Renewed ethics focus pushed
SPRINGFIELD - Hoping to set the tone for next week's election and the coming legislative session, Republican lawmakers and a leading good government group on Tuesday called for limiting the financial influence of party leaders.
House Republican leader Tom Cross said lawmakers need to adopt legislation that creates the same standards for general elections that will exist for primaries beginning in 2011. New campaign finance laws will cap the amount of money parties can give to a candidate's primary campaign, but there will be no limits when it comes to general elections.
"The focus on consolidating power and keeping power and keeping money and keeping control has become very problematic in the state," Cross said at a Capitol news conference.
Cross denied politics was behind his call to action on campaign finance restrictions even though lawmakers won't be back in session until after the Feb. 2 elections. He said the timing was based on a deadline with the General Assembly's research unit.
However, Republicans across the state are making ethics a focus of their 2010 campaigns in hopes of breaking the complete Democratic Party control of state government.
Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's impeachment a year ago prompted several waves of ethics proposals. Lawmakers did approve limiting individual contributions to $5,000 and businesses and unions to $10,000. But they imposed no limits on political party or legislative leader support in the often-expensive November elections. Cross blamed that absence on Democratic Senate President John Cullerton and House Speaker Michael Madigan, both of Chicago.
Change Illinois, a political watchdog group, issued a statement Tuesday that called last year's finance reform legislation "a historic step forward," but urged lawmakers to include limits on money from party leaders.
Change Illinois spokesman Jim Bray said that in addition to concerns about the tight concentration of power, funneling money from party leaders often hurts lawmakers' independence.
"When a candidate becomes dependent on a large amount of candidate money that comes from one source, then it's only natural that the candidate is going to listen long and hard to what that one source of campaign funding has to say," Bray said.
Cross, however, was unable to explain why he thought limits that failed in 2009 might be approved in 2010.
"Hopefully the speaker and the president have been listening to the constituents in the state, the reformers in the state, the media in the state, who have all said, you know, 'Hey fellas, you've got a little too much power,'" Cross said.
Steve Brown, spokesman for House Democrats, said the legislature rejected party limits for general elections to ensure special interests don't wield too much influence.
"I think the view was that it really didn't make sense to weaken the party caucuses in that way, since that's really the only safeguard against special interest running the show more than they do now in Illinois," Brown said.
A spokeswoman for Cullerton said it was too early in the process to comment on pending legislation.
There are also Democratic proposals for campaign finance reform. Chicago Democratic state Sen. Heather Steans has filed similar legislation to expand restrictions on political giving.