Secret fund backs Emanuel's agenda

Anonymously funded group backs Emanuel's agenda Political organization aligned with mayor-elect has spent more than $445,000 to help certain aldermanic candidates Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel says there is no coordination between his campaign and For A Better Chicago. (Nancy Stone/Tribune) 3 Share 0 digg Related Photos: Rahm Emanuel, a visual history Map: Runoffs getting extra attention Topics Local Elections Elections Gold Coast See more topics » By David Kidwell, Hal Dardick and John Chase, Tribune reporters 11:59 p.m. CST, March 2, 2011 E-mailPrint Share Text Size A secretly funded political group aligned with Rahm Emanuel has donated more than $445,000 to aldermanic candidates to help the mayor-elect in a high-stakes battle over control of City Hall. Emanuel publicly steered clear of all but a few City Council races on his way to an overwhelming victory last week. At the same time, the group led by his former campaign manager was showering money on aldermanic candidates whose support Emanuel needs to push his agenda. Eight of the candidates endorsed by the group now face April 5 runoff elections, and since his victory, Emanuel has offered his own help to seven of them, the candidates told the Tribune. It's a convergence with few fingerprints and many political benefits. Need basic training in SEO and social media? Sign up for 435 Digital seminars at Tribune Tower >> Emanuel, sensitive to any suggestion he is a power broker like outgoing Mayor Richard Daley, gains potential council allies. The donors keep their anonymity, thanks to controversial quirks in fundraising laws. And aldermen get the help they seek without appearing beholden to anyone. The leader of the group, For A Better Chicago, said there has been no coordination with Emanuel's campaign but acknowledged the group is working to get a pro-business, pro-Emanuel council elected. "We're very supportive of Rahm and what he wants to accomplish and want to continue to drive and push him to follow through — and help move those same agenda items through the City Council," said Greg Goldner, a veteran Chicago political consultant who managed Emanuel's successful 2002 bid for Congress. "His campaign commitments and positions are very similar to ours." Emanuel has said he will support candidates who adopt his pro-reform agenda, but a campaign spokesman said Wednesday that help will come "directly through his own political committee." "The mayor-elect didn't have anything to do with the establishment of For A Better Chicago," said spokesman Ben LaBolt. "In fact, For A Better Chicago supported a number of aldermanic candidates who supported other candidates for mayor." Created after Daley announced he wasn't seeking re-election, For A Better Chicago is a nonprofit allowed under federal law to protect the identity of its donors. The group formed a political action committee in December to support council candidates, and it was funded with $855,000 from the nonprofit. Goldner won't say who donated to the group. One public donor is David Herro, a Gold Coast investment manager and major political donor who along with his live-in partner gave $10,000 directly to the political action committee — the only donations traceable under state campaign finance law. The Illinois Campaign for Political Reform filed a complaint with state elections authorities accusing the group of evading state disclosure law. "I was explaining to (Goldner) how important it is to me that Rahm has a good group of aldermen to work with, a group that is about reform," Herro said. "And then he told me what he was doing with For A Better Chicago, so I decided to give him some money." Herro, who was named this week to a committee planning Emanuel's inaugural festivities, also gave $65,000 directly to Emanuel and more than $90,000 to individual council candidates. Herro said the agendas of Emanuel and For A Better Chicago are intertwined. "Envision two circles," Herro said. "It's not like the circles are completely over one another, but there is an intersection and it isn't a tiny intersection. I would say two-thirds of the circles are over one another, but I don't think this group is going to be 100 percent loyal to everything Rahm does." For A Better Chicago supports a number of initiatives favored by Emanuel, ranging from increasing public-private partnerships to eliminating the city's head tax on employers. Aldermanic candidates who got the group's support in the first round leading up to the Feb. 22 election filled out questionnaires on those and other topics. "I really didn't know what their agenda was. … I have since heard it was pro-business," said Ald. Freddrenna Lyle, 6th, who received $10,000 from the group and is in a runoff against Roderick Sawyer, son of former Mayor Eugene Sawyer. Lyle, who supported Carol Moseley Braun for mayor, said it is a good thing that most of the donations are anonymous because it removes even the appearance that candidates who receive the group's money will feel indebted to individual contributors. "I can tell you that I do not feel beholden to a group called For A Better Chicago," said Lyle, who is among several candidates taking money from the pro-business group while also receiving the backing of Chicago labor unions. All but one of the runoff candidates backed by For A Better Chicago told the Tribune that Emanuel offered his help in the days after his election. Ald. John Rice, 36th, appointed by Daley to replace longtime Ald. William J.P. Banks, said he received calls the day after the election from Emanuel and Goldner. "Rahm has reached out to me, and he is definitely supporting my campaign," Rice said. "He said he would do whatever he could to help me." Goldner, whose political action committee endorsed Rice but didn't help him financially during the first-round election, said he would help Rice's campaign with financial support in the runoff against firefighter Nicholas Sposato, Rice said. Ald. Daniel Solis, 25th, a longtime Daley supporter who backed Gery Chico in the mayoral race, said he reached out to Emanuel on election night to congratulate him. Emanuel called back and said he is going "to support me 100 percent," said Solis, who faces Cuahutemoc Morfin, a former Cook County probation officer. Other candidates backed by the group who say Emanuel offered support are Ald. JoAnn Thompson, 16th; Ald. Latasha Thomas, 17th; Ald. Timothy Cullerton, 38th; and Debra Silverstein, who is challenging Ald. Bernard Stone, 50th. For A Better Chicago also backed Ald. Willie Cochran, 20th, who said he would like Emanuel's support but has not heard from him. His opponent, hip-hop artist Che "Rhymefest" Smith, also said he has not heard from Emanuel. In the other half-dozen runoff races, For A Better Chicago has not endorsed any of the 12 candidates and Emanuel has not called them, those candidates told the Tribune. In addition to Solis and Lyle, the group also endorsed several winning aldermanic candidates who supported Emanuel rivals in the mayor's race. Goldner said that's because his group's goals are broader than helping Emanuel. "To say it was being done for Rahm just ignores a lot of other reality," he said. The group has about $150,000 left in its coffers and plans to raise an additional $250,000 for the runoffs, Goldner said. Money is an increasingly important part of aldermanic campaigns, where just a few thousand dollars to pay for a direct-mail advertisement can separate a winner from a loser. That is even more important since the decline of patronage armies loyal to Democratic bosses. The current council races in some ways mirror the 2007 struggle between the business community and labor unions trying to influence a council that votes on everything from neighborhood development to the wages that big-box stores like Wal-Mart should pay in Chicago. In that election, Daley supporters set up an obscure campaign fund to back Daley-endorsed aldermen to counter the union influence. While the unions won several seats, Daley still had ironclad control over the council. For A Better Chicago's influence in the 2011 elections stands to burnish Goldner's reputation as a power player whose roots go back to the days when pro-Daley city workers flooded wards to get out the vote. Goldner, the chief executive of the public affairs firm Resolute Consulting, was Emanuel's campaign manager when patronage workers helped Emanuel win his seat in Congress. Tribune reporter Ray Gibson contributed to this report. dkidwell@tribune.com hdardick@tribune.com jchase@tribune.com

Posted via email from Brian's posterous