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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 15, 2007 |
Contact:
Cindi Canary 312-335-1767 |
CHICAGO – In the last two years, more than $29 million has flowed into campaign funds controlled by Chicago city officials and their challengers, and now it’s easy for voters to identify the big contributors and see where the money is going.
The Sunshine Database at www.ilcampaign.org
has been updated for the Chicago elections, with more than 36,000 individual
contributions to the election campaigns of every candidate for citywide office,
all 50 aldermen and their opponents, and the wealthiest political ward committees.
“The Sunshine Database has become one of the handiest and most popular
investigative tools for journalists and everyday voters,” said Cynthia
Canary, Director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform (ICPR). “Once
limited to statewide, legislative and judicial campaigns, the search tool has
been expanded to include every candidate vying for a piece of the power in Chicago’s
City Hall.”
“Visitors to the web site will find the names of the top 50 contributors
to the reelection of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, as well as who is contributing
to Dorothy Brown’s and Dock Walls' campaigns to unseat Daley,” said
Kent Redfield, Director of the Sunshine Project and a professor of political
studies at the University of Illinois at Springfield. “It is now easy
to find information about the contributors, how much they gave, and what other
candidates received money from them. The web site also reports how the campaigns
have been spending their money.
“Because contribution reports prepared by the candidates have a variety
of name spellings and even nicknames for the same contributor, it is impossible
for some web sites to provide an accurate account of who is funding campaigns,”
Redfield said. “But we have standardized all of the names and done additional
coding to make searches far more complete.”
The extensive update of the Sunshine Database was accomplished with the assistance
of an investigative journalism class at Columbia College in Chicago and college
interns working at ICPR.
ICPR is a non-profit, non-partisan public interest organization conducting research
and advocating reforms to promote public participation in government, address
the role of money in politics and encourage integrity, accountability and transparency
in government. The late U.S. Sen. Paul Simon founded ICPR in 1997.
The Sunshine Project is based at the University of Illinois at Springfield and
is funded by the Joyce Foundation. Its goal is to increase public awareness
and understanding of the role of money in Illinois politics.
To search the Sunshine Database, visit www.ilcampaign.org.