For Immediate Release October 26, 2004

Contact: Cindi Canary (312) 335-1767

Fundraising totals in Illinois’ Supreme Court contest have now exceeded the last state record four times over, and have smashed the national record for candidate spending in a high court race. With one week to go, there are no signs that either side is slowing down.

Illinois Supreme Court (Fifth District)

Money is flooding into the race, but most of the funds come from a very few donors. And the largest donors appear themselves to be conduits for other interests, concerned mainly with tort reform.

Republican candidate Judge Karmeier’s biggest donor is the Illinois Republican Party, which reports $1.8 million in contributions. The Party, in turn, has reported $3 million raised for the general election, over $2 million of which came from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Judge Karmeier’s second largest supporter, the Illinois Civil Justice League, has given or spent $1 million for the high court race; they, in turn, have raised $1.2 million for the fall campaign, $375,000 of which came from the American Tort Reform Association, and $200,000 of which came from the U.S. Chamber. All told, the American Tort Reform Association has given $525,000 to Illinois parties or PACs, and the U.S. Chamber has sent $2.3 million to political groups in Illinois. Neither group has previously given significantly in Illinois.

The bulk of Appellate Court Justice and Democratic candidate Gordon Maag’s support flows through the Democratic Party of Illinois, which has taken hundreds of thousands from personal injury trial lawyers. Trial lawyers have traditionally been strong Democratic funders, but this year’s totals show new levels of support. The Democratic Party of Illinois reports over $5.8 million for the general election; the largest donor to the Party is Party Chair and Speaker of the House Michael J. Madigan. Between them, the Party and its Chairman report in excess of $2.1 million in receipts from trial lawyers and their firms.

Funds appear to be massing on the sidelines for the final week of the campaign. Both the Illinois Republican Party and the Civil Justice League have reported recent receipts from the U.S. Chamber and the ATRA which have not yet flowed through to the high court race. And a new PAC formed by Metro East residents, the Justice for All PAC, raised $550,000 in the week since it was formed, most of it from trial lawyers and their firms. We expect the candidates’ fundraising totals to continue to rise at the same dramatic pace.

For regular updates on campaign fundraising in this and other key races, please visit www.ilcampaign.org. Both the Sunshine Project and the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform are nonprofit, nonpartisan projects that work to increase public awareness of how political campaigns are funded in Illinois.

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