CONTRIBUTIONS TO MAYOR DALEY'S
CAMPAIGN COMING AT A FAST CLIP

CHICAGO - Since the start of 2007, Mayor Richard M. Daley's campaign has collected more than $3 million in contributions - a rate of more than $54,000 per day or $2,275 each hour.

In the first 56 days of 2007, the Daley reelection committee has received just about the same amount of money as it collected in the prior two years, according to the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform (ICPR) and the Sunshine Project.

Daley, who is seeking a fifth term, received $3,058,556 in campaign contributions between Jan. 1 and Feb. 25. In the 2005-2006 election cycle, his campaign committee reported $3,226,870.

Information about contributions to Daley and other candidates in Tuesday's election are now available at ilcampaign.org/blog/blogger.asp.

The Sunshine Database has been updated 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 database has complete records for the 2005-2006 cycle. Large contributions in 2007 are being tracked and noted on the web site, and the complete documentation will be added after the election.

New information added to the web site on the eve of the city election, includes Daley's top 20 individual contributors from Jan. 1 through Feb. 25, 2007; the top 20 union and corporate contributions to the Daley campaign in the same time period; and top 20 contributors to aldermanic campaigns in 2007.

Judd Malkin, Chairman of JMB Realty, so far is the top 2007 individual contributor to any candidate. He has contributed $200,000 to the Daley campaign.

MONEY IN ALDERMANIC RACES
The political action committee controlled by the Illinois branch of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is by far the biggest single contributor to any of the campaigns. Between Jan. 1 and Feb. 26, the SEIU Illinois Council PAC Fund contributed $861,000 to aldermanic campaigns. SEIU represents more than 165,000 Illinois workers in government, health care and building services. SEIU gave nearly $1.2 million to Illinois candidates in 2005-2006, the largest of all contributors in the 2006 campaigns.
For more information, visit www.ilcampaign.org.

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.