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The questionnaire was sent to the nine candidates running for Chicago Mayor in the 2023 election. All candidates answered civil rights questions except for Mayor Lightfoot, who declined to participate. We thank each candidate who submitted their results to us; the purpose of this mayoral questionnaire is to help Chicagoans better understand how each candidate’s future mayoral administration will address pressing and systemic civil rights issues.

Excerpts of the candidates’ responses can be found here.

Here’s what we asked:

1. Describe the important components of your public safety plan that do not concern investment in the Chicago Police Department and hiring of additional police officers. See responses.
2. Pretextual traffic stops and gun searches by the Chicago Police have skyrocketed in recent years, often without proper data reporting. In 2020, Black drivers in Chicago were pulled over 7x more often than white drivers. Advocates say that this pattern of selective enforcement exacerbates already strained community relations with law enforcement. What will you as mayor do to identify and remedy racial disparities in policing practices? See responses.
3. Chicago is one of the most heavily surveilled cities in the world. Currently, Chicago’s surveillance system includes 50,000+ City video cameras, thousands of business and residential cameras, facial recognition databases, social media monitoring in Chicago Public Schools, the costly and ineffective ShotSpotter technology, and many other technologies. To date, the City Council has not held a single hearing or considered any ordinance to protect personal privacy in Chicago. What will you do as mayor to protect Chicagoans’ privacy and ensure that personal data is not kept indefinitely by City agencies? Will you commit to holding City Council hearings on any new surveillance technologies? See responses.
4. The City of Chicago has a long record of governmental secrecy and cover-ups. Cook County judges, in response to transparency lawsuits, have regularly found City agencies to be unlawfully withholding public records. Will you implement a City-wide transparency policy? Will you commit to releasing public records when it is in the public interest to do so even if there is a legal basis to withhold them? See responses.
5. How would you describe the effectiveness of the City’s police accountability mechanisms, and what concrete steps are you prepared to take to create meaningful accountability for misconduct within the Chicago Police Department? See responses.
6. What concrete steps will you take as Mayor to recognize and redress police abuses that have affected Chicago’s Black and Brown communities? Consider the Burge, Watts, and Guevara scandals, among others. See responses.
7. A recent report highlighted persistent problems with police officers lying, both in their reports and under oath, and a “blue wall of silence” that protects these dishonest officers and stops them from being discovered or disciplined. How will your administration make sure that lying and perjury are aggressively addressed? How will your administration break down the blue wall of silence and make it safe for whistleblowers to come forward? See responses.

Click through the questions here to see how the candidates answered civil rights questions. You can also find the long form responses here.