An Illinois lawmaker from Bloomington wants to limit corporate money in elections but could face legal challenges.
Democratic state Rep. Sharon Chung, who represents parts of Bloomington-Normal and Peoria plus rural areas along Interstate 74, has introduced a bill that would change the definition of corporation powers in the law by stating corporations cannot engage in activities related to primaries or elections.
Chung is trying to get around Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a Supreme Court ruling which gave corporations, unions and individuals the ability to make unlimited contributions, pool them together and use the money for political campaigns.
Such entities are known as Super PACs.
Chung said she got the idea to limit corporate campaign donations from Robert Reich’s Substack. Reich served as U.S. Labor Secretary under President Bill Clinton.
Chung said she wants to limit corporate money and influence in elections. She added this would affect every Illinois campaign—including hers.
“It probably will affect my campaign, but it’s going to affect everybody else’s campaigns as well,” Chung said.
Chung outspent her opponent in the 2022 election and has received $20,000 from Boyd Gaming corporation, according to campaign disclosures filed with the Illinois State Board of Elections.
Chung said she does not think that the corporate money donated to her campaign has affected her votes because she said she is still prioritizing her district.
“I’ve seen this also sort of where other people are sort of saying that you take some corporate PAC money and individually, like to your campaign, but you also vote your district every time,” Chung said.
Chung said she did support the development of an East Peoria casino owned by the Boyd Gaming company. The Illinois legislature had nothing to do with the approval of the casino, but Illinois does set regulations on casinos and gaming companies. The Illinois Gaming Board approved plans for the $160 million development in February.
There has also been criticism of labor unions acting in a similar way to corporations when influencing a campaign and making financial contributions.
Chung said unions speak for each of their due paying members, unlike corporations.
“The unions will have people voting on that process where corporations sort of put money in because nobody votes on corporation money,” Chung said.
Chung said only a few people decide where the corporate money goes with little input from the employees.
Chung said she is confident her bill will be heard, but the bill has not made it to committee.
“It might have to mean that we have to deal with some hard truths and look at the mirror and look at ourselves a little bit. Personally, I’m okay with that,” Chung said.
Chung said lawmakers have to play by the rules, which means using corporate money, but by passing the bill the rules would change.
“We kind of have an auspicious history in Illinois when it comes to politicians sort of taking money,” Chung said.
Chung said one way to get rid of the infamous legacy of former Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan in the legislature is to limit the influence corporations have with their money.
Chung said she thinks other lawmakers would support this bill, but understands that there is still the road block of the same corporate influence halting the bill before it gets a vote.
Legal concerns
Alisa Kaplan, the executive director of Reform for Illinois, a nonpartisan good government group, said any law trying to limit corporate influence in elections would meet legal challenges because of Citizens United.
“Bills like this face an uphill battle in the federal courts because of the way the Supreme Court has interpreted the Constitution over the last few decades,” Kaplan said.
Kaplan said Reform for Illinois does support the intent behind the bill but does not think it is viable to fight the legal battles to pass the bill.
Kaplan said the other issue is that corporations will flood a race with money to support candidates that align with their interest, which leads the opposing candidate to find their own corporate supporter.
“In elections, there’s a good chance that a corporation will put its profits over the public interest,” Kaplan said.
Kaplan said this can be seen with oil companies fighting climate change regulations.
Kaplan said Reform for Illinois is currently supporting a bill that would bring more transparency to super PACs, which are organizations that can support a candidate with unlimited sums of money but can not work with the campaign.
“This could be fixed in ways that even this Supreme Court should be okay with with stronger disclosure rules that require super PAC donors to reveal where their money is actually coming from,” Kaplan said.
Kaplan said super PACs already have to disclose who donates to them but some companies donate through a third party disguising their names.
“The problem is that they can disclose a donor where the donor name is like, I love Illinois LLC, and you won’t necessarily know who’s behind that entity that’s donating,” Kaplan said.
Kaplan said companies can donate an unlimited amount of money to super PACs, sometimes anonymously.
Kaplan said Reform for Illinois has found it to be an uphill battle every time they introduce a bill to reform campaign finance.
“We haven’t found that the General Assembly has had a great interest in strengthening campaign finance regulation in Illinois, despite the fact that Illinois has some of the weakest campaign finance rules in the country,” Kaplan said.
Illinois is the 6th worst state in campaign finance laws, according to the Cato Institute a Libertarian think tank.
Kaplan said the challenge with campaign finance reform is that the people who are changing the law are the ones benefiting from the current laws.
Other states
Similar bills in other states want to change the definition of what a corporation is, allowing them to get around the Citizens United decision. The new definition allows states to stop corporations from engaging in political campaigns.
The Center of American Progress, a progressive think tank, argues that unlike humans, who are granted rights when we are born, corporations are legal entities to gain rights through the law. This allows states to change the definition of corporation and take those rights away.
The Center said this would change the question before the supreme court to do corporations have the power to have free speech.
No state has passed this bill and it would face legal challenges if passed, Kaplan said.
Working for Illinois Caucus 