Oops: The state may soon receive a $2 million windfall from the Rauner campaign

Oops: The state may soon receive a $2 million windfall from the Rauner campaign Monday, Jun 15, 2015

* Remember this Gov. Bruce Rauner quote from the other day when he was asked about how his contributors differed from Democratic contributors?…

“My donors are basically taxpayers. My donors are taxpayers. And the reality is, I have not taken money from folks who do business with the state, who make money from the government and by the government spending more money. Frankly, it’s illegal for businesses or individuals who contract or do business with the state to do business with politicians. That’s a good restriction. I haven’t taken any money from any of those folks. My donors are taxpayers, pure and simple.”

* Well…

The head of a company that has done more than $50,000 in business with the state in each of the past four years donated $2 million to Gov. Bruce Rauner’s campaign fund in December in apparent conflict with state campaign finance laws.
Richard Uihlein of Lake Forest is CEO of Uline, a packaging supply company now based in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin. In December, he gave Citizens for Rauner a $2 million contribution. Uihlein’s wife, Elizabeth, is president of the firm, and she donated $25,000 to Rauner in October. […]
A state law that took effect in 2010 state, “Any business entity whose contracts with State agencies, in the aggregate, annually total more than $50,000 … are prohibited from making any contributions to any political committee established to promote the candidacy of (i) the officeholder responsible for awarding the contracts or (ii) any other declared candidate for that office.” Vendors whose business exceeds the threshold are supposed to register with the State Board of Elections.

Uihlein’s company did not register with the Board of Elections.
Yikes.
* The matter is now under investigation by the state’s chief procurement officer. Other candidates who’ve found themselves in violation have had to give the money to the state’s General Revenue Fund…

As for whether that means Citizens for Rauner, the governor’s campaign fund, will have to give more than $2 million to the state treasury because of Uline’s state business, [the state’s chief procurement officer, Matt Brown] said he didn’t want to go that far.
“We want to conduct that analysis before I give you any idea what the outcome could be,” he said.

…Adding… This specific Uihlein topic was first mentioned by a commenter ten days ago.
…Adding More… Yellow Dog Democrat pointed out this issue way back in January.
* Meanwhile, let’s go back to this Tom Kacich story about how the governor is attempting to recruit candidates with the promise of spending $1 million each on 20 legislative candidates next year…

Gov. Bruce Rauner says he wants Meister to consider running for Senate, and is willing to bankroll his campaign to the tune of about a million dollars.
“He told me very specifically that he has 20 million dollars and that he’s working to do a million for 20 races that he thinks are the most winnable,” said Meister, the 32-year-old owner of Minneci’s Ristorante in southwest Champaign, and an unsuccessful candidate for state representative in 2012.

* I told subscribers about the questionable legality of this effort last week and included it in my newspaper column this week. The Sun-Times followed up…

“Whoever it is who is doing the recruiting and contributing would have to be set up as something other than the independent expenditure committee,” said Ken Menzel, general counsel to the Illinois State Board of Elections. […]
“When you say you’re going to encourage someone to run and you’ll help them raise so much money, that doesn’t mean you’re going to hand them a check for that amount,” Menzel said, but instead could mean: “’I can put you in touch with other groups from my donor base’ . . . the national campaigns kind of end up working that way, too.”
The attention that the practice is getting has set off alarms in the world of campaign finance, though, and word is campaign finance attorneys are looking into the legality of Rauner’s overture to Meister.
“The governor is not above the law,” said Jerry Morrison, assistant to the president of the SEIU Local 1 union. “If you’re going to present yourself to the public as a reformer and you’re going to shake up Springfield, you certainly should be following the law.

- Posted by Rich Miller

From:  http://capitolfax.com/2015/06/15/oops-the-state-may-soon-receive-a-2-million-windfall-from-the-rauner-campaign/