Candidates pile on Brandon Johnson in last mayoral debate before election: ‘You are a fraud’

The last televised Chicago mayoral forum featured a series of explosive exchanges as candidates differed over taxes, policing, and even questioned whether their challengers care about Black people.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot repeatedly swiped at Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson, who took the brunt of criticism from rival candidates during the panel convened by NBC Chicago and WVON — the last scheduled time the incumbent mayor will face her eight rivals in her bid for reelection before the Feb. 28 election.

Lightfoot’s focus on Johnson began when she was asked a question about her combative reputation repelling allies, including her handpicked budget chair, Ald. Pat Dowell. Lightfoot acknowledged Dowell recently threw her support behind Johnson instead and surmised, “I can only think that she agrees with him” on adding “almost a billion dollars in new taxes.”

Then Lightfoot repeated her claims that Johnson supports a 3.5% city income tax on those who make at least $100,000.

Johnson revisited that point when asked about how to stem Black population loss in Chicago.

“People have lost confidence in this administration because she’s broken every single promise, and she continues to mislead the people of Chicago, where she just espoused about a 3.5% income tax on people who make $100,000 a year or more,” Johnson. “It’s just a lie. It’s not in my budget plan.”

That proposal is backed by the United Working Families political group that has endorsed Johnson, but he himself has not thrown support behind such a tax. Lightfoot claimed on the campaign trail on the West Side this weekend that Johnson would enact that levy, an indication she is shifting her attacks during the final stretch before Election Night on Johnson, who could peel away support from Black and progressive voters.

At Monday’s forum, Lightfoot jumped in again and challenged Johnson to vow he would not impose a 3.5% income tax.

“I’m happy to respond. If he doesn’t agree with taxing people over $100,000, say right now here that you will never support such a plan,” Lightfoot said. “The floor is yours.” After a moment, Lightfoot added, “Silence is deafening.”

“I just said that, Madame Mayor,” Johnson rebutted, accusing Lightfoot of misleading residents. “It’s why folks have lost confidence in her.”

While Johnson’s budget plan does not call for a city income tax, he has said he would support a renewed push for a statewide graduated income tax. That proposal, pushed by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, failed at the ballot box in 2020.

Johnson’s budget plan calls for a $4 per employee head tax at large companies who perform 50% or more of their work in Chicago, a roughly nine-cents-per-gallon charge on jet fuel, and a boost in the real estate transfer tax on homes valued at more than $1 million. He ultimately walked back a plank that would impose a Metra tax on commuters heading to the city from the suburbs.

Lightfoot wasn’t the only one attacking Johnson on Monday. Community activist Ja’Mal Green accused the West Side commissioner of pandering to white progressives while residents in his district’s Black neighborhoods lack resources.

“Brandon Johnson continues to bring up him (living) in Austin,” Green said. “But the reality of the situation is that he’s faking his way through this race. He is lying and trying to make progressive white people on the North Side believe that he cares about Black people.”

Johnson largely ignored Green, saying the criticism proves he is a “frontrunner.”

“I’m not going to take responsibility for white supremacy, but the fact of the matter is that we have lived under a structural imbalance for a very long time,” Johnson said. “And I’m happy to have a multi-generational, multicultural movement that has obviously prepared me and has propelled me into a frontrunner status.”

Green escalated the attacks.

“Brandon Johnson, please stop lying about the lived experiences, because you don’t have any, and I’m actually living them each and every day and you are a fraud,” Green said. Johnson has often touted his bona fides as a father in Austin who has “no greater incentive” to make the city work.

Other topics covered in Monday night’s forum included what candidates would do to increase Black cops among Chicago police ranks, which are disproportionately white compared to the city’s overall population. According to the Chicago Inspector General’s public safety dashboard, 43.6% of the current sworn officers in the Chicago Police Department are white, 32% are Hispanic, and roughly 20% are Black.

Former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas said he would recruit from military bases and high school ROTC programs.

