Stroger campaign fund faces state, county scrutiny

Former Cook County Board President Todd Stroger’s campaign committee reported receiving $21,000 in October — the same month it staged a “tribute” fundraiser to the lame-duck official — but failed to detail exactly where that money came from.

That appears to violate state election law and could spark state and county probes, unless the filing is amended to provide details, an official said.

The D-2 forms filed by Friends of Todd H. Stroger 11 minutes before the deadline at 11:49 p.m. Thursday listed $21,111.96 in “other receipts” as gains since July 1, with just over $21,000 of that in a single entry from the Seaway Bank on the South Side of Chicago as “other receipt deposits from October.”

They were not itemized by individual, as required by both the state board of elections and the county board of ethics.

The “Tribute to Todd Stroger” fundraiser, held Oct. 5 at the Excalibur nightclub in Chicago, attracted notice when Cook County Inspector General Patrick Blanchard cited it in his quarterly ethics report released this week. According to Blanchard, an unnamed Stroger aide in the Human Resources Department tried to compel political employees serving under her to buy $100 tickets to the event. The woman was later fired in President Toni Preckwinkle’s first days in office after she replaced Stroger in December.

The fundraiser now is raising red flags at the state board of elections and the county board of ethics thanks to the disclosure filing.

Anyone — person or agency — giving more than $150 to a campaign in a six-month period should be listed on the required disclosure, filed twice a year with the state, said Andy Nauman, deputy director of the state election board’s campaign disclosure division in Chicago.

The $100 ticket price falls below that threshold, but “if any one person bought two tickets, then they should show up on the report,” Nauman said.

Stroger could not be reached for comment. Marlo Kemp, of South Holland, who was listed as the group’s treasurer and filed papers at the end of the year declaring it still active, did not reply to requests for comment.

The “tribute” fundraiser came at a time when Stroger was about to leave office, having already lost to Preckwinkle in the Democratic primary last February, and had all but retired from politics. The most recent state disclosure listed $113,000 in funds on hand at the end of the year, but also $215,000 in obligations, including a $100,000 loan from the campaign fund of former state Senate President Emil Jones of Chicago. Yet it also listed two certificates of deposit made in 2009 and worth a combined $500,000 as “investments,” leaving the fund almost $400,000 to the good.

State law requires that a candidate use campaign money for political purposes after leaving office, but gives the ex-candidate wide leeway in how that money can be dispersed.

Nauman said failure to break down individual donors in campaign finance disclosures can prompt an investigation with potential penalties including fines.

“The political committee in the past has aggregated appropriately. On this report, it appears they did not,” he said.

MaryNic Foster, executive director of the county board of ethics, said her agency would also be looking into it. “We’ll review D-2’s regardless. That’s part of what we do on a regular basis,” she said. “We look at them for potential violations of the ethics ordinance on campaign finance limitations.”

Foster said she’d wait until next week to pursue it, however, to see if any amendments are filed over the weekend.