CHICAGO — Illinois Democratic Senate President Don Harmon improperly accepted $4 million more in political contributions than allowed under campaign donation laws he championed years ago, according to the State Board of Elections.

In a certified letter sent to Harmon last month following a Chicago Tribune inquiry about Harmon’s fundraising, state election officials said his campaign committee accepted numerous donations within nine months after the March 2024 primary that far exceeded state contribution caps designed to curtail big-money influence in Illinois politics.

A spokesman for the Oak Park Democrat confirmed Harmon’s main political campaign fund received the board’s letter but gave little other immediate reaction.

“We are reviewing this communication with our attorneys and look forward to resolving this matter,” Harmon political spokesman Tom Bowen said.

Harmon has until April 18 to return the campaign cash above the limits “to the contributor or donate an equal amount to charity” or to the state’s general fund, the letter said. Or the fund could potentially face a fine of more than $6.1 million, which is the 150% penalty the state statute calls for against campaign committees that willfully accept contributions over the limit, the letter said.

The likelihood of such a massive penalty, however, is slim. Politicians often successfully appeal elections board violations or reach settlements with the board, which is well-known for having minimal enforcement powers. Despite the strong language of the letter, board spokesman Matt Dietrich said election officials view the Harmon matter as only an allegation at this point.

Harmon’s aggressive fundraising and the state board’s response underscore Illinois’ porous campaign finance structure more than 15 years after the state adopted contribution caps that other states have had in place for many more years to limit the impact big money plays in state and local politics.

At issue in Harmon’s case is whether a loophole that allows politicians to remove campaign contribution limits was in effect when he collected what’s deemed extra cash between March 2024 and the end of the year.

When the caps are in place, candidates can only accept up to certain amounts from individuals, political action committees, corporations and unions. But those caps are lifted in races where any candidate reports reaching a “self-funding threshold” in which they give their campaigns more than $250,000 for statewide races and $100,000 elsewhere. Even though he hasn’t had significant competition in his state Senate campaigns, Harmon has repeatedly given or loaned his campaign fund more than $100,000 over the years, opening the loophole and allowing him to collect unlimited sums of campaign cash.

It’s a maneuver political insiders call “the money bomb.”

State campaign records show Harmon gave his Friends of Don Harmon for State Senate campaign committee more than $100,000 in January 2023, triggering the money bomb exemption. But the money bomb loophole closed in March 2024 when Illinois had primary elections and Harmon didn’t reopen it until earlier this year when he once again gave his campaign fund $100,001, the board said.

In the meantime, between March 2024 and the end of the year, Friends of Don Harmon for State Senate collected more than $8.3 million in nearly 700 separate contributions, including from numerous familiar, longtime friendly contributors as well as a relatively new group immersed in a controversial fight in Springfield to legalize casino-style games on the internet, state campaign records show.

And because the state elections board said the loophole was closed during that time, it contended many of those donations far exceeded contribution limits.

Among the contributions the fund accepted were $1.23 million from the Chicago Land Operators Joint Labor Management PAC, $600,000 from the Illinois Federation of Teachers political action committee and $333,000 from the Illinois Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Illinois PAC.

Harmon’s campaign fund also accepted $250,000 in October from the Sports Betting Alliance. The group is a consortium of gambling interests lobbying Harmon and other lawmakers this legislative session to pass a bill that would open up Illinois to expand into what proponents call iGaming, though Harmon has expressed skepticism about the bill.

When the Tribune inquired with the state board about the contributions, elections officials examined the donations and the timing of Harmon’s efforts to trigger the money bomb exemption before sending the certified letter, which is dated March 19.

The board said each of the PACs was limited to giving no more than $68,500 because the caps were in place after the primary and that the Sports Betting Alliance was limited to donating $13,700 or less.

Kent Redfield, a campaign finance expert who has called for tighter monitoring of political funds, said the contributions Harmon accepted “would not pass muster with an auditor.”

