New limitations on campaign contributions from the owners and executives of city contractors could potentially keep hundreds of donations and hundreds of thousands of dollars out of Chicago’s next election cycle, a BGA Policy analysis of 2022 and 2023 Illinois Board Elections contribution records has found.
A proposed amendment to the city’s ethics ordinance, prepared by the city’s board of ethics and introduced at City Council on Jan. 24, includes the new limits in a slate of updates to the city’s governmental ethics ordinance. The changes would extend the city’s existing $1,500-per-year campaign contribution limit on individuals and entities doing business with the City of Chicago to “officers, directors, partners, or owners of 1% or more” of those companies and their spouses or domestic partners. BGA Policy supports the change and encourages its passage by City Council.
Owners, directors, partners, and officers would all be considered part of the corporate entity for purposes of campaign contributions under the new ordinance, meaning that the owner of a company could not donate as an individual and then again a second time through the corporate entity, or vice versa. The $1,500 dollar per year limit, as soon as reached by a corporate entity or any combination of its officers, leadership, and their spouses, would block all further contributions from any of those sources.
Under current law, individuals doing business with the city in their own name are limited to $1,500 per campaign per year in contributions, as are corporate entities doing business with the city. However, limit does not currently apply to the owners of corporate entities doing business with the city, allowing those owners to donate twice – once through their business, and again as an individual not bound by the ethics ordinance limits.
The purpose of the board’s proposed amendment is to close that loophole and limit the ability of these companies to use campaign contributions to influence city policy, said Steve Berlin, executive director of the city’s board of ethics. “This is just good policy,” Berlin said. Similar rules exist in other jurisdictions, including New York and Los Angeles.
A BGA Policy analysis of 2022 and 2023 contribution records from the campaigns of former mayor Lori Lightfoot and eventual run-off candidates Brandon Johnson and Paul Vallas found more than a hundred contributions from individuals to whom the new rules would apply. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to the three campaigns would have been capped at the $1,500 limit, had the board’s proposed language been in place for the 2023 municipal election cycle.
Based on the records identified by BGA Policy, the Vallas campaign would have been the most heavily impacted by the proposed restriction, with at least $473,375 in contributions from individuals and firms that would meet the new criteria for limits. Of that total, the campaign would have been eligible to keep only $48,000 under the new rules–or just over one-tenth of the total.
Lightfoot’s campaign took in at least $179,200 from individuals and entities who would qualify for donation limits under the new rules, and would only have been allowed to keep $49,500, or about one-third of what the campaign received under existing law.
The Johnson campaign had fewer and smaller contributions from individuals and entities that would qualify for the new restrictions, with at least $83,271 in donations to which the new rules would apply, $52,971 of which were within the proposed limits.
A Curb on Unlimited Election Spending
While individual contributions to political campaigns in Illinois nominally are capped at $6,900 per cycle, state law allows unlimited individual donations once a candidate has self-funded. Self-funding can be achieved by the candidate or their immediate family donating or loaning the campaign more than $100,000 in local contests, or $250,000 in statewide races, or by making an equivalent independent expenditure to benefit the campaign.
In the most recent Chicago mayoral race, millionaire candidate Willie Wilson lifted the caps in the first round of voting, and Vallas loaned his campaign $100,100 to do the same in the runoff. Lifting the caps allowed individuals to make large-dollar donations to any of the mayoral candidates in the race. This opened the door for contributions from leaders and owners of entities that do business with the city, even as those entities were themselves subject to the city’s $1,500 contribution limit.
Joseph Mansueto, the executive chairman of Morningstar, gave the Vallas campaign $250,000 in March 2023, the largest single donation BGA identified by an individual to whom the new ordinance would apply. At the time of the donation, Morningstar was on the Board of Ethics and Department of Procurement lists of entities doing business with the city. Under the new rule, the company’s financial relationship with the city would limit its owners and officers to a single $1,500 contribution per year, making the Mansueto contribution impermissible had the rule been in effect. Mansueto has also donated to the Better Government Association.
Other big-ticket Vallas donors in the previous campaign cycle who held leadership positions at companies or institutions that had recently received city contracts or payments included Constantine Mihas of GTCR, Tom Gimbel of LaSalle Network, and William Barry of Draper & Kramer, all of whom gave more than $20,000 as individuals during 2023 while their businesses were limited by ordinance to $1,500.
