Chicago mayor tightens ethics rules
One of Rahm Emanuel’s first actions as the new mayor of Chicago was to tighten the city’s ethics rules. With three executive orders, Emanuel put limits on lobbying and gift giving by city employees, and he also signed three orders on ethics originally issued by his predecessor, Mayor Richard Daley.
Emanuel issued the new executive orders just hours after being sworn into the office on Monday. The first order prohibits appointees to city government positions under his administration from lobbying the city for two years after leaving the administration. The order also bars lower level employees from lobbying the departments or agencies in which they work and appointees to boards and commissions from lobbying the board or commission on which they sit.
The second executive order protects city employees against pressure to give gifts or make political contributions to their superiors, including department heads and the mayor. The third order prohibits city lobbyists from making political contributions to the mayor. “Chicagoans want to see change in the way their city government does business,” Emanuel said in a statement. “The executive orders I am signing today will bring that change by reining in the influence of lobbyists and protecting city employees against pressure from their superiors. These executive orders will help restore Chicagoans’ confidence in their city government.”
The three orders from Daley include a ban on political contributions to the mayor from the owners of companies that do business with the city, an order requiring city employees to comply with the hiring oversight rules adopted under current state law, and an order reaffirming that it is the duty of every city employee to report wrongdoing to the Inspector General.
Read Emanuel’s statement and download the executive orders.
