Giannoulias decides to post donors
Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias decided Tuesday to post a list of those funding his campaign for U.S. Senate after the Daily Herald revealed he was pushing off disclosure reports until the end of his primary.
Democratic challenger Jacob Meister, who also was delaying disclosure, has not yet moved to make the donors public.
The action by Giannoulias came Tuesday after challenger David Hoffman seized on the issue, calling Giannoulias' move a "complete lack of transparency" that shows "his disdain for voters."
Giannoulias raised $521,340 and Meister raised $53,511 in the last three months of 2009 in the five-way Democratic Senate primary.
But both decided to post details on who gave the money on Jan. 31 instead of last Thursday's optional filing date, citing time constraints.
The Federal Election Commission gave them that option because Illinois' early Feb. 2 primary threw the normal disclosure cycle out of whack. But delaying the filings also meant that voters were not likely to see the names of donors until after the election because of a delay in the time it takes those documents, once filed, to actually become public on the Internet.
Giannoulias announced his decision to post the list of donors on the Internet in a statement Tuesday to the press that denounced Hoffman for attack ads.
The disclosure to the media lacks a number of elements that would be revealed under a full disclosure, including how Giannoulias's campaign spent money in the last three months of the year.
Giannoulias spokeswoman Kati Philips said the candidate decided to reveal the donor list because Hoffman was trying to make a campaign issue out of it.
"There is other information that we still have to put together," she said of the full disclosure report. "It is just a matter of timing."
The blackout on disclosure by Giannoulias and Meister covered from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31. However, every candidate had to file reports that detailed fundraising from Jan. 1 to Jan. 13 as well as their totals for the year of 2009.
Hoffman and other Senate candidates, including Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk, chose to file reports last Thursday for the last quarter of 2009 along with details for the first two weeks of 2010.
Giannoulias, a first-term statewide officeholder, has raised at least $2.6 million in his bid. Hoffman has put $1 million of his own money on the line and raised at least an additional $1.2 million.
Meister reported raising about $74,000 in addition to the $1 million he is putting in the campaign, according to his campaign.
Reports for former Chicago Urban League President Cheryle Jackson, weren't yet available to the public as of Tuesday, presumably because of delays with the FEC and Senate clerk in getting the information online.
Meanwhile, Burr Ridge radiologist Robert Marshall didn't file his report and was slapped with a "failure to file" notice by the FEC. Marshall, who has run as a Republican in the past, said Tuesday he would submit it today. He said he has raised about $20,000 since Oct. 1.
"I'm late on everything," Marshall said. "I'm like a one man campaign."