Chicago Mayor's Nasty Text Interactions Revealed
While it it ostensibly true that Americans are growing accustomed to our politicians’ less noble whims, some of the unadulterated tenacity that we’ve seen in recent years is off-putting, to say the least.
This has been undeniably true in Chicago, an already gruff city, where the Mayor isn’t exactly known for her tact.
This week was no exception.
The Chicago Tribune has obtained many of Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s (D) text messages that reveal combative interactions with aldermen and city workers while shedding light on how the Democrat mayor runs the crime-ridden Windy City.
The outlet obtained upwards of two and a half years of the mayor’s text messages through Freedom of Information Act requests. “Her staff failed to comply… until the state attorney general admonished them and the Tribune threatened a lawsuit,” the outlet reports. The admonishment and lawsuit threat led to Lightfoot’s office producing hundreds of pages of documents, including the mayor’s text messages.
For instance:
One text exchange with Ald. Pat Dowell was particularly eyebrow-raising. The mayor called someone “a dumb, dumb person of color.” The subject of the exchange centered around an October city council push headed by Ald. Silvana Tabares to hamper Lightfoot’s ability to enact a vaccine mandate without the council’s approval. Lightfoot suggested the political battle was merely about stripping her power, according to the Chicago tribune.
Advertisement - story continues below“It has everything to do with (Fraternal Order of Police president) John Cantazara. That racist SOB, trying to prove that he has more power than the black mayor and the black supt,” Lightfoot wrote in a text. “And Burke, per usual, found a dumb, dumb person of color to do his bidding. It is classic racial politics.”
And that’s not all.
In another incident, Ald. Nick Sposato texted the mayor in May of 2020.
“Shitso is an a——!” he wrote, which was apparently a reference to Byron Sigcho-Lopez, the Tribune reports.
“There are no words for that jackass,” Lightfoot responded.
The revelations will almost certainly act as a reminder to Chicagoans that their most powerful lawmakers are still lacking the sort of dignity that would catapult them to the next level of government.
