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Still The Wild West? A 10-Year Look At Campaign Finance Reform In Illinois, Ed Wojcicki

The Simon Review (Occasional Papers of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute)

Kent Redfield used to tell a great story while on the speaking circuit in 1996. To describe a weakness in Illinois’ campaign finance laws, he explained that if a terrorist organization filed a routine semiannual report with the Illinois State Board of Elections and declared its purpose to be the assassination of public officials, the elections board’s only role would be to make certain that the group had filed the paperwork properly. That’s because the board had no authority to begin an investigation or to question what was in a candidate’s reports. Illinois laws regarding campaign finance disclosure had no …