The Democratic Party’s pick to replace Kim Foxx is behind in fundraising
Clayton Harris III lags his primary rival, Eileen O’Neill Burke, whose donors include an ex-prosecutor tied to deceased police Cmdr. Jon Burge.
By Chip Mitchell
The Democratic Party’s pick to replace Kim Foxx is behind in fundraising
Clayton Harris III lags his primary rival, Eileen O’Neill Burke, whose donors include an ex-prosecutor tied to deceased police Cmdr. Jon Burge.
By Chip MitchellPropelled by scores of Chicago-area lawyers, Cook County state’s attorney candidate Eileen O’Neill Burke is outpacing the fundraising of her March 19 primary rival, Clayton Harris III, despite his endorsement from the county Democratic Party.
O’Neill Burke, a former prosecutor and Illinois appellate judge, this week reported contributions through December that raised her total to $395,405 for the primary, a contest likely to be decisive for replacing State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, who is stepping down after two terms. That sum is 8% more than the $364,556 raised by Harris, a public policy professor and former prosecutor.
O’Neill Burke also held a lead in funds available Dec. 31. She reported $246,743. Harris had $154,824.
From July through December, O’Neill Burke reported 344 donors, while Harris reported 264.
O’Neill Burke’s biggest donations included more than $20,000 tied to employees of Citadel, a hedge fund founded by billionaire Republican donor Ken Griffin, according to a WBEZ review of her filings.
O’Neill Burke also accepted $1,000 from Lawrence Hyman, a former supervisor in the state’s attorney’s office who took confessions from two accused cop killers in 1982 after their alleged torture by Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge.
Her campaign reported the Hyman donation within days of a WBEZ report last month that O’Neill Burke, as an assistant state’s attorney in 1994, prosecuted an 11-year-old whose murder confession was later found to have been coerced.
O’Neill Burke also accepted a $500 contribution from Fraternal Order of Police attorney Timothy Grace. The FOP itself, as of Dec. 31, had not provided funding.
About two-thirds of O’Neill Burke’s donors are attorneys, the WBEZ review found. Less than half of Harris’s contributors are lawyers.
Harris’s largest contributions included $23,800 from former Illinois state Sen. Heather Steans, her political fund and her husband Leo Smith, and $20,000 from a Teamsters Local 705 political action committee.
Harris also got $10,000 from a political fund of Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, who leads the party organization that endorsed him for the primary and who helped push Foxx into office eight years ago.
Other notable donations to Harris include $1,000 from his campaign treasurer Gyata Kimmons, a lobbyist whose clients include Walmart, and $1,500 from Kates Detective & Security Services Agency, a private firm that replaced some unionized Chicago Housing Authority workers and that employed a guard who shot a man to death at a CHA facility, leading to a $4.8 million jury award.
The race’s financing so far is a fraction of what the top Democrats raised in the 2020 state’s attorney primary, when challenger Bill Conway received periodic six- and seven-figure infusions from his father, investor William E. Conway Jr., while Foxx’s reelection bid netted steady support from the party’s establishment and a windfall from a super PAC connected to New York billionaire George Soros.
The primary winner will advance to the general election this November and face former Chicago Ald. Bob Fioretti, the race’s lone Republican, and attorney Andrew Charles Kopinski, a Libertarian.
Among other major donations to O’Neill Burke:
$14,200 from attorneys of personal injury firm Cooney & Conway.
$13,800 from Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard, another personal injury firm.
$13,800 from leaders of the restaurant group Lettuce Entertain You.
$10,150 from attorneys in the Chicago office of Ice Miller.
$10,000 linked to investor and attorney David Ruttenberg.
Other big contributions to Harris:
$19,700 from personal-injury attorney Robert Clifford and his office.
$11,000 from the political fund of Northbrook school board President Tracy Katz Muhl, appointed this week by local Democratic leaders to fill a state representative vacancy.
$10,000 from MedEx Medical Supplies, a company in Hoffman Estates.
$6,900 from Rebecca Janowitz, special assistant for legal affairs at the Cook County Judicial Advisory Council.
$5,000 from North Side grocer Cermak Produce No. 6 Inc.
Chip Mitchell reports on policing, public safety and public health. Follow him at @ChipMitchell1. Contact him at cmitchell@wbez.org.