*** UPDATED x1 *** A post-Watergate record
Monday, Jun 16, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* AP…
A Chicago hedge fund CEO’s $2.5 million donation to the campaign of Republican candidate Bruce Rauner has been termed the largest single donation in an Illinois governor’s race in the post-Watergate era.
Campaign disclosure records show 45-year-old Citadel chief executive Ken Griffin has now given Rauner a total of $3.57 million, including $71,000 worth of in-kind contributions for the use of Griffin’s private jet. Griffin in the past has made campaign contributions to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a Democrat, and Republican state Sen. Bill Brady.
“We need a leader with experience, passion, and the will to turn this state around,” Griffin said in a statement to Crain’s Chicago Business. “I support Bruce Rauner because he can get the job done.”
Kent Redfield, professor emeritus of political science at University of Illinois at Springfield, said the Griffin donation is the biggest in an Illinois governor’s race since the mid-1970s campaign finance reforms that followed the Watergate scandal.
* HuffPo says it’s the largest in any state…
The $2.5 million contribution to Rauner’s campaign is the largest The Huffington Post could identify to a political campaign in recent history. A number of states have no campaign contribution limits, but none have seen a single contribution this large in two decades, according to state records. (Individuals and corporations have likely given larger contributions, when adjusted for inflation, in the past.)
*** UPDATE *** WJBC…
“He does no business with the state whatsoever,” Rauner says. “He’s a completely financially independent guy. he just deeply cares about good government and good government reform. He needs no favors, no special deals. That’s why I love working with guys like Ken.” […]
“He’s a great education reformer and a great business policy reformer and that’s one of the reasons I have a lot of respect for him.”
When asked if Rauner would consider Griffin for a job in his administration. Rauner joked that someone making 400 million dollars a year doesn’t need a job.
Also, wise words from Yellow Dog Democrat in comments…
Yes, this can should and will be a campaign issue.
But Griffin has a net worth of $2 or $3 BILLION.
He just wrote Harvard a check for $150 million…their biggest gift ever.
The dude gave the Art Institute $19 million because it happened to be where he and his wife had their first date.
You wanna know why he wrote such a big check instead of making installments?
$2.5 million IS an installment payment for Ken. We will likely see another $2.5 million from Ken in September and maybe a few more in late October.
Agreed.
- William j Kelly - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 9:42 am:
Don’t let Rahm’s billionaires bully you! Williamjkellyforchicago.com
- Rich Miller - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 9:44 am:
William, your posts are denigrating into drive-by spam messages.
- William j Kelly - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 9:50 am:
Sorry Rich, sometimes I get too focused on counter acting the rahmner drive-by spam campaign!
- OneMan - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 9:50 am:
Are?
- wordslinger - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 9:52 am:
I wonder what, if any, strategy there was in going so heavy in one contribution? He could have spread it out.
Obviously, it was going to make news (I don’t think a “post-Watergate record” headline was the p.r. goal.
Could they be trying to scare off Quinn contributors, as in, “don’t bother, you’ll never match us?”
The p.r. certainly isn’t “outsider,” or “Main Street.” or “Tea Party.” More like a couple of Wall Street crony capitalists buying the governor’s mansion.
- OldSmoky2 - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 9:54 am:
People don’t spend $3.5 million on something without expecting to recoup their investment, and probably many times over. Quinn really needs to make this a major issue in this campaign.
- OneMan - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 9:56 am:
At the end of the day, what can a governor really do for a hedge fund billionare?
- so... - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 9:59 am:
==People don’t spend $3.5 million on something without expecting to recoup their investment, and probably many times over. Quinn really needs to make this a major issue in this campaign.==
Good. And when he does that, hopefully he can address those six figure checks he’s collected from Fred Eychaner and the SEIU.
- A guy... - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 10:00 am:
===wordslinger - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 9:52 am:
I wonder what, if any, strategy there was in going so heavy in one contribution? ===
I’m actually wondering this too. Unless there is none and it’s just the first of many from KG and others to keep a full on media schedule going from now until Election Day. Gotta wait and see.