“The onus is on the political committee to not to violate the law,” Redfield said. “Just because people throw money at you, you don’t have to take it. It’s not clear how seriously we take disclosure and make good on the rhetoric about maximizing transparency and informing the public. It’s very frustrating.”

This isn’t the first time Harmon has been tied to elections board enforcement efforts.

In 2023, the board fined an independent expenditure PAC backed by Harmon for failing until after the 2022 elections to file detailed reports showing it spent the bulk of $7.3 million to help elect Democrats Elizabeth Rochford and Mary Kay O’Brien to the Illinois Supreme Court. The election wins helped expand the high court’s Democratic majority.

The spending by the PAC, All for Justice, was more than a bookkeeping issue. By not reporting the spending before the election, as required by law, that spending was obscured, leaving Republicans and the public without a clear picture of all money pouring into the races.

The $108,500 fine levied by the board was among its largest ever but the fine has still yet to be paid.

Birth of a loophole

The election board’s calculation that Harmon accepted nearly $4.1 million more than allowed puts the spotlight back on the money bomb loophole that was highlighted in the 2024 Tribune “Culture of Corruption” series.

In the wake of impeached Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s pay-to-play scandals, public pressure pushed lawmakers and then-Gov. Pat Quinn, also a Democrat, to follow many other states in 2009 and cap the size of political donations. But lawmakers also wanted to protect incumbents from free-spending millionaires and billionaires who might materialize as challengers, so they devised what was at the time called the “millionaires amendment.”

The clause called for caps on contributions to be lifted if any candidate in a particular political contest reported reaching a “self-funding threshold” of $250,000 in statewide races or $100,000 in state legislative and local contests. A few years later, lawmakers voted that donations in those same amounts from independent expenditure committees, known as super PACs, could also trigger removal of the limits in a single contest. Harmon shepherded both laws through the Senate.

Soon the “millionaires amendment” garnered the flashier new nickname, “the money bomb,” as Illinois politicians from both parties turned the clause into an offensive weapon that allowed them to raise unlimited cash if they could scrape together enough of their own personal money to trigger the amendment themselves.

As a result, a provision originally pitched to protect politicians from big-spending wealthy rivals was turned into a way to push aside campaign limits and pump up the political funds of any candidate willing to break the self-funding threshold.

Politicians from both parties have exercised the money bomb exemption, usually by donating $100,001 — a single dollar over the threshold — to their campaign funds, even if they aren’t in competitive races.

Legislative leaders traditionally try to amass huge campaign bankrolls, dispersing the money to rank-and-file members who may be politically vulnerable, to support favored candidates to expand their caucuses or as a display of loyalty.

Harmon has given several six-figure contributions — including $100,001 loans — to his Friends of Don Harmon for State Senate committee to lift the contribution cap, including years when he later repaid those six-figure contributions back to himself.

When he first tried the move in late 2019, election authorities told Harmon he could not invoke the self-funding clause at that particular time because his seat wasn’t immediately up for reelection. But Harmon successfully argued to election officials the statute specifically says the maneuver can be used 12 months before “an election,” not necessarily one in which he is a candidate, the board said.

Harmon’s current case before election officials once again centers on the timing of when and how long the loophole can be used.

According to board records, Harmon notified election officials on Jan. 17, 2023, that he had donated $168,152 to his campaign fund, triggering the removal of the contribution caps. Those same records show Harmon indicated he thought the limits would be off through the November 2024 general election.

But election officials disagreed and sent a letter to Harmon’s fund, saying the limits were only off through the March 2024 primary. Harmon was not even on the ballot since his four-year seat isn’t up for reelection until 2026.

Redfield wondered if Harmon “totally disregarded” the board’s direction.

“He knows what the law is. He got a letter,” said Redfield, a retired political science professor at the University of Illinois Springfield. “There ought to be some accountability on their part, if you’ve explained the law to them and then they continue to accept contributions.”

Internet gambling contributions

Donations from the Sports Betting Alliance — the consortium pushing for Illinois to legalize casino-style games on the internet that tripled its campaign finance contributions from 2023 to 2024 with hefty boosts for legislative leaders — help illustrate some of the quirks in campaign finance law that come into play when a special interest group decides to up the ante.

