After days of refusing to comment on a controversy surrounding a member of his leadership team, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson broke his silence on 25th Ward Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, showing support for the two-term alderman.
“I don’t even know why this is being debated, quite frankly. It’s actually quite disturbing that as a city we are having a conversation about protective speech in America,” Johnson said while touring a Chinatown apartment complex receiving a multi-million dollar federal grant.
Sigcho-Lopez was called out Wednesday by a group of aldermen and veterans after photos surfaced of him speaking in front of a burned American flag, after it was burned at the same event by a protester.
“We are not accusing him of violating any constitutional right, but we are saying is his conduct, his speech was reprehensible to a point where we are demanding he give account for his actions,” 29th Ward Alderman Chris Taliaferro said.
He and eight other City Council members have signed a letter to the mayor demanding he remove Sigcho-Lopez from his position as Chairman of the City Council’s Housing and Real Estate Committee.
Speaking to NBC Chicago political editor Mary Ann Ahern on Wednesday, Sigcho-Lopez said he wasn’t there to witness the flag burning while doubling down on why he attended the event, which called for both an end to the U.S. funding of Israel amid their war with Hamas and the cancellation of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this summer.
“They want me to apologize for something that I wasn’t witness of. I cannot apologize for something I didn’t do,” Sigcho-Lopez said.
Johnson said that Sigcho-Lopez was qualified for his leadership team while slamming the City Council members calling for his ouster.
“Under my administration, I fully expect that the City Council recognizes its responsibility and that it will not move forward in the type of fascist forms of expression that have left too many of our country in desperate peril,” Johnson said.
The dissenting aldermen are calling for a special meeting of the City Council to discuss the Sigcho-Lopez incident sometime next week.