Tag: Illinois Republican Party

Bruce Rauner’s handling of public notifications regarding the Quincy veterans home legionella outbreak. “One of the problems with doing these things in the context of a political fight, a lot of times those factual questions get muddied by the political ones,” Mooney said. “There needs to be an investigation to determine if laws were violated and whether residents of the home, their families, veterans’ home staff, and the public were informed in a timely and appropriate manner.” Fourteen people have died since 2014 at the facility because of the respiratory illness caused from the bacteria. “The team determined the right time [to notify the public and families of the outbreak]. "This is nothing more than the politicization of the devastating deaths of Illinois veterans to distract from J.B. Pritzker’s scheme to defraud Illinois taxpayers hours before a debate,” Illinois Republican Party Executive Director Travis Sterling said. The report on the alleged Pritzker tax fraud by Cook County Inspector General Patrick Blanchard concluded that Pritzker was involved in a scheme that included “obtaining money by means of false representations and, in executing the scheme, the responsible parties caused checks to be issued by the Cook County Treasurer and delivered by U.S. Mail according to the direction thereon.” Pritzker said the leaked memo was politically motivated. “There was nothing new in this report,” Pritzker said. “This was a renovation project that was under way. Rauner said Pritzker defrauded Cook County taxpayers and is the epitome of Illinois corruption and self-dealing. One thing Mooney expects to also be a factor is national politics motivating voters to head to the polls, but midterm elections typically have lower turnout than in a presidential election year anyway, he said.

The biggest changes in politics in Illinois during Gov. Rauner’s election. In an increasing number of legislative races, spending now exceeds $1 million, and 54 percent of the legislative seats lacked a major party opponent in the last election. As the price of campaigning in competitive districts increased, more money came from outside of the districts as both parties’ campaign committees transfer funds to close races. Kent Redfield, a retired professor of political science at the University of Illinois-Springfield and an expert on campaign spending in Illinois, found that three individuals, Rauner, Ken Griffin and Richard Uihlein, now dominate the funding for the Illinois State Republican Party, the Republican State House and the Republican state Senate committees. These three committees in turn have contributed 96 percent of the money raised between 2015 and 2016 by the Illinois Republican Party and Republican State House Organization and about 69 percent of the funds raised by the Republican state Senate Campaign Committee. Labor contributes about half of the Democrats’ money, 48 percent for the state Democratic Party, 47 percent to the Senate Democratic Victory Fund and 50 percent to the House Democratic majority. In the past, the wealthy were content to influence politics by contributing to campaigns; increasingly they are running for office themselves. While the Republican Party is more open to extremely wealthy candidates than the Democratic Party, the prominence of wealthy non-office-holding candidates in this election cycle’s Democratic primary indicates just how quickly one party imitates the other. The increasing importance of wealthy donors and candidates distances officeholders from the public.