Follow the money

How can we trust our elected representative, Randy Hultgren, when he gets a majority of his financing from outside our district? Why would he do our bidding when he is being paid by Political Action Committees to do theirs?

According to Federal Election Committee disclosures in September, Mr. Hultgren's contributions from PACs were 64.45 percent of his total "take." Large contributors, over $200, equaled 32.61 percent and small donors were just 3 percent.

By the way, he invested none of his own money in his cause. This means that over 96 percent of his financing is coming from generally large corporate interests, who stand to gain from his support in Congress. Are their interests the same as those of us he is supposed to represent? Doubtful.

Compare his figures to those of his challenger, Lauren Underwood. Ms. Underwood has received just 9.96 percent of her money from PACs, none of them corporate. 21.83 percent came from small donors, and 60.66 percent from large donors. And, she contributed $9,390 of her own money to her campaign. In this era of "draining the swamp," I think it's time to drain ours.

Kathleen Bogolia

McHenry