Eye On Illinois: Are campaign finance laws fully serving their stated goals?

In terms of campaign finances, there is the letter of the law and the perceptions of fairness; those circles don’t always intersect.

Consider recent local elections. At elections.il.gov, the second drop-down menu is “Campaign Disclosure.” Underneath are options for multiple search functions. Several attempts returned only records of donations for my village’s losing mayoral candidate and nothing for the winning incumbent. Clearly, someone paid for all the yard signs, but the lack of transparency a week after the voting doesn’t implicitly imply chicanery.

Of broader interest is the current situation with Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park. This week, the Chicago Tribune reported that the State Board of Elections told Harmon he wrongly accepted more than $4 million last year. Harmon doesn’t dispute receiving the contributions, but maintains everything was above board because he gave enough of his own money to the campaign to remove contribution caps.

If Harmon is right, then taking the money was legal. But even being on the right side of the law doesn’t address why precisely a 22-year Senate veteran who never even faces a primary challenger, let alone a general election opponent, needs millions of dollars in campaign cash in the first place.

If the ISBE is right, Harmon has a week to return the funds or donate the contested amount to a charity. Failure to do so could subject his campaign committee to a $6.1 million fine, which would be a starting point for settlement negotiations or could be reduced through an appeals process. All those outcomes also would be legal, but none represent the kind of real-world consequences that might dissuade future conduct or give voters any sense of punitive justice.

As noted Thursday regarding the federal trial of state Sen. Emil Jones III, D-Chicago, the issue here is less so Harmon’s guilt and more a chance to explore the systems in place to reconsider if the guidelines actually serve an intended purpose.

Specifically, what is the wisdom of the rule wherein a candidate can give enough money to their committee to make it legal for others to give millions more? Why can incumbents collect sizable contributions when they’re not even on the next ballot, or wouldn’t be challenged if they were? Are we all adequately served by the current reporting and penalty cycles if information about potential conflicts is legally obfuscated for several months after the electoral dust settles?

Voters deserve candidates who aren’t independently wealthy. Campaigns aren’t free. Plenty of my paychecks over almost 30 years of professional journalism can be traced (in part) to revenue drawn from political advertising. But these murky waters, roiled by elected officials who write their own rules, perpetually impair the perception of “fair” elections.

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.