicians and political teams since 2010, together with greater than $37,000 to state Sen. Martin Sandoval, D-Chicago, who died in 2020 after pleading responsible to corruption costs.
Tristan’s committee has taken in quite a few contributions over time, together with $41,000 since 2012 from the corporate behind the Riot Fest music pageant, for which Tristan & Cervantes lobbied at Metropolis Corridor.
Tristan and companies related to him have given his political fund greater than $70,000 over time, data present.
Tristan briefly was Metropolis Corridor’s human sources commissioner below former Mayor Richard M. Daley, earlier than resigning in 2009 amid an inner investigation into accusations relating to patronage hiring.
Tristan & Cervantes began working for Metropolis Corridor previous to Johnson taking workplace as mayor.
Johnson isn’t the primary mayor to return cash to Tristan’s committee. Emanuel gave again a $5,000 contribution from the group in 2015.
The Solar-Occasions reported final 12 months that Johnson’s marketing campaign returned a $1,500 contribution, made days earlier than his 2023 inauguration, that got here from a Texas regulation agency that had been employed by the town to gather cash owed for site visitors tickets, water payments and different funds.
However Johnson’s marketing campaign saved different contributions made by that agency’s legal professionals across the similar time.
