Mayor Brandon Johnson’s campaign fund has returned most of a $50,000 contribution it accepted a year and a half ago from a political action committee led by a City Hall lobbyist whose law firm has a city contract to collect outstanding utility bills.
Chicago ethics rules bar campaign contributions to a mayor by city lobbyists and city contractors. The Friends of Brandon Johnson campaign fund appears to have repeatedly violated those restrictions since Johnson took office in May 2023, prompting tens of thousands of dollars in refunds, the Chicago Sun-Times has reported.
The latest give-back appears to have been prompted by City Hall Inspector General Deborah Witzburg finding that the $50,000 given by the Chicago Latino Public Affairs Committee in June 2023 “exceeded the contribution limits set forth in” Chicago’s city code.
That law “prohibits an entity and its subsidiaries, parent company or otherwise affiliated company who has done business with the city within the preceding four reporting years from making campaign contributions in an aggregate amount exceeding $1,500 to any candidate for city office,” according to a letter the inspector general sent in November to the PAC led by attorney and lobbyist Homero Tristan.
The inspector general’s letter told Tristan’s committee it had 10 days “to request the return [of] the excess financial contribution of $48,500 from Friends of Brandon Johnson.”
Tristan says that, when he learned the “contribution was in excess of allowable limits and that we should notify the mayor’s campaign, we promptly complied and are deemed not to be in violation of the ethics ordinance.”
The $48,500 was returned by Johnson’s campaign to Tristan’s fund in late December, according to a report filed with the Illinois State Board of Elections this month.
Witzburg’s office won’t comment.
Tristan says his committee, which says it supports “the advancement of Latino issues, policy and politics,” has backed “numerous candidates and officials over the years at all levels of government” and that the contribution to Johnson didn’t come “from any personal money or law firm funds.”
His committee is based in the same Loop office as his law firm, Tristan & Cervantes, LLC. Tristan is the political fund’s chairman and treasurer, records show.
The inspector general’s letter says the agency “determined that Tristan & Cervantes, LLC maintains a high degree of control over” Tristan’s political fund, so the two “are treated as a single person for purposes of the rules at issue.”
Tristan & Cervantes does lobbying work at City Hall, where, records show, Tristan lobbied members of the Chicago City Council in 2024 on behalf of Oracle, the software giant.
Tristan’s firm also has a contract with City Hall to help collect outstanding utility bills.
Ethics rules put in place by then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2011 ban city lobbyists and contractors from contributing to any mayor’s campaign fund. But enforcement has been spotty, and it’s unclear whether the restrictions apply in this case because neither Tristan nor his law firm gave directly to Johnson, with the $50,000 coming from the political fund Tristan runs.
Johnson aides won’t comment.
Tristan’s committee is the defendant in a lawsuit the state elections board filed last year seeking nearly $50,000 in penalties for not following the public reporting guidelines required of political committees. That appears to be unrelated to the Johnson contribution and refund.
Tristan’s political fund has given about $700,000 to politicians and political groups since 2010, including more than $37,000 to state Sen. Martin Sandoval, D-Chicago, who died in 2020 after pleading guilty to corruption charges.
Tristan’s committee has taken in numerous contributions over the years, including $41,000 since 2012 from the company behind the Riot Fest music festival, which Tristan & Cervantes lobbied for at City Hall.
Tristan and businesses associated with him have given his political fund more than $70,000 over the years, records show.
Tristan briefly was City Hall’s human resources commissioner under former Mayor Richard M. Daley, before resigning in 2009 amid an internal investigation into accusations regarding patronage hiring.
Tristan & Cervantes started working for City Hall prior to Johnson taking office as mayor.
Johnson isn’t the first mayor to return money to Tristan’s committee. Emanuel gave back a $5,000 contribution from the group in 2015.
The Sun-Times reported last year that Johnson’s campaign returned a $1,500 contribution, made days before his 2023 inauguration, that came from a Texas law firm that had been hired by the city to collect money owed for traffic tickets, water bills and other payments.
But Johnson’s campaign kept other contributions made by that firm’s lawyers around the same time.