The alliance is backing legislation that would allow internet-based versions of slot machines, poker or various table games. The so-called iGaming legislation, which recently got its first subject-matter hearing without a vote, proposes a 25% state tax. The legislation’s supporters say the tax would likely generate a multimillion-dollar windfall that could help the state as it struggles with a tight budget and Republican President Donald Trump’s squeeze on federal funds the state had counted on.

The alliance’s members are DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM and Fanatics Sportsbook.

Sports Betting Alliance’s $250,000 contribution to Harmon represented only part of the hundreds of thousands of dollars the group showered upon lawmakers in 2024.

The alliance also gave House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, a Democrat from Hillside, a $250,000 contribution. Welch, who also had given his campaign fund $100,001 in 2023, was able to accept the cash because his seat was up for reelection in 2024, election officials said.

The House and Senate Republican leaders, Rep. Tony McCombie of Savanna and Sen. John Curran of Downers Grove, also each received $50,000 from the alliance. They also had put enough money into their own campaign funds to use the loophole to collect contributions above the regular limits.

Overall, the Sports Betting Alliance gave 18 contributions last year totaling $736,800 to Illinois politicians’ campaign funds. That tally included the exact $13,700 limit to the Democratic Senate sponsor of the iGaming legislation, Sen. Cristina Castro of Elgin, and $10,000 to Democratic House sponsor, Rep. Edgar Gonzalez of Chicago.

The group’s overall donations increased from previous years, particularly in the wake of higher taxes imposed on sports betting in Illinois, said Jeremy Kudon, SBA’s president.

“That debate over the tax increase was an opportunity for many to think about whether we just do iGaming instead or some version of it,” Kudon said.

Beyond the direct contributions to candidates, Sports Betting Alliance opened a super PAC and spent $5,000 on each of three downstate Democratic House races in October. But the alliance failed to report the pre-election spending on time, and state officials are notifying the group of the violation. Through a spokesman, Kudon declined comment.

The alliance is part of a large mix of business owners, individuals and other groups staking out positions, making contributions or weighing in on both sides of the iGaming legislation.

Bally’s, which is building a land-based casino in Chicago, is not a member of the alliance, but a top officer with the firm’s digital division confirmed it supports the bill legalizing iGaming for Illinois.

But not all Illinois casino operators do.

Jay Keller, a contract lobbyist for Penn Entertainment, which operates casinos in Alton, Aurora and Joliet, said iGaming could undermine the state’s existing casino industry, including union jobs and “substantial tax revenue for Illinois.” In addition, a 2021 study by the state’s Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability, the legislature’s bipartisan fiscal arm, indicated that legalizing iGaming could lead to the cannibalization of revenues at casinos and bars with video poker.

Pete Gwizdala, who owns Crazy Times Pub & Grub in Machesney Park and Dandy’s Slots in Roscoe, is worried that lost revenue from the legalization of iGaming would cause him to shut down Dandy’s and potentially require him to reduce employee benefits at his bar. About 90% of Dandy’s Slots’ revenue comes from gambling.

“If they take any part of the pie away from us, it’s detrimental to those types of businesses,” Gwizdala said.

Brad Cole, who heads the Illinois Municipal League, also has come out opposed to iGaming, saying it could sap local revenue from video poker games and deprive smaller municipalities of control of where people can gamble.

“They authorize these businesses to host video gaming terminals in their communities because they don’t have the land-based casino within their jurisdiction,” Cole said. “Over time, those funds have evolved into a dependable and essential source of revenue.”

Gonzalez, the House sponsor, held off on a vote on the legislation in committee last month but said he still planned to press the issue forward this spring.

“Many are considering its inevitability” because of the potential that the legislation could bring in state tax revenue, he said.

While iGaming supporters also argue that illegal internet gambling already siphons money from Illinois, Harmon himself has concerns about making more gambling options available to anyone with a cellphone.

“I remain skeptical of the wisdom of putting a slot machine in everyone’s pocket,” Harmon said.

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