From the Sun-Times:

Stroger's political fund fined about $25,000

November 19, 2007
BY CHRIS FUSCO Staff Reporter/
Cook County Board President Todd Stroger’s political fund was fined today for failing to report $255,816 in campaign contributions until three months after Stroger won election in 2006.

The Illinois State Board of Elections leveled against Friends of Todd Stroger a fine of $25,581 — an amount equivalent to 10 percent of the contributions that weren’t reported properly. The Stroger fund also was assessed a separate $1,175 fine for failing to file his campaign’s organizing statement on time.

Stroger’s 2006 foe, Republican Cook County Commissioner Tony Peraica, had filed a complaint with elections officials asking that Stroger’s fund be fined the full $255,816. But the eight-member election board concluded the fund is a first-time violator of state campaign-finance laws, prompting the lower fine.

State law mandates that all contributions of more than $500 received in the 30 days before an election be reported within two business days so people can know who’s behind candidates in the home stretch.

Election officials and Peraica cited nearly 80 contributions that weren’t properly disclosed.

Had the Stroger campaign reported them properly, it might have had an impact on the county board race, Peraica said.

“It would have been a political embarrassment to show all these insiders making donations in the waning days of the campaign,” Peraica said.

Stroger campaign attorney Burt Odelson had argued for a smaller fine, saying last month “there were ambiguities in the law.”