A group of Chicago aldermen want to ban people involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol Building — including the ones recently pardoned by President Donald Trump — from working for the city.
Four City Council members plan to introduce a resolution later this month directing the city’s Human Resources Commissioner to “reject or disqualify” all applicants to city jobs who participated in the 2021 riot.
The measure’s backers include Ald. Matt Martin, 47th, and the council’s three veteran or active-duty military members: Alds. Chris Taliaferro, 29th, Bill Conway, 34th, and Gilbert Villegas, 36th.
The goal, Martin said, is to send a “crystal clear message.”
“When you attack the government, you don’t get to subsequently work in government,” Martin said.
Martin said the resolution was workshopped in an effort to make sure it effectively blocks Jan. 6 participants from city work. He said he believes the legislation, which he called “common sense,” would be binding and enforceable.
Aldermen shared the proposed resolution with the Tribune a week after Gov. JB Pritzker undertook his own effort to block Jan. 6 participants from state government jobs. Pritzker directed the state’s top hiring official to consider Jan. 6 participation as disqualifying and called the riot “infamous and disgraceful conduct that is antithetical to the mission of the state.”
Mayor Brandon Johnson’s press office did not respond when asked about the City Council effort Thursday. Johnson praised Pritzker’s Jan. 6 employment ban as “the right action to do” at a news conference Tuesday, but stopped short of endorsing any soon-to-come similar move for the city.
“We’re going to continue to have conversations about how do we make sure that the best and the brightest individuals show up and work for our government, but we have not made any decisions around any particular group that we would consider restricting,” Johnson said.
The resolution would block Jan. 6 participants from joining the Chicago Police Department, as well as all other city departments, Martin said.
Johnson has so far not implemented policies called for by city Inspector General Deborah Witzburg to eliminate “extremist and anti-government activities and associations within CPD” sparked by the ties of several officers to the far-right Oath Keepers, Witzburg’s office said in July. The group’s founder, Steward Rhodes, was convicted of seditious conspiracy in connection with the riot and sentenced to 18 years in prison before being released when Trump commuted his sentence last month.
Villegas, a Marine Corps veteran, said he hopes to introduce the resolution this month, likely setting him up to push for its passage in March. Trump’s decision to pardon the Jan. 6 “insurrectionists” sends “the wrong message,” he said.
The oath he took to protect America’s peaceful transfers of power “doesn’t have an expiration date,” he said.
“People that wanted to overthrow the government based on a lie, a big lie, I think they don’t deserve to work in government,” he said. “We have to stand up and fight against this.”
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