Local efforts on campaign reform mired in politics

An election watchdog group hopes to give DuPage County voters the opportunity to weigh in on campaign finance reform.

But officials with the DuPage chapter of the Illinois Ballot Integrity Project are learning how difficult that can be once partisan politics gets involved.

DuPage Democratic Party Chairman Bob Peickert and other members of his party are criticizing local Republicans for voting down an advisory question about public financing of campaigns, blocking it from appearing on the November ballot in six townships.

"This is what the Republicans do," Peickert said. "They do everything to suppress the voices of Democrats in DuPage. This is their idea of one-party rule, which they object to in Springfield, but they fully exercise it here in DuPage County."

State law allows residents attending their townships' annual meetings to ask that an issue of public policy be put to an advisory referendum. If a majority of the residents at the meeting vote for the measure, it's the township's responsibility to put it on the ballot.

The nonbinding question the Ballot Integrity Project supports reads: "Shall the Illinois General Assembly enact 'Clean Elections' legislation, a system whereby candidates voluntarily agree to accept limits on campaign contributions and spending in return for public financing of campaigns for the General Assembly and statewide offices?"

In an effort to get the question on the ballot in Addison, Winfield, York, Milton, Lisle and Downers Grove townships, referendum supporters attended the April 13 annual meetings for those six townships.

But local GOP leaders mustered their own supporters to pack the meetings and block the measure from getting on any township ballots. In Milton Township, for example, the resolution failed by a 134-60 vote.

Addison Township Republican Chairman Patrick Durante said he opposes the ballot question because he believes it's nothing more than "cover" for the Democratic Party.

"They know they are in trouble, and they want to look good," Durante said. "The state is $13 billion in debt. It isn't paying its bills. They (Democrats) control the House, the Senate and the governor's office. And they come up with this phony, phony resolution as camouflage."

Peickert said he doesn't understand why anyone would be opposed to asking voters for their opinion.

"This is like the 'Party of No' on a local level," Peickert said. "We're experiencing that in Washington and we have it here. The Democrats propose something and the Republicans say 'No' because it's not their idea."

Melisa Urda, co-chairwoman of the Ballot Integrity Project's DuPage chapter, said Republicans opposed the ballot question for unfounded reasons.

For example, she said, opponents incorrectly assumed Illinois would be required to raise money for the public campaign fund. She said the money would come from contributions that residents make when they file their incomes taxes.

"If people do not want to put money into the system, they don't have to," Urda said.

However, Milton Township GOP Chairman Chris Heidorn said the wording of the ballot question that he looked at didn't mention anything about voluntary contributions.

"It asked, 'Should the government pay for it?' And I'm like, 'No,'" he said. "We're already in a deep enough hole. If they wanted to say 'without using tax dollars,' they should have put that in the referendum. But they didn't."

Urda, who attended the Lisle Township meeting, said she wasn't given the chance to provide any details or clarifications.

She said she's disappointed about what happened during the township meetings because it "does not reflect the majority of people in Illinois who want campaign finance reform."

Urda pointed to Kane County voters, who overwhelmingly supported a public financing question last year when it appeared on the ballot in Aurora Township.

"I think we have the sentiment of Illinois voters and residents on our side when it comes to this," she said.

Heidorn said if that's the case, the Ballot Integrity Project should circulate petitions and get the signatures needed to get a countywide ballot question.

"There are other provisions in the law for putting issues of public policy on the ballot," he said. "They were trying to take a short cut."