(The Center Square) – A Champaign County taxpayer has an official complaint filed with the Illinois State Board of Elections claiming “election interference” committed by a county official.
John Bambenek, a Champaign County resident, lodged a formal complaint against Steve Summers, Champaign County executive, after finding out the county spent at least $62,000 of taxpayer funds on advertising for a ballot initiative.
The ballot question for Champaign County asks voters to raise the sales tax by 0.25%. The county has characterized the billboards, mailers, television and radio advertisements as part of an “informational” campaign.
Champaign County State’s Attorney Julia Rietz’s argument is that as long as the words ‘vote for or against’ aren’t used, then it’s OK.
“There simply can’t be fair elections ever again when the government and office holders can use the government printing press and resources at their unlimited discretion. No one can compete with that funding,” said Bambenek.
State law prohibits the expenditure of public funds to advocate votes for or against a referendum, but permits use of public funds to disseminate factual data.
“No public funds shall be used to urge any elector to vote for or against any candidate or proposition, or be appropriated for political or campaign purposes to any candidate or political organization. This Section shall not prohibit the use of public funds for dissemination of factual information relative to any proposition appearing on an election ballot,” states the Election Code’s interference provision.
In the complaint, Bambenek accused Summers of election interference.
Summers is listed in the complaint as the respondent because he is “the ultimate approver of the activities and expenditures in question,” Bambenek said.
“They are saying the sales tax hike could help the public defender’s office, it could help hire more deputies, it could help veterans’ assistance programs, which kind of gets into what they’re not supposed to do. When you have anything on the ballot, the only thing public funds can be used for is to tell you actual information,” said Bambenek. “These are the candidates running for office, this is a sales tax for these purposes and it will cost you this much. When you start using language like ‘could,’ that’s speculative information. That’s not factual.”
Bambenek called it “government-funded propaganda” by the messaging focusing on speculative information “that’s most influential to your voters.”
Bambenek is against the proposed sales tax hike because he said the county mismanaged American Rescue Plan Act funds. Bambenek said the county created recurring programs with the federal taxpayer funds and now they’re trying to use the revenue from the tax hike to replace the dried up COVID-relief dollars..
The complaint points to a county ordinance that requires the county to conduct a bidding process for expenditures exceeding $10,000. According to Bambenek, the county didn’t conduct a bidding process. Using public funds, the county paid $22,000 for mailers advertising the “public safety” sales tax proposal.
“They mismanaged their finances to such an extent that they are desperate for the money and the voters and the feedback they’re getting is negative. So they are trying to put their fingers on the scale to get more money into their coffers to fix their own financial mistakes,” said Bambenek.
A billboard paid for with public funds reads, “Public Safety Sales Tax Can Expand Services to our Veterans.”
“One of the four things they say they could fund is the veterans assistance programs. That very clearly does not fall under the allowed uses of public safety funds,” said Bambenek. “Now the fine print they say, ‘oh well if we off-load public safety expenditures that we are already spending on this new tax revenue, we can put more money into veteran programs.’ The advertisement is clearly false, you can’t use public safety dollars for veterans programs. Essentially they are going to engage in that money laundering if that tax passes.”
Bambenek said while services for veterans is laudable, it clearly is not authorized by statute to be funded with public safety funds, which he said makes that part of the campaign not merely speculative but demonstrably false.
