Million$ in Motion in Lead Up to Last Weekend
Cross posted from ICPR's blog, The Race is On:
The last weekend approaches and looking through the disclosure reports shows how the candidates are filling up for their final push. Some interesting deployments of money:
* The Republican Governors Association has moved $900K to Illinois in the last two days. We can guess where that’s going; Bill Brady has reported $100K from the RGA the day after some of these transfers, and more is likely. Where the RGA money came from is much harder to figure out. We wish the RGA would identify the sources of funds used in Illinois in real time, as the DGA does.
* Other large recent donors to Brady include Lake Forest business owner Ernie Semersky ($35K), Glenview businessman John Miller ($25K), Molex honcho John Krehbiel ($25K) and the Illinois Republican Party ($208K). In all, Brady reports $735,600 in the last two days
* House Republican Leader Tom Cross moved $125K to his Citizens to Change Illinois committee. Expect to see in-kinds from CCI to favored legislative candidates in the next few days. Note that CCI is in no way affiliated with CHANGE Illinois!, the reform organization of which ICPR is a member.
* House Speaker Michael Madigan gave $250K to the Democratic Party of Illinois (which he also chairs). DPI gave $250K to Gov. Quinn’s campaign. Madigan also reported $100K from the same DC-based Engineers local that previously gave Quinn $400K. The reports show only that all three of these transactions took place on the same day (October 26); it’s impossible to say which occurred first or whether there's any correlation.
* In addition to the DPI, Quinn shows $38K from the Health Care Council of Illnois, a trade group of nursing homes, and another $50K from JB Pritzker. In all, Quinn has reported about $450K in the last few days.
* The Senate Republicans transferred $275K to the Illinois Republican Party, which has done a lot of mailings on behalf of candidates. Tom Cross sent $300K at the same time.
* AFSCME reloaded its coffers with $100K from DC. AFSCME has been comparatively bipartisan this year, so it’s hard to predict where that money is going.
ICPR will have more tomorrow on the top legislative races around the state.
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