BTW- unrelated- absolutely loved reading your account of your pop’s meeting up with Bob Dole. It was epic.
- phocion - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 10:01 am:
$ from private citizens = bad
$ from public sector unions = good
- CLJ - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 10:01 am:
I can see the Quinn press conference standing with a group of voters at a social service agency with a message on the budget and need for more support for those that need it and then the dig by the governor highlighting that the lifetime earnings of all the people in the room does not equal the amount of money donated from one hedge fund billionaire to another.
- Oswego Willy - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 10:08 am:
First, - wordslinger -, great story, thanks for sharing, and thanks to Rich for making it a stand alone Post.
To the Post,
If you marry the remarks of Griffin, and the money and influence people, billionaire people, feel they need to have to be heard, the “Cake” the niche voters, are “Raunerites”
They are.
Not Republican or Democrat, just those who got into a cake to try and get a plurality, not by being “everything to everybody” but be enough fluff of something to fool everyone…
What does Griffin want for $2.5 million?
Cut out the middleman, have one if their “own” as a “made member”
It’s simple. The only thing that is difficult is having to be taken as a lemming for Griffin and Rauner.
- Mr. Big Trouble - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 10:11 am:
Demoocracy in action, but folks want to rip apart a citizen who exercises his rights under the current structure, and the paranoia starts again. If you had Griifin’s kind of money, and wanted to exercise your rights to try to move this state forward, wouldnt’ you do the same??
- OneMan - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 10:12 am:
Part of me thinks it was a message…
They will raise what it takes…
If you come in for Quinn it is going to be expensive, really expensive.
Do you want to support Quinn in this a race or is there another race you might be better off investing your money as a individual or group?
- Toure's Latte - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 10:13 am:
Interesting tack. If the unions respond at that level one would think Rauner’s campaign people have the ads in the can ready to go. Effectively, Quinn has had no response getting any press, lost in the tidal wave.
Quinn’s people have to get on top of this with coordinated messaging. Maybe CLJ can help them!
- Demoralized - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 10:19 am:
==Democracy in action, but folks want to rip apart a citizen who exercises his rights under the current structure==
I prefer to criticize the campaign finance structure in place that lets money so influence elections. I think one of the biggest fails in Supreme Court history has been to equate money with speech.
- Bemused - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 10:22 am:
The numbers have gone beyond obscene. I think something like a total of better than 8 mill for the Rauner campaign. Even if he wins what can he really accomplish. Is it worth that much to have “Former Governor of IL” on his tombstone. Like some others I have to wonder what the big boys think they will get for their outlay. I could see it if the GOP controlled the GA and Rauner could produce some of the major changes the rich right wingers want.
I have not nor shall I ever support a Rauner Governorship but even should he win I do not see it as a catastrophe. Such a development would probably get MM’s juices flowing.
- OneMan - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 10:25 am:
That’s fair enough, but this ins’t federal money. If I recall right until a few years ago there were no limits on donations in Illinois so if you wanted to call money speech or Timmy it wouldn’t have mattered….
- Grandson of Man - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 10:26 am:
“If you come in for Quinn it is going to be expensive, really expensive.”
You have to strategize correctly. All throughout history, smaller forces defeated larger ones. Alexander the Great’s forces defeated larger armies, including in India, when Alexander defeated King Porus, who had battle-trained elephants and a larger army.
Mentioning Quinn in the same breath of supreme military commanders is almost insulting, but there are lessons to be learned throught history, as to how smaller forces defeated larger ones, in politics and other fields.
- wordslinger - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 10:28 am:
–At the end of the day, what can a governor really do for a hedge fund billionare?–
Do what’s he’s told?
From Griff’s Tribbie interview:
Q. Do you think the ultrawealthy have an inordinate or inappropriate amount of influence on the political process?
A. I think they actually have an insufficient influence.
- Jimmy - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 10:32 am:
I think Griffin - and his companies and investments - are now a campaign issue in the Governor’s race.
