Thursday, Jun 5, 2025 – Posted by Rich Miller
*Subscribers were told this on Saturday afternoon…
Illinois Democratic Senate President Don Harmon improperly accepted $4 million more in political contributions than allowed under campaign donation laws he championed years ago, according to the State Board of Elections. […]
Harmon has until April 18 to return the campaign cash above the limits “to the contributor or donate an equal amount to charity” or to the state’s general fund, the letter said. Or the fund could potentially face a fine of more than $6.1 million, which is the 150% penalty the state statute calls for against campaign committees that willfully accept contributions over the limit, the letter said.
Well, the election omnibus bill (HB1832 Senate Amendment 2) has some relevant language that appears to wipe the slate clean for Harmon…
For the purposes of this Article, a candidate for the General Assembly that was elected and serving a 4-year term shall be deemed to have been nominated at the next general primary election, regardless of whether the candidate’s name appeared on the general primary election ballot. This amendatory Act of the 104th General Assembly is declarative of existing law.
As I explained to you at the time, the Illinois State Board of Elections notified Harmon’s campaign that he’d busted the caps only through primary day of last year, midway through his four-year term. Harmon continued raising money above the cap level and got called out for it. He said he disagreed with the board’s interpretation of the law because he wasn’t in a primary election until 2026. And now there’s language in his own bill [I looked at the synopsis before I posted this to check on sponsors, but the bill was since taken over by Sen. Bill Cunningham] to retroactively clear it all up (”declarative of existing law”).
The bill ended up going nowhere.
* Anway, Gov. JB Pritzker was asked about Harmon’s abandoned proposal today at a news media availability…
Reporter: Here we are awaiting the sentencing of Mike Madigan, when the Illinois Senate President tries to slip in language to a bill to absolve him of a State Board of Elections violation. This is the second time that a political committee he has been associated with has faced sanctions from the elections for the state elections toward over reform language laws he sponsored. What does that say about Illinois and Illinois Democrats trying to clean up a state with a culture of corruption?
Pritzker: Number one, I’d say that virtually every year I’ve been in office, we have expanded our ethics legislation, our ethics laws. I know that the Senate President doesn’t have any intention other than to make the law better. And so I don’t know enough about the violations that have been alleged, but I know that he’s been constantly working with me and with the legislature on better ethics legislation.
* The problem I have with this is Senate President Harmon assured reporters he had no real legal problems…
“I’m more confident now than I was when I got the notice that we have fully complied with the law,” Harmon said when asked about the matter again on Monday [April 14th].
And yet.
