Stroger leaving office with campaign chest stocked

Todd Stroger will preside over his final meeting as Cook County Board President Wednesday, yet he won't leave office completely empty-handed.

According to disclosure documents filed with the state, his campaign fund, Friends of Todd Stroger, remains $420,000 in the black, with two certificates of deposit squirreled away as “investments” at the Amalgamated Bank of Chicago.

Stroger has never confirmed nor denied the existence of the CDs. But the amounts are included in the latest semiannual campaign finance report filed with the state.

According to an amended report filed in October and detailing all campaign activity for the first half of this year almost all of it before the Feb. 2 Democratic primary, in which Stroger ran last in a four-person race Stroger ended his campaign with $136,000 on hand but with $215,000 in debts and obligations, including a $100,000 loan from former state Senate President Emil Jones.

Yet the Stroger campaign socked away $500,000 in two CDs in summer 2009, and those were apparently left untouched, still listed as “investments” in the most recent disclosure. That would leave him with a balance of about $420,000 if he settled all campaign debts.

Stroger's office referred comment to his defunct political campaign, and former Campaign Manager Vince Williams said he couldn't comment on its finances.

While state law curtailed how those funds can be disbursed in 1998, so that retiring politicians can no longer simply pocket their campaign war chests, the restrictions on their use are still vague.

“It is not unusual for politicians to retire with considerable money in their campaign account,” said Dick Simpson, political science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “He can spend it on other campaigns. He can give it to his friend running for mayor. He could run for some other office. But he could no longer go buy a yacht or a house or pay his debts.”

Kent Redfield, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Illinois at Springfield and director of the state's Sunshine Project monitoring campaign finances, said the fund is a “corporate entity.” If Stroger were to close the fund, he'd be obliged to return money to contributors that is, if he didn't give it to other candidates, political committees or even charities.

“If you don't close it out,” Redfield added, “you're under the same rules as someone holding office or running for office, which is you can't just spend it on yourself, but beyond that it's very broad.”

The fund could be used to hire someone as a consultant, or Stroger could even potentially give it to another campaign that might hire him as a consultant.

“He certainly has a lot of leeway in terms of what he could do with that money,” Redfield said, “as long as he doesn't spend it in a way that the IRS would view it as income.”

“I suppose in a perfect world he ought to send a letter or e-mail to all the donors and say, ‘This is left in the campaign fund would you like a refund or are you comfortable with me putting it to political use,'” said Andy Shaw, executive director of the Better Government Association.

Stroger campaign expenditures include $25,000 to himself for “election-day expenses,” most likely for the W Hotel in Chicago, where he rented a ballroom and awaited returns, and more than $50,000 to Carla Oglesby's CGC Communications. Oglesby acted as Stroger's campaign spokeswoman, then was hired as his deputy chief of staff after the primary. She was indicted on corruption charges in October on charges of issuing a series of no-bid contracts just under the $25,000 mark requiring County Board approval including one to her own CGC firm.

Of course, Stroger could have used the remaining $420,000 to bolster his own campaign for county president in an election eventually won by Chicago Alderman Toni Preckwinkle, begging the question of whether he really expected to win.

“It wouldn't have helped in his case. Someone might have told him that,” Simpson said. “His problem wasn't that he had a problem with name recognition or those kind of things. He didn't lose because he didn't spend the money on the campaign. He was going to lose anyway.”