In response to questions over a lack of transparency in election filings, Bruce Rauner’s campaign for governor has agreed to refile its quarterly disclosure reports.
The issue first surfaced when it was discovered the Republican gubernatorial candidate’s campaign finance forms showed the campaign wrote checks to a third party payroll vendor, making it difficult to know who exactly was working for the campaign:
In the last quarter of 2013, Rauner's campaign wrote checks for over $184,000 to Paylocity, effectively hiding the names and remuneration of his staff and consultants.
The only hint of staff expenses in the most recent Rauner filings are in the form of travel reimbursements to campaign director Chip Englander and staffer Kelley Folino. The report also shows $10,000 paid to Blue Cross Blue Shield for campaign staff health insurance.
The Illinois State Board of Elections told Illinois Review they'd not been asked about this before, and thought it may warrant further investigation. The practice is illegal on the federal level according to FEC rules.
However, after news about the practice broke, the Rauner campaign agreed to refile it’s quarterly disclosure reports going back at least a year. Rauner’s campaign said in a statement:
We have filed our campaign finance disclosure reports in the same manner for four quarters, and the State Board has accepted those filings without issue. We are confident that we have complied with the Campaign Finance Act.
Politics
That said, the Board has now requested that we break out the salaries. We are honoring that request. We have no problem providing further detail regarding our expenditures, and we will provide that detail shortly.
The move may have been prompted, in part, by a call from House Democrat Lou Lang for a more formal investigation into the campaign’s practice:
House Deputy Majority Leader Lou Lang (D-Skokie) has a sent a letter to Illinois election authorities asking them to investigate GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner’s campaign for its for failure to disclose legally mandated expenditures in its campaign finance reports.
“By failing to report the identify and compensation of campaign staff members Chip Englander and Mike Schrimpf, for example, the State Board of Elections should launch an investigation of Bruce Rauner’s campaign finance reports because the law’s requirements are clear,” said Lang. “Flouting state campaign finance law is unacceptable – even for billionaires.”
