FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 18, 2003
CONTACT:
Cindi Canary, ICPR
312-335-1767
Kent Redfield, Sunshine Project
217-206-6572
Breaking their own record by more than a million dollars, the Illinois Education Association (IEA) made over $3.14 million in contributions in the 2002 election cycle. The Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT), along with its largest local, the Chicago Teachers Union, gave more that $1.95 million. Both the IEA and the IFT broke the old mark of $1.9 million set in the 1998 election cycle by the IEA.
The Sunshine Project and the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform (ICPR) compiled a list of the top 20 contributors to Illinois politics for 2001-2002 from reports filed by candidates with the Illinois State Board of Elections. The list is based on an examination of contributions to candidates for statewide office, the state legislature and State Supreme Court and appellate court positions for the time period of January 1, 2001 through December 31, 2002. It is posted at www.ilcampaign.org/top20/.
The next two groups in the ranking for 2001-2002 were health related. The Illinois Medical Society ranked third with $1.32 million in contributions, while Illinois Hospital Association gave $1.24 million to rank fourth. Ranking fifth and sixth were two labor unions, AFSCME ($988,000), a public employee union, and the national body of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) ($921,000). Rounding out the top ten were the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association ($803,000), companies and family members of Richard Duchossois ($788,000), the leading figure in horseracing in Illinois, the Associated Beer Distributors of Illinois ($778,000) and the Illinois Realtors Association (S700,155).
In the 1997-1998 election cycle, the IEA and the IFT gave a combined $2.8 million. The IEA was Governor George Ryan's single largest contributor ($273,000), while the IFT endorsed Ryan's challenger, Glen Poshard. In 2001-2002 both endorsed Rod Blagojevich. The IEA contributed $536,571 to his campaign, while the IFT contributed $667,558.
"The combined $5.09 million in contributions by the IEA and the IFT take their position as the most important funders of Illinois campaigns to a new level," said Kent Redfield, Director of the Sunshine Project, "as does their $1.2 million in contributions to the new governor."
Overall, the top 20 contributors gave more than $17.57 million in campaign contributions, an increase of more that $7 million over each of the previous two election cycles.
"While this kind of money may not buy policy directly," said Cindi Canary, Director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, "it does buy access." "Groups that are big givers get their phone calls returned, meetings set up and a place at the table when agendas are set and decisions are made. "Without contribution limits to even the playing field, groups with agendas differing from those of the top givers face uphill battles."
In-depth profiles of the top 20 contributors, the top individual contributors, the top 10 candidate and family loans, and the top 10 loans from outside interests are available at www.ilcampaign.org/top20/. Detailed expenditure data and a fully searchable database of campaign contribution activity through 12/31/02 will also be available on the site in the coming weeks.
Both the Sunshine
Project (located at the University of Illinois at Springfield) and the Illinois
Campaign for Political Reform are non-profit, non-partisan projects that work
to increase public awareness of how political campaigns are funded in Illinois.
For additional information on campaign fundraising in election 2002, please
visit www.ilcampaign.org.
Copyright
©2003 by The Illinois Campaign for Political Reform. All rights reserved.