Illinois owed more than $3M in unpaid fines from PACS – with no means to collect

The Republican Party of Illinois owes the Illinois Board of Elections $23,350 in unpaid files.

The Illinois Chamber of Commerce PAC owes $875 in unpaid fines.

Neither entity responded to voicemail messages seeking comment.

They’re not alone. Of the 4,398 active political committees in Illinois, 1,704 owe $3,136,167.39 in fines, said Board of Elections spokesman Matt Dietrich.

And the state has no real hope of collecting any of it, unless it’s a candidate’s PAC and he or she wants to be on a ballot again, Dietrich said.

“There is one big stick that we have,” Dietrich said. “If you are a candidate and you’re on that list, you cannot appear on a ballot in Illinois if you owe us anything. … There’s a ballot forfeiture for them.”

A collection agency is not the answer, Dietrich said, because they can only collect from individuals, not from political action committees.

“It’s different when you talk about political action committees,” Dietrich said. “There is no individual liability associated with the Campaign Finance Act. We can only impose fines on the committees – the legal entity that is a committee – not a specific candidate, not the chairman or treasurer of a committee.”

The issue is filing quarterly reports detailing money collected, from whom and how money was spent.

“Quite often there are mitigating circumstances. Candidates come in and say, ‘Listen, I was sick, I was getting chemo, I didn’t know my treasurer was supposed to take care of it, I missed it by 12 days,’” Dietrich said. “We’re usually able to settle a fine.”

As to the list on the state election board’s website dating back to 2013, Dietrich said for the majority of them, the state doesn’t have a mechanism to collect other than sending letters telling them they need to file, that they’re late, and that they’re accruing fines.

Filing quarterly reports

Sometimes in the past, committees that owed a lot of money were referred to the Attorney General’s Office to attempt to collect.

The operative word here is “attempt.”

“We are not dealing with a specific individual that might be held personally responsible,” Dietrich said. “A collection agency could try, but just as the Attorney General could try, there is no legal obligation beyond … sending them notices.”

What candidates don’t think about – especially new ones – is they file to run for office, lose and not realize they are obliged to file those quarterly reports even if they don’t intend to run again.

Candidates and committees can file a notice that they are dissolving, but they are still required to file quarterly reports and specific reports of any contributions received over $1,000, Dietrich said.

“If they have not (finalized) out their committee – even if there is zero money in the committee and you do no fundraising and are not active – you still need to file a report with us that says, ‘I’m done,’” Dietrich said.

County Board Vice Chairman Kenneth Shepro, R-Wayne, and Kane County Republican Party chairman, said the problem with the Board of Elections financial disclosure requirements “is that in many instances the fines are illusory and the enforcement uneven.”

“We need a complete overhaul of campaign finance laws. It’s too easy to evade requirements,” Shepro said. “The Illinois campaign disclosure laws are a morass of contradictory and confusing requirements coupled with an illusory enforcement system that – more often than not – is a trap for the unwary as opposed to a bulwark against corruption.”

The goal of filing those quarterly reports is the public disclosure of contributions and how they are spent, Shepro said.

While some committees admittedly have no money and do no fundraising, allowing them to slide on filing their reports is not the answer, because these committees can receive money, spend it how they want and then not say who gave it to them, Shepro said.

“The problem is not that the State Board of Elections does not do its job, it’s the power they are given,” Shepro said. “The process is illusory because the state board is not given the power to impose any meaningful sanctions.”

$10,000 owed by Sugar Grove PAC

An example of how strange the situation can be for political action committees, consider Citizens for a Better Fox Valley, “To promote good government in the Fox Valley Area,” was formed on April 1, 2013.

And it is listed as owing a $10,000 fine.

Records show a letter that was sent to the committee’s chairwoman and treasurer, Kristin Squires of Sugar Grove, dated Sept. 8, 2015.

It notifies her that the election board is terminating the committee because the committee cannot be located, it is inactive, it has not responded to correspondence for 12 months and had a closing balance of less than $10,000 on its last filed report.

The only report for the committee was its statement of organization.

The letter assesses the committee the $10,000 fine for its failure to file required reports.

It also warns that “any successor committee to a terminated committee will also be liable for the outstanding penalty. A successor committee is defined by rule as a committee that is composed of one or more of the same officers or for the same purpose or for the support of candidacy of the same person, irrespective of office, as the terminated committee.”

Attempts to find Squires for comment were unsuccessful.

Dietrich said any money collected goes into the state’s general fund.

“There is legislation introduced that would create a fund specifically for those fines to be used by (State Board of Elections) but it has not passed,” Dietrich said.

The ‘due and owing’ list

Some of the political action committees on the state’s due and owing list also include:

• Friends for Larry Walsh Jr. for $6,359, a Democratic State Representative from Joliet.

Walsh did not return a voicemail message left at his office.

• Committee for a Better Berwyn owes $1,050.

No contact information was available.

• Stop Longmeadow owes $3,075. The PAC was formed to try to stop Kane County from putting in the Longmeadow Parkway Fox River Bridge, a 5.6 mile bridge crossing over the Fox River in northern Kane County.

A message sent through social media was not returned.

• The Forgotten Progressive Pact in Downers Grove, the organizing voice (progressive) to overlooked registered voters, owes $900.

No contact information was available.

• Jim Patrician for Kane County, an Algonquin candidate for the County Board who did not get elected, owes $16,625.

A voicemail message was not returned.

• Clay Campbell for DeKalb County State’s Attorney, who did not get elected, owes $7,225.

A voicemail message was not returned

• Education First for Berwyn South School District 100 to elect school board members owes $5,000.

Contact information was not available.

• Conservative political consultant Jon Zahm’s group, Kane County Conservative Coalition, owes $5,000 as of Nov. 22, 2016.

The PAC was formed in 2002, “To support men and women for public office who best represent conservative social and fiscal values while conducting themselves ethically and responsibly.”I

In an email response, Zahm wrote: “The Kane County Conservative Coalition (KCCC) has been disbanded for nearly five years. None of the officers or members of that committee are obligated personally to pay this fine. The ruling by the hearing officer, and ratified by the Board, was wrongly arrived at. This is a non-story about a 5-years ago dispute between a Chicago based and union Democrat law firm and the KCCC.”

• John Ericsson Republican League of Illinois, whose stated purpose is, “To promote and endorse local, State, and National Republican candidates for elected office,” owes $1,350.

Its chairman is Kane County Clerk John Cunningham and its treasurer is County Board member Michael Kenyon, R-South Elgin.

Kenyon said the committee would pay the fine.

The problem?

“You have to think about doing it,” Kenyon said, of filing quarterly reports.

The fines due and owing list is online at www.elections.il.gov.