Lightfoot’s largest contributions from individuals associated with city contractors in the records identified by BGA Policy were $16,000 donations in 2022 from CBRE chairman Robert Wislow and $11,000 from Mayer Brown attorney Joel Williamson. A former Mayer Brown partner, Lightfoot took in a large number of donations from partners at the firm, including 19 contributions totalling $49,000 in 2022 and eight contributions totalling $15,750 in 2023. The firm received $860,415 in payments from the city during those years, according to Department of Procurement records, with another $126,000 received to date in 2024.
Johnson’s largest contributions from owners, partners, and officers of entities doing business with the city primarily arrived after the election was over, including $16,000 from Power Rogers LLP partners Joseph Power, James Power and Larry Rogers. Johnson also received a combined $11,500, all on the same day, from both the corporate entity and ten attorneys at the Texas-based law firm Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson, which holds debt collection contracts from the city and in 2022 and 2023 received nearly $6 million in city payments. All but one of the firm’s individual contributors listed Texas addresses on their contribution record, with one giving a Florida address.
Partners at a number of other law firms that do business with the city donated to one or more of the leading candidates in the mayoral cycle in 2022 and 2023, with 95 contributions from firms and partners totalling roughly $260,000 between the three candidates. Only $52,500 of those donations would have been allowable under the new rules.
Donor-Connected Businesses Make Millions from City Contracts
Some of the donations from the previous cycle that would under the proposed rules be limited to $1,500 came from owners and officers of powerhouse firms that make millions of dollars annually from city contracts. Eliminating even the potential appearance of pay-to-play in city government was a primary motivation for the new language, according to ethics committee chair Ald. Matt Martin, who sponsored the ordinance in council.
“For decades we’ve been very challenged in Chicago with the number of elected officials who have engaged in questionable and outright unlawful behavior,” said Ald. Martin. “City leaders need to be taking steps frequently to revisit our ethics laws and make sure they are up to date and consistent with best practices to avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety.”
All told, officers, executives, and other leaders of at least 44 city contractors donated more than the proposed $1500 limit to the Lightfoot, Vallas, or Johnson campaigns in 2022 and 2023, with contributions totalling at least $730,846. In the same years, those organizations took in at least $123.8 million in city payments, and held contracts worth millions more.
A review of notable contributors shows both the Lightfoot and Vallas campaigns took more than $10,000 in donations from leaders and executives at CBRE. In 2022 and 2023 the Chicago real estate giant received nearly $10 million in payments from the city, Department of Procurement records show, stemming from property management and real estate appraisal, brokerage and consulting contracts.
David Gupta, the executive chairman and co-founder of tech consultant SDI Presence, donated $3,000 to the Lightfoot campaign in 2022 and $1,500 to the Vallas campaign in 2023. During those years SDI received nearly $47 million in payments from the city for multiple contracts, including technical support for O’Hare and Midway airports, the water department’s billing system and the city’s IT department. The city has since approved new SDI Presence contracts for app development, consulting and technical support.
Michael Tadin, the head of MAT Construction and a constellation of associated corporate entities that hold multiple contracts with the city, donated $1,500 as an individual and another $1,500 through MAT Construction to Johnson’s campaign in August 2023, well after Johnson’s election as mayor. Prior to the election Tadin donated $4,000 to Vallas’s campaign. MAT Leasing and MAT Asphalt took in over $10 million in payments for city contracts during 2022 and 2023, according to city procurement data, with new contracts for MAT Asphalt extending through 2026 awarded in 2023.
United Road Towing received over $6.7 million in city payments for its lucrative and long-standing impound facility management, boot removal and towing contract in 2023, the same year that CEO Kevin Corcoran donated $5,000 to the Vallas campaign. The campaign contribution filing lists Corcoran’s employer as E & R Towing, another United Road corporate entity, and his position as general manager, a role Corcoran has not held since 2021 according to his LinkedIn page. According to Corocran’s LinkedIn profile, he had been serving as COO of United Road since March 2021, and as CEO of United Road and its rebranded successor company Vehicle Management Solutions since December 2021.
Alternative Schools Network, which operates publicly-funded youth and community service organizations in addition to charter schools, received more than $5 million in city payments in 2022 and 2023. Executive director Jack Wuest donated $2,500 to Vallas’s campaign in 2022 and another $7000 in 2023.
All of those individuals and their businesses would be limited to a combined total of $1,500 per year under the new language proposed by the board of ethics and introduced by Ald. Martin.