- Oswego Willy - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 10:35 am:
===From Griff’s Tribbie interview:
Q. Do you think the ultrawealthy have an inordinate or inappropriate amount of influence on the political process?
A. I think they actually have an insufficient influence.===
That is the good stuff there.
You want to know how Rauner is going to be influenced by $2.5 million, read Griffin’s quotes.
- olddog - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 10:50 am:
=== Like some others I have to wonder what the big boys think they will get for their outlay. I could see it if the GOP controlled the GA and Rauner could produce some of the major changes the rich right wingers want. ===
What if they’re playing a long game?
Get a Republican governor who keeps up a steady drumbeat of agitation over two or three legislative election cycles for term limits, shaking up “corrupt” legislators in both parties and, above all, contributions from a ” pro-business, pro-growth, pro-limited government, pro-tax reduction PAC down there in Springfield working with the Legislature for those who take tough votes,” and the big boys just might be able to make a difference.
https://capitolfax.com/2013/12/06/rauner-will-form-new-pac-to-protect-legislators-who-stand-with-him/
- Snucka - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 11:03 am:
Let’s say, conservatively, that one makes $100,000,000 in personal income:
The difference between a 3.5% tax and a 5% tax is around $1.5 million per year.
A 3% surcharge on income over $1 million equates to $3 million per year.
These are the types of “policy” concerns that people like Griffin have. The “long game” is exactly what they’re playing. Perhaps one or both of those specific scenarios can’t happen under the current legislature. However, they are Democratic proposals and are far more likely to succeed in the future under a Democratic governor.
- VanillaMan - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 11:08 am:
The guys who have been funding the Illinois GOP are sick and tired of funding losers. They’ve had over a decade of losers.
Rauner is a long time coming. It could have been Gidwitz. It could have been any of the other business people who were willing to sacrifice their anonymity for the sake of a campaign. What we are witnessing is what happens when the jockeys are tired of riding losing horses.
Debate all you want over the amount. It is pointless. What was an inconsiderable amount back in 1974, isn’t in 2014. What was the Illinois state budget in 1974? How much money is the business of Illinois government worth today? We’re talking billions of dollars. You think the people dependent on the decisions of all that money should just sit back and let it ride?
Contributing a million dollars isn’t much when considering the billions being shoveled out of the Dome annually. When your organization is at stake, you get a little sick of the clown candidates the GOP has put up over the past decade. One loss, or two losses - hey, their connections can hold out. But after a decade, these folks need a win.
They are betting on Rauner for the win. They must really need it bad.
- wordslinger - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 11:14 am:
I’ve come to think the whole Civvies campaign regarding pensions was about heading off a graduated personal income tax.
A lot of those multi-nationals pay little or no state corporate income tax. But if you get a graduated personal income tax like Wisconsin at 7.65% or Iowa at 8.98%, you’re talking some real money for corporate big hitters.
- Walker - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 11:16 am:
What can a “bought” government do for a Billionaire?
Let him take home $1.02 Billion because $1.0 Billion is not enough.
Let him have no restrictions on any deal-making, even when it is damaging to the free-market.
Lessen any retribution for misleading other investors and the public at large, or for evading accountability through corporate shells.
Feel like their own true genius is finally being recognized.
These are stereotypical, but for a reason, given our recent history.
Rauner and now Griffin will have to demonstrate they are better than this.
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 11:18 am:
I think you are all reading too much into Griffin’s motives.
Yes, this can should and will be a campaign issue.
But Griffin has a net worth of $2 or $3 BILLION.
He just wrote Harvard a check for $150 million…their biggest gift ever.
The dude gave the Art Institute $19 million because it happened to be where he and his wife had their first date.
You wanna know why he wrote such a big check instead of making installments?
$2.5 million IS an installment payment for Ken. We will likely see another $2.5 million from Ken in September and maybe a few more in late October.
