Bruce Rauner's campaign spent at least 65 million dollars to win the governor's office. State election authorities are looking into whether he missed a deadline to report some of that fundraising success.
Illinois law has required that a contribution worth $1000 or more has to be reported to the state elections board. And if it's just before an election, it has to happen right away.
"Our records had shown that a report was received late."
That's state board of elections director Steve Sandvoss, who confirms the Rauner campaign has been assessed a penalty. But he cautions ...
"There could be facts or circumstances that could be presented by the governor's representative to show that either the penalty was assessed in error, or if it was filed late were there circumstances that would excuse the late filing."
A Rauner spokesman calls it a "snafu." He says a firm hired to update filings prepared a report that was due Oct. 30, days before the election, but mistakenly failed to upload it. He says watchdogs were only in the dark eight hours; the report was in by 8 a.m. the following day.
Records show Rauner had given himself nearly $1.5 million dollars, that he'd banked $50,000 from the Republican Governor's Association, and $10,000 from the owner of Portillo's restaurants, on top of other donations ranging from $1,000 to $25,000.
A hearing is set for Thursday MAY 7th. Ultimately it'll be up to the board of elections with some members recently appointed by Rauner to make a ruling.
The governor's sure to have no trouble paying any potential fine; his "Citizens for Rauner" fund is sitting on $20 million.
