Our Campaign Finance Laws Are Broken
The Supreme Court chamber in Springfield.
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OPINION
A story this weekend highlighting how a Democratic group blew off campaign finance reporting laws to hide their expenditures in heavily contested Supreme Court races shows the glaring holes in our finance and ethics laws.
Per the great Rick Pearson and Ray Long at the Tribune (and why re-write the same facts that they already write better than me?), the All for Justice PAC, run by a close associate and lawyer for Senate President Don Harmon failed to report their major expenses in two contested Supreme Court races in a seeming attempt to hide their strategic decisions.
From the Trib:
The failure of All for Justice to follow the disclosure guidelines mandated by state election law obscured its pro-Democratic spending in the critical months preceding the November races in which the partisan balance of the Illinois Supreme Court was up for grabs.
By not following the disclosure rules, the spending by All for Justice — which represented a quarter of the more than $23 million spent overall on the two Supreme Court races and nearly 40% of the money behind the Democratic candidates — went undisclosed until months after the election.
All for Justice was formed in August 2022 as an independent expenditure political action committee, which can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to support or oppose candidates but cannot coordinate its spending with the contenders it backs.
Because it began spending money on Sept. 29, within 60 days of the Nov. 8 election, All for Justice was required to file detailed public reports within two days for each expenditure of $1,000 or more that it made on behalf of Rochford and O’Brien or against Republican opponents Mark Curran and Michael Burke. Instead, they filed nothing.
Here’s the rub: they knew exactly what they were doing.
A spokesman for the Illinois State Board of Elections says the Board has the ability to fine a committee $3,000 per offense for multiple offenses. Even 20 missed reports would coast the committee somewhere in the range of $60,000. That’s easily replaced by one check from a big Democratic donor.
It's also worth mentioning the guy who blew off the reporting, Luke Casson, is a former in house lawyer for Harmon, but has also been defending Harmon in multiple ongoing legal matters. The left hand knows what the far left hand is doing.
Democrats wrote the laws and sure as heck know how to take advantage of them.
Why face any real consequences? You had better believe if a Republican PAC had pulled the stunt in November, the law would have been changed already.
“They’re getting away with what should be criminal fraud,” said one top Republican. “Our campaign finance laws are a joke.”
The Board of Elections is relatively toothless in the scenario and Democrats in control know it. Campaign finance laws should allow the state to revoke a committee’s ability to operate. And, if there is seriously shady repeat offender, there should be criminal consequences.
A spokesman for the board won’t way if members want to crack down on abuse to campaign finance laws.
But for now, there’s no incentive to play by the rules if all you have to do is pay a small fine.
That doesn’t help anyone.