City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin touched off a political firestorm Wednesday by declaring that the city’s $10 billion portfolio her office controls will no longer invest in U.S. Treasury bonds to protest what she called the “authoritarian regime” of President Donald Trump.
“Chicagoans do not want us to bankroll the regime — the authoritarian regime — of Donald Trump where he has waged a war on our city,” said Conyears-Ervin, one of thirteen Democratic candidates and fifteen candidates overall vying to succeed retiring U.S. Rep. Danny Davis in the 7th Congressional District.
“In the past three years, our office has held over $200 million in Treasury securities,” Conyears-Ervin said, speaking at a hearing on Mayor Brandon Johnson’s proposed 2026 budget. “Beginning today, I have directed my staff to boycott the purchase of United States Treasury securities.”
Ald. Ray Lopez (15th) reacted incredulously at what he called a unilateral decision by one of three citywide elected officials to “no longer support the United States.”
“I thought my ears deceived me. Did you just say that you were going to disinvest from the United States?… Are we not an American city? Is not our oath to the United States?” Lopez asked Ervin.
“I’m trying to make sure I understand why an American city which 53 members of its elected body take an oath to the United States Constitution to support, defend — that is our values. To say we’re not going to invest in our values? Saying that we no longer as a city support the United States of America?” said Lopez.
Conyears-Ervin replied, “It’s a bold statement, isn’t it? And we need it to be.”
Lopez countered, “Actually, I think it’s a very dangerous and reckless statement. … Your goal is to manage our investments in things that actually produce money.”
Conyears-Ervin acknowledged that U.S. Treasury bonds have yielded a healthy return for Chicago taxpayers. But she argued that the return was the same as corporate bonds, money market accounts and asset-backed securities.
“There are many instruments that produce a rate of return. … We’re going to invest in others that will provide a competitive rate of return, and we will not compromise the safety of the assets, the liquidity of the assets or the rate of return,” she said.
Northwest Side Ald. Anthony Napolitano, who represents the 41st Ward, said he was so appalled by the treasurer’s statement that he had to walk out of the Council chambers to cool off.
“In my short 10 years down here, I’ve never been so upset or so angered by a statement that someone has said — and there’s been a lot of terrible things said down here in the past,” Napolitano said. “You came in here on a [political] campaign instead of a budget report, and I don’t think this is the forum for that. … I don’t think [you should] make a judgment for the entire city of Chicago based on your political views.
“What you did was completely wrong. … We’re supposed to be one country.”
Ald. Nick Sposato (38th) said he was there to listen — not to “pick a fight” with Conyears-Ervin, the wife of Budget Committee Chair Jason Ervin (28th). But he said he was disappointed with the treasurer’s decision.
“We’re not at war with the president of our country,” said Sposato, a Trump supporter and one of the most conservative members of the Council.
Ald. Bill Conway (34th), a former investment banker whose billionaire father is the founder of the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm, said it is a “pretty well-known axiom that the United States Treasury is by far the most liquid and secure debt instrument in the history of the world.”
“You perhaps may want to rethink that decision” to boycott U.S. Treasury bonds, he told Conyears-Ervin.
