From the Chicago Sun-Times

Gov raising money at record clip
August 3, 2004
BY CHRIS FUSCO AND DAN ROZEK Staff Reporters

Even though he won't face an opponent until 2006, Gov. Blagojevich continued
to raise campaign money at a record pace the first six months of this year.
Blagojevich raked in more than $4.9 million in cash and more than $121,000
in donations of flights, food and supplies for fund-raising events, state
records show. The largest single cash donation -- $100,000 -- came from the
Democratic Governors' Association in Washington, D.C., which raises money
for Democratic gubernatorial candidates across the country.
Monday marked the deadline for Blagojevich and other Illinois politicians to
disclose how much they raised and spent between Jan. 1 and June 30. All
told, the governor ended the reporting period with $10.2 million in his war
chest -- the largest amount by far of any state constitutional officeholder.
Most of the money raised so far this year came from a June 17 fund-raiser
the governor hosted at the Field Museum, said Kelly Glynn, finance director
for Friends of Blagojevich. The governor also went to California for a brief
fund-raising swing in January.
"Fund-raising is a part of the political process that allows the governor to
maintain his independence," Glynn said. "The governor doesn't like to do
fund-raising, so we do one major event."
The report shows Blagojevich continues the common Illinois practice of
getting contributions from businesses with state contracts.
The governor accepted $15,000 from owners of Knight Infrastructure LLC, an
engineering firm that has won nearly $40 million in state business,
including a $30 million construction management contract for the state's new
$30 million World Shooting Complex in Downstate Sparta.
As of last month, the wife of former Bear Stearns & Co. senior managing
director Nicholas Hurtgen owned a 3.5 percent stake in Knight. Hurtgen
resigned from Bear Stearns in the wake of a federal investigation into state
hospital construction approvals.
The consulting firm ACS State and Local Solutions gave the governor $10,000
and has a $17.8 million state contract this year. And the engineering firm
Bowman, Barrett and Associates, a $15,000 donor to Blagojevich, has
contracts worth $7.6 million.
Among Blagojevich's expenditures was at least $140,000 for political
consultants as he faced off with lawmakers over how to close a $2.3 billion
budget deficit. The session dragged on for a record 54 overtime days and
ended with a budget accord July 24.
Unlike Blagojevich, Mayor Daley raised only $27,365 between Jan. 1 and June
30, but he still had nearly $3.3 million left to spend for another run in
2007.
Legal fees continued to comprise a large chunk of candidates' expenditures,
with dozens of political committees spending more than $400,000 on lawyers
during the first six months of the year.
Among the biggest legal spenders was Robert Shaw, who had been challenging
his Democratic primary loss in the Cook County Board of Review race. Records
show Shaw spent about $80,000.
The state Senate Democrats' fund spent nearly $28,000 on legal fees, while
the state House Republicans spent nearly $32,400. The House Republicans'
legal tab included nearly $8,000 in payments to two firms that specialize in
criminal defense. Former House Republican leader Lee Daniels has been part
of a federal inquiry regarding campaign workers doing political work on
state time.
Contributing: AP