August 22, 2006

In This Issue:

• Which Illinois Politicians Have Money and Where Did They Get It? ICPR Has Answers

Here is just some of the new information you'll find at www.ilcampaign.org:

• The identity of the biggest contributors in the political careers of Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka and all other top state officeholders and their challengers. The top 13 contributors to Topinka combined don't even match the $1.7 million given by Blagojevich's number one career patron.
  
• Names and background information on the people who have given the largest amounts of money to candidates in this election cycle. Frederick A. Krehbiel, who fell off the Forbes magazine list of the nation's 400 wealthiest citizens, is at the top of the list of the top individual campaign contributors in Illinois.
  
• The most generous special interest lobbies - labor unions, law firms, and associations lobbying Springfield for hospitals, doctors, phone companies, beer distributors, horse racetracks, cable television and more.
  
• The candidates who spent the largest amounts of their personal funds on election campaigns this year. Only three of the top 10 won their primary elections.

The Sunshine Database is a powerful search tool providing information about the most powerful people and special interests in Illinois. It is the only database that has standardized the names of all donors to Illinois candidates, and the only one to code receipts and expenditures by industry.

Please consider making a donation to ICPR. We need your contributions and your help to clean up Illinois politics. Visit our online donations page.

ICPR Spotcheck is a publication of The Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, a non-partisan public interest group that educates, conducts research, and advocates reforms to promote public participation in government, address the role of money in politics, and encourage integrity, accountability, and transparency in government.

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