Lawmakers Separate Campaign Contributors From Scholarships

By Kevin Lee, Illinois Statehouse News

SPRINGFIELD – A proposal meant to keep political influence from the General Assembly Scholarship program passed the House on Friday.

The proposal, which passed by a vote of 85-22 , would eliminate campaign contributors who have made donations in the last five years, their spouses and their children from consideration for the scholarships.

The proposal would also prohibit scholarship winners, their spouses and children from making donations to the awarding lawmaker for five years.

The General Assembly Scholarship program has been a focal point for scrutiny because of its perceived fiscal and ethical costs.

The “scholarship” program does not actually incorporate funded scholarships. Instead, the program allows each lawmaker to annually award up to eight year-long tuition waivers to public university to students who reside in the lawmaker’s district.

The state’s public universities must accept these hand-picked students and assume the costs for their education, costs which are re-distributed to paying students in the form of higher tuition.

A joint investigation by Illinois Statehouse News and Columbia College in Chicago uncovered a number of questionable practices with the program, including cases where lawmakers were giving tuition waivers to workers in their offices, individuals who lived outside a lawmaker’s district, as well as children of campaign contributors.

Some of the state’s most powerful Democrats in the Senate, including Senate President John Cullerton, have backed the proposal.

The ISN investigation showed that the GOP nominee for governor, Bill Brady, gave tuition waivers to a relative of a campaign contributor.

State Rep. Pat Verschoore, D-Milan, said the proposal could be considered a calculated move on the part of Democrats.

“It could have been political pressure to put on Brady,” he said.

Records obtained by ISN through the Freedom of Information Act indicate other lawmakers have provided scholarships to campaign donors children, including state Rep. Mike Boland, D-East Moline.

“(This proposal) would have prevented something like this from happening,” Verschoore said, who voted for the proposal.

Boland gave four one-year scholarships to Allyene Suehl, the daughter of one of his largest political contributors. Allyene’s mother Barbara Suehl-Janis gave Boland’s campaign $15,891 in 2005 and 2006.

Suehl-Janis said Friday this was not a political exchange.

“Even though I was a good friend of his, and still