Steve Reick speaking to the Johnsburg GOP crowd.
In the State Representative contest to replace retiring Jack Franks, winner Steve Reick spent $573,065.
That’s not counting independent expenditures on his behalf.
He raised $564,843.
That’s from October through December.
Add in the quarter before and one finds the following:
- Receipts – $1,108.661
- Expenditures – 1,108.661
There was an extraordinary $475,561 of in-kind donations, mainly staff salaries, robo-calls, mailings, billboards, newspaper, radio and television ads. (Details here.)
Reick ended the year with $1,589 in his campaign bank account.
This is undoubtedly a record for McHenry County.
Reick’s Democratic Party opponent, John Bartman had the following income and outgo the half of the year:
- Receipts – $341,937
- Expenditures – $328,516
Bartman had $13,334 left over.
She spent something in the neighborhood of $100,000.When I first ran in 1972, the most spent in a legislative race was by independent North Side Democrat Dawn Clark Netsch.
We really need to change campaign financing laws to restrict financial contributions to a candidate.
Proposal: You can only contribute to a candidate if you can legally vote for him / her.
This would help to level the playing field by removing PACs from the equation and eliminating the power of corporations and unions in elections.
We also need to offset the Supreme Court decision which permits a candidate to flat out lie by passing legislation relative to the veracity of campaign materials and speeches.
The voters are now finding out (at last) what the “little liar” and maybe has daddy have been planning for years.
He flat out stated he would not run for the office and then did.
Gov. Rauner & friend$
Rauner didn’t contribute to Reick, did he??
Cautious, I don’t think that would work because the money would then be laundered thru other in district campaigns.
Like when a state rep Pam Althoff got a hefty Union donation and gave it to Carolyn Schofield, failed candidate for state rep just down the road apiece.
Unfortunately it won’t solve the problem.
Rauner did not want Reick to be the candidate.
I would guess Rauner money was funneled through the House Republican Organization.