- OldSmoky2 - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 11:22 am:
===Good. And when he does that, hopefully he can address those six figure checks he’s collected from Fred Eychaner and the SEIU.===
Sure, no problem: “I’m proud to have earned the support of Fred Eychaner and thousands of other LGBT Illinoisans who want a governor who stands up for full equality for them, something Rauner opposes. And I’m also proud to have earned the support of unions that represent the interests of thousands of middle-class workers all over Illinois, workers whose hard-earned retirement benefits the billionaires like Griffin and Rauner want to take away.”
How’s that?
- dogboy - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 11:32 am:
Imagine all the little kids laying in their beds tonight hungry. Griffith made all this cash, so it’s his to direct. I just find it odd that that he wants to give it all away to Rauner. He must have so much that he cares less. Amazing when people are so needy.
- Oswego Willy - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 11:41 am:
===Rauner joked that someone making 400 million dollars a year doesn’t need a job.===
But someone who made $53 million needs a job?
Maybe just a title?
Someone tackle Rauner. You don’t need to seem aloof on money.
- MrJM (@MisterJayEm) - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 11:41 am:
Money talks, representative democracy walks.
– MrJM
- Rod - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 11:50 am:
Probably of greater importance than Mr. Griffin’s campaign contribution to Bruce Rauner is their ideological convergence on market driven education reform in Illinois. Griffin is vice chairman of the Chicago Public Education Fund, an organization which sees educational managers as the critical factor in the transformation of urban public education in Chicago. The Fund calls these managers “highly-effective principals” who lead teams of teachers.
Basically Griffin and the other Fund members including Emeritus Director Rauner believe in the production team model that was utilized in Japan in the early 1960s through the early 1990s particularly in the auto industry. The first area of these teams to gain widespread attention in Japan was quality control. The Japanese sought to build in quality, using numerous intermediate checks carried out by workers, rather than final inspection. It proved extremely effective, given the good education and low turnover of ordinary workers, and the willingness of management to delegate responsibility to them. Together with higher final product quality, this also in theory reduced costs through the early detection of problems and substantial reductions in scrappage and rework. But this revolution proved to be an illusion.
Eventually the bottom line of cost over ruled the idea of quality and team work as Japan’s auto industry has declined relative to both the US domestic industry and Korea. Basically both Griffin and Rauner are much impressed with so called market based initiatives and creating forced consensus on the part of teachers for principal driven reforms which may or may not work.
In the case of Japan the much lauded model of quality control collapsed into a nightmare of bad PR following a series of highly publicized recalls of Toyota vehicles in the United States. Toyota actually disbanded a high-level task force that had been set up in 2005 to deal with quality issues. A Toyota manager explained the decision by saying that management had come to believe that quality control was part of the company’s DNA and therefore they didn’t need a special committee to enforce it.
Rauner and Griffin are smart guys and they are also too smart for their own good. There is no perfect system to fix urban education or state government for that matter, but these guys are unfortunately true believers. Just like Toyota executives were.
- Norseman - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 12:37 pm:
It’s good to have rich friends.
- Cheswick - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 1:21 pm:
===When asked if Rauner would consider Griffin for a job in his administration. Rauner joked that someone making 400 million dollars a year doesn’t need a job. ===
Right. But how about a contract or two or fifty. How ab out an appointment. Or decision making on who gets an appointment. Inquiring minds what to know.
- liandro - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 1:24 pm:
@Wordslinger: off-topic, but I want to reiterate what was said above about your narrative that Rich posted. I enjoyed every second of reading it. Write a book, man, and I’ll be at the first signing.
And thanks for posting it Rich. Nice to read some personal touches to break up all the horse-race stuff.
- A guy... - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 1:41 pm:
== liandro - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 1:24 pm:
@Wordslinger: off-topic, but I want to reiterate what was said above about your narrative that Rich posted. I enjoyed every second of reading it. Write a book, man, and I’ll be at the first signing.===
Nice Liandro- Just out of stubborn pride, I’ll be the first one to buy it when it’s out in paperback! lol.
- OneMan - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 2:19 pm:
You understand how hedge funds work right? You invest with them and if the investment goes up, they take a cut, if it doesn’t they generally don’t.
