From the St. Louis Post Dispatch:

Contributions and contracts are traced
By Kevin McDermott
POST-DISPATCH SPRINGFIELD BUREAU
10/24/2007

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — A new Illinois website announced Tuesday will allow Internet users to easily identify connections between campaign contributions and state contracts — a tool that proponents hope will shame Gov. Rod Blagojevich and other elected officials into severing those alleged "pay to play" connections.

"Track a state contract back far enough, and there's a good chance that a campaign contribution was made to the right person at the right time," said Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes, whose office started the website.

Hynes has imposed an internal policy of not accepting campaign contributions from contractors with which his office does business. He says the point of the website is to prompt other officials — including fellow Democrat Blagojevich — to enact similar policies, and ultimately to write it into state law.

"There is a 'shame' element here," Hynes said.

Illinois already has among the nation's most advanced Internet-based systems for searching political contributions, and state contracts also are posted online. But putting all that information together and tracing connections between those contributions and contracts requires some technical expertise.

The system presented Tuesday makes those searches easier. The user can type in a name or partial name of a company or person, and the system will draw information from both the contribution and contractor databases and present them side by side.

There are no campaign contribution restrictions in Illinois. Political reform groups and journalists have for years highlighted instances in which prominent campaign donors give large donations to sitting governors or other top officials, while landing state-funded contracts from those same officials.

The practice has been especially notable in Blagojevich's administration, where millions of dollars in contacts for legal, construction and other work have been granted to people who contribute heavily to Blagojevich's campaign fund.

A Blagojevich spokeswoman said Tuesday that the administration favored reform of the system but wanted it to be part of a broader reform package that would address more than just donations from contractors.

The website is at www.OpenBook.ioc.state.il.us.

+++++++++