Emanuel Dodges Questions On City Benefits For Campaign Donors
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Mayor Rahm Emanuel side-stepped reports about his political fundraising practices, while making his own points about ethics reform.
At an unrelated news conference Monday, the mayor did not directly answer Chicago Tribune stories about how he seems to use his political connections to fuel his campaign fundraising, or how some donors benefit from city business.
Emanuel did say he has worked for ethics reform since he was in Congress, right up to his present job.
"The first thing I did as mayor was sign six executive orders that changed the culture, and the rules, as it relates to financial support. Not only that, I then also had three separate ethics reform ordinances put into place that changed the way both lobbyists dealt with the city, and the city dealt with people lobbying on behalf of interests," he said.
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The mayor said he won't rest until he makes all the changes that are needed.
"I do believe that we have, since Day One, made a dramatic change of how the city used to operate, but we're not done doing the things that are necessary to make the reforms throughout the culture, throughout the department," he said. "I do know that today is not like what it used to be for the last 30 or 40 years, from the federal oversight of our hiring, to our ethics laws, to the financial support, to making sure there's more transparency and more information available to everybody; and that's been part of my effort."
The mayor ended his news conference on that point.
