Campaign Finance Laws and Illinios' culture of political corruption

[jAZ]

http://www.ilcampaign.org/oldsite/about/illinoislaw.html

Illinois Campaign Finance Law, At A Glance:

1) Limits on Contributions:

A) No limits on who can contribute (including corporations, unions, associations, and regulated industries).
B) No limits on how much can be contributed.
C) No limit on how much a candidate, elected official or party committee can transfer to another candidate.
D) No limit on the number of political funds that one candidate can have.


Think about that next time you bitch about campaign finance laws.

[RINGLEADER]

Campaign finance laws are the least of the problems in Illinois (and especially Chicago where I first got into it).

Everyone who complained about Obama being close to Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers, while they were easy political targets and Obama fumbled a bit when first dealing with them, don't understand that you can't start a Chicago political career without having to gain the support of some ethically unsavory characters (and say what you want about Wright and Ayers, there are far worse actually IN the Chicago government unfortunately).

Anyway, if you didn't have corrupt people running for office you wouldn't need rules on how you, I, or anyone else wants to support a particular position with our dollars or otherwise. Shows how crappy the system has become that everyone just accepts a certain degree of corruption in politics. Just my opinion.

[jAZ]

Campaign finance laws are the least of the problems in Illinois (and especially Chicago where I first got into it).

Everyone who complained about Obama being close to Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers, while they were easy political targets and Obama fumbled a bit when first dealing with them, don't understand that you can't start a Chicago political career without having to gain the support of some ethically unsavory characters (and say what you want about Wright and Ayers, there are far worse actually IN the Chicago government unfortunately).

Anyway, if you didn't have corrupt people running for office you wouldn't need rules on how you, I, or anyone else wants to support a particular position with our dollars or otherwise. Shows how crappy the system has become that everyone just accepts a certain degree of corruption in politics. Just my opinion.

A lack of ANY campaign finance laws is why today's problems are problems today.

[memyselfI]

And we just elected our POTUS who rose to his political fortune from that cesspool. :rolleyes:

[trndobrd]

A lack of ANY campaign finance laws is why today's problems are problems today.


Democrats have been in charge of Illinois politics for how long?



Here's a fun website for anyone interested in seeing the thousands Obama took as a State Senator from investment firms, the passed back out to aldermen and other local candidates.


http://www.elections.il.gov/ElectionInformation/CandFiling.aspx

[HonestChieffan]

Read American Pharaoh if you read books. It gives a very clear understanding of how the Chicago machine rose to power and insight into how it remains to this day.

[BucEyedPea]

Democrats have been in charge of Illinois politics for how long?



Here's a fun website for anyone interested in seeing the thousands Obama took as a State Senator from investment firms, the passed back out to aldermen and other local candidates.


http://www.elections.il.gov/ElectionInformation/CandFiling.aspx

Obama and Michelle got their starts post college on Wall Street too. Even Obama's mother's line of work was funded through connections in that area.

[jAZ]

Democrats have been in charge of Illinois politics for how long?



Here's a fun website for anyone interested in seeing the thousands Obama took as a State Senator from investment firms, the passed back out to aldermen and other local candidates.


http://www.elections.il.gov/ElectionInformation/CandFiling.aspx

No doubt. I'm not blaming IL Repubilcans for the problem. I don't know who the problem belongs to, but I'd assume it's the Dems in IL.