From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Jim Ryan trails in donations

August 1, 2002

BY SCOTT FORNEK AND DAVE MCKINNEY STAFF REPORTERS

Republican gubernatorial nominee Jim Ryan is doing better at fund-raising than failed Democratic hopeful Glenn Poshard was four years ago--but just barely.

That was about the only good news for Ryan in campaign disclosure documents that were due Wednesday, covering activity over the first six months of the year.

Gov. Ryan had his own embarrassment in the documents, reporting he has shelled out another $1.7 million in legal fees to lawyers who were defending him and his campaign fund in the licenses-for-bribes scandal.

Attorney General Jim Ryan is no relation to the governor and is not involved in his troubles, but the whole GOP cloud appears to have dampened the gubernatorial nominee's efforts to raise the money he needs to compete in the months before the Nov. 5 election.

The $689,809 Ryan had in the bank June 30 topped the $511,279 that Poshard had at this point in 1998, but it's dramatically less than all other major party candidates for governor raised in the last four elections. Gov. Ryan had $4.8 million at this point in 1998, and Jim Edgar had $5.2 million in 1994.

Democratic rival Rod Blagojevich took in $7,943,830 in cash and donated goods and services during the period and had $3,822,477 left as of June 30. Jim Ryan raised $5,162,912 and had just the $689,809 in the bank.

"This may be the first time in decades the Democrats have had more money going into the general election, but Blagojevich still has to make the sale," said Kent Redfield, a campaign-finance researcher at the University of Illinois at Springfield. "People don't really know who he is."

Both candidates spent millions on bruising primary campaigns, but Jim Ryan has also been plagued by a string of problems, including having to waste weeks in an embarrassing search to secure a new state party chairman.

Ryan spokesman Dan Curry downplayed the funding disparity, arguing the attorney general has been outspent in past races and still won. And Curry blasted Blagojevich for his fund-raising prowess, arguing it is only possible because he has missed more than half his votes in Congress this year.

"His ability to raise lots of money is made possible because he has all but abandoned his sworn duties as a congressman," Curry said.

Blagojevich spokesman Doug Scofield called such talk "hypocritical for an attorney general who stood by and did nothing during the largest political scandal in the history of our state."

"If Jim Ryan is having trouble raising money, it is because he is not raising issues of importance to the people of Illinois," Scofield said.

Blagojevich's largest contribution was $500,000 from the Service Employees International Union. Blagojevich's other top contributors include the Illinois Federation of Teachers, which backed up its July endorsement with a $320,000 donation. The law firm of Joe Power, a regular Democratic donor who helped uncover the commercial driver's license scandal dogging Gov. Ryan, kicked in $125,000, and wealthy investment banker Blair Hull, a potential 2004 U.S. Senate candidate, gave him $122,000.

Jim Ryan's top donor was the Republican National Elections Committee, which gave him $250,000. Next came Stuart P. Levine, a lawyer and longtime friend, who donated $187,290 in cash and rides on his jet. The Illinois Hospital and Health Systems Association gave $158,000. Schiller Park contractor Thomas Grusecki kicked in $61,000, and the Illinois State Medical Society gave $50,000.

Ryan's campaign-finance report also shows he gave nearly $315,000 in work to Unistat, a direct-mail firm then owned by former state Rep. Roger Stanley, who was later indicted for corruption. "When it became clear they were the subject of a federal investigation, we dropped their services," Curry said.

Meanwhile, the $1.79 million Gov. Ryan spent during the last six months on legal fees illustrates his deepening legal problems tied to the federal government's Operation Safe Road investigation into corruption in the secretary of state office Ryan once led.

Of that amount, $1 million was ordered into escrow last month by U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer in a move to ensure the fund would not be bled dry by lawyers and left unable to pay any potential criminal fines that might arise against it. The Altheimer & Gray law firm, which has represented Ryan throughout the federal probe, took in $561,686--more than the amount paid to any of the other nine legal advisers.

Altheimer & Gray was disqualified from representing the campaign fund in June after the judge determined the firm faced a conflict of interest by representing other defendants in the criminal probe.