Oberweis FEC Status Check

With Oberweis Dairy about to start running TV ads again and there being talk about Jim Oberweis running for Congress, if Denny Haster resigns, I thought I'd take a look at what happened to the FEC complaints made about the dairy's ads in 2002 and 2004.

Both those years, when Oberweis ran for the United States Senate, opponents charged him with using Oberweis Dairy ads to advance his candidacies.

The first, filed by Steven A. Leahy, Chief Counsel for the Republican Assembly of Illinois, complained of a “corporate contribution,” according to a Federal Election Commission press release.

That complaint was dismissed August 27, 2002.

During his 2004 campaign Springfield’s Sangamon County Democratic Party Chairman Tim Timoney filed another complaint.

FEC Public Information Officer Bob Biersack told McHenry County Blog, “We’re prohibited from discussing them.”

He was allowed to say,

We did in fact get a complaint and it has not been closed.

I called Timoney to ask him the most recent information he had.

His response:

I don’t have any information and the Federal Election Commission evidently does not provide an objector with the outcome of the investigation or complaint.

He did add that about once a year someone calls him to ask if he has heard anything.

No complaints were made to the FEC for the gubernatorial campaign because the Feds have no jurisdiction over state campaigns.

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Photo of Jim Oberweis is on Paul Capiro's Family PAC cruise this summer. He is serving then state senate candidate Eric Wallace and Judge Don Weber's campaign manager Michael Galbreth.

This news was reported first on McHenry County Blog, where you can read of the resignation of Democratic Party Chairman Patrick Ouimet. Ouimet gave then-appointed State Senator Pam Althoff quite a run for her money two years ago.