“You get real diversity when you recruit directly from the military,” Vallas said.

Lightfoot said she agrees with Vallas about recruiting from military basis and said the police academy has been graduating “some of the most diverse classes that we’ve seen in a significant amount of time.”

State Rep. Kambium “Kam” Buckner said the number of Black sworn officers has continued to decrease.

“We can talk about diversity, we want to, but equity requires specificity. And so this administration has not done that,” he said, calling for the elimination of “racist barriers that keep young Black folks” out of the police force, like misdemeanor marijuana charges or a bad credit score.

Johnson, meanwhile, took the chance to speculate that more people of color might be willing to join the police department if they don’t have to “serve with members of the Proud Boys,” a reference to Lightfoot’s administration suspending but not firing Robert Bakker, an officer who allegedly lied about his affiliation with the extremist group, citing an inconclusive investigation.

“Black people call police more than anyone else in the city of Chicago, and we hate when they show up,” Johnson said before speaking broadly on making all city departments more “equitable.”

Businessman Willie Wilson called for a loosening of testing standards for Chicago police recruits, noting his own lack of education.

“People up here right now, probably nobody would hire me because I only got a seventh grade education,” Wilson said. “But I beat them all making money.”

Ald. Sophia King said she would “lean on” groups like the National Organization for Black Law Enforcement. “It’s a $115,000 per year job. It has benefits, it has insurance… it’s a livable job,” King said, but is unattractive to new recruits because cops have been demoralized. “We can’t continue to do that and expect people to want to come into that profession.

On the subject of education, the candidates mostly agreed on a series of yes or no questions. No one raised their hand after the first prompt about whether they would close any CPS schools. But Wilson, who has indicated he would be willing to shutter low-enrollment campuses said: “But see, I don’t think that’s a fair question.”

On whether there is a need to reform selective enrollment high schools, everyone raised their hand in affirmation except Wilson. And all candidates except Buckner, Wilson and Lightfoot indicated they had or currently have children enrolled in CPS.

Johnson spoke about disparities in offerings from school to school in CPS and claimed the mayor was leaving “$1 billion on the table” in available state funds.

”I don’t know what Mr. Commissioner Johnson is even talking about,” Lightfoot retorted before referring to the work stoppages during COVID-19 by the Chicago Teachers Union, which endorsed Johnson.

“Ninety-five percent of the monies that we get are going into our school classrooms, and we’re making sure that schools are staying open,” Lightfoot said, noting Johnson and CTU “fought to keep schools closed.”

During a question about housing affordability, Lightfoot and U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García tussled over Lightfoot’s signature program, Invest South/West, and García’s reputation among Black Chicagoans.

Lightfoot flexed, “What we have done is pump hundreds of millions of dollars into those communities to help support homeownership.” But García shrugged that off.

”The mayor likes to say all kinds of things. Unfortunately, most people in Chicago don’t believe anything she says with respect to her signature program,” García said. “It’s mostly hypothetical numbers.”

Lightfoot scoffed and said, ”Congressman, come along with me to the 10 communities where we are making a tangible difference in concrete ways. I know you don’t know Black Chicago that well —”

”I live on the West Side. … I live in K-Town,” García, who is from Little Village, shot back, using a nickname for a part of the Lawndale community area. “Maybe you don’t come there from Logan Square.”

Meanwhile, Ald. Roderick Sawyer’s most assertive response was after he was asked at the beginning how he expects to win a citywide election when he was forced into a runoff during his latest race to retain his City Council seat.

”Well, if you were to ask Harold Washington that question in ‘77, you might have convinced him not to run,” Sawyer said, referencing a failed bid from the man who later became the first Black mayor of Chicago. “One, I won the race. … But what I learned from that election is that I don’t talk about myself enough. I don’t talk about the accomplishments I have on the City Council, which are many. I don’t espouse them on social media. I’m not that kind of person.”