But stick with the contract logic…
- wordslinger - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 2:31 pm:
–You understand how hedge funds work right? You invest with them and if the investment goes up, they take a cut, if it doesn’t they generally don’t.–
There’s always a management fee taken off the top, whether there are gains or not.
The industry standard is generally considered 2% management fee, 20% of profits. Citadel’s fee range could be higher.
- Archiesmom - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 2:35 pm:
I’m wondering whether there’s a Quinn add in the planning stages with Rauner’s and Griffin’s photos and text something like: Bruce Rauner has raised $X million to run for governor. He and CEO Ken Griffin have contributed $X million/% of it. Do you want your next governor to be chosen by two billionaires?
- OneMan - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 2:43 pm:
I am confident there is a Rauner ad in the planning stage showing the % of Quinn’s money over the years that came from public employee unions. With the tagline Do you want union bosses to pick your governor again?
Who do you think voters are going to hate more in November? Rich guys or public employee unions?
It may not be fair, but I think it is how it is going to play out.
- OneMan - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 2:46 pm:
Not every hedge fund takes a 2%, regardless lets say the clever plan was to get every dollar of public employee pension funds into a Citadel fund, last couple of years would have gone a long way into fixing the state’s pension issues…
- Cheswick - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 2:47 pm:
OneMan, I notice you didn’t disagree with the appointment logic.
- OneMan - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 3:13 pm:
Cheswick…
I kind of ignored it, I don’t see Ken Griffin really caring that much about who gets appointed to what.
Unless I missed something (and not trying to activate someone here who would jump all over this)
He has given a lot of money in the past (including to a certain mayor) and hasn’t pushed for people to get appointed to stuff that I have heard of.
If his goal was to get people appointed to stuff, he could do it for a whole hell of a lot less than that much. You don’t get that rich by overpaying.
- Archiesmom - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 3:25 pm:
=Who do you think voters are going to hate more in November? Rich guys or public employee unions?=
I’m betting on rich guys. Ask Mitt Romney.
- MyTwoCents - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 4:51 pm:
Just a thought related to business with the state: of course Ken Griffin doesn’t have any business with the state, it would be against the law to donate to Rauner if he did. I’m assuming it’s the same thing going forward if Rauner’s elected, so that’s not an incentive. What other incentives there might be are anybody’s guess.
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Monday, Jun 16, 14 @ 6:53 pm:
MyTwoCents:
Griffin doesn’t need an incentive.
If Rauner’s estimate is correct, $2.5 million is about how much money Griffin made between Happy Hour on Friday and 8 am this morning.
And Griffin makes that EVERY weekend, whether he returns a call or an email, lifts a finger, even draws a breath.
Remember the Duke Brothers from Trading Places?
Imagine just waking up one morning and saying to yourself “I wonder what would happen if I dumped $10 million in the Governor’s race and helped raise another $40 million?”
Ken Griffin has the means to act on those types of fancies without breaking a sweat.
Aside from his kids’ trust funds — which I suspect he will limit as Warren Buffett did — Griffin has no expenses to really concern himself with.
- WindyCity - Tuesday, Jun 17, 14 @ 12:26 pm:
Rauner’s campaign is a charade and the guy himself is a fraud. That “plan” released the other day was worthy of a high school student’s D+ midterm project. Multiple homeowner exemptions; pulling strings to get his kid into a school; the shenanigans that led to a divorce; the “Democrat” prop wife who’s certainly not a Dem; the lawsuits and payouts with the nursing homes; the minimum wage flip flops that he ultimately defined as flippancy toward those most in need…. There’s more as we know. Heck, the self-defined “.01 percenter” apparently was at the Montana ranch when signing off on the early campaign ad that “Shook up Illinois” with a new mountain range. Everything about this guy smells, and he’s going to continue spending millions in an attempt to snooker enough of the voting public come November. Let’s hope the media — as it seems like it may finally be doing — looks at the reality versus the 30- and 60-second spots and counters the self-promotion BS.