Chicago City Wire

Congressional candidate Jeanne Ives said although she understands public concerns with police departments following the death of George Floyd in the custody of Minneapolis police officers, she opposes the idea of cutting funding for law enforcement.

Instead, Ives, a Republican, said she remains a strong supporter of the police and an ardent foe of rioting and violence in the streets.

She said this is a distinct difference between her and her opponent, U.S. Rep. Sean Casten, a Democrat, who has not condemned such destructive behavior.

“For obvious reasons this is a dangerous idea,” Ives said in a statement. “We saw the anarchy that broke out in Chicago when police were overwhelmed. And we saw an estimated 2,000 people march peacefully in Wheaton where there was a strong police presence.

“[Chicago Mayor] Lori Lightfoot, in fact, told reporters, ‘What I’ve heard from people in neighborhoods is that they want more police protection not less.’ Congresswoman Casten needs to use his platform to advocate for responsible policy, that will bring about calm not chaos. It should take zero political courage for him to disavow this radical idea.”

The idea of defunding police departments has gained traction since Floyd’s death three weeks ago. A veto-proof majority of the Minneapolis City Council say it will move forward with that idea, while Mayor Jacob Frey was booed away from an anti-police rally in Minneapolis when he refused to say if he would support defunding the department.

New York City, Los Angeles and other cities have seen discussions of reducing funding for police. A rally in Union Park on June 5, followed by a march through the Near West Side and West Town, protested police misconduct and called for police and the National Guard to stand down and not interfere with peaceful protests.

Speakers advocated using a large share of the Chicago Police Department’s $1 billion annual budget for rent relief, mental health clinics, COVID-19 testing and providing personal protective equipment to health care workers. Some Chicago Public Schools teachers also have called for reducing police funding.

Lightfoot, a Democrat, said she opposes defunding the department.

“Since the onset of these events, Mayor Lightfoot and Chicago Schools Supt. [David] Brown have been unequivocally resolute that police misconduct of any kind will not be tolerated and those found committing wrongdoing will be held fully accountable,” her office said in a statement. “Just as the overwhelming majority of protests remained peaceful this week, the vast majority of officers followed their training and supervisor direction during these difficult times. Nonetheless, we will continue to vigorously investigate all reports of excessive force arising from this week.”

Ives said reform is needed and can be done to ensure greater public safety.

“We can always do better and we must do better in training our police to de-escalate conflict and make safer arrests,” she told Chicago City Wire. “We need more transparency in reporting of police contacts and complaints, better recruiting and the universal use of body cameras. There are other areas that need to be evaluated like no-knock police actions.”

Ives is a former three-term state representative who sought the Republican nomination for governor in 2018. She lost to Gov. Bruce Rauner in the GOP primary.

This year she cruised to a lopsided win (71 percent to 29 percent) in the March 17 Republican primary to take on Rep. Casten to represent Illinois' Sixth Congressional District. 

Ives is 1987 West Point graduate who served as a platoon leader and headquarters detachment commander for transportation units in Germany and was an ROTC instructor at Wheaton College.

A Wheaton resident for 27 years, she lives with her husband Paul, who also graduated from West Point in 1987. They have five children. The two oldest sons are in the military and one is also a West Point graduate.

Ives served on the Wheaton City Council before being elected to the Illinois Legislature in 2012. She has written columns that have published in the Chicago Tribune, The Federalist and the Wall Street Journal as well as several political outlets.