Unions and defense contractors love to donate to candidates for Congress.
Daniel Newman of MapLight advocates for change. “What we need to do is to implement in Illinois systems like they have in Arizona and Connecticut, where they have citizen funding of elections,” he says. “They get help from public funding, so when they’re elected, they’re only accountable to you, the voter.”
His group has put out information showing nine U.S. House candidates on Illinois ballots Tuesday have each raised more than $1 million. They’ve found the top 10 donors to Illinois U. S. House campaigns are mostly unions and defense contractors, and that latter group makes up the top five donors to U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) – almost $250,000 worth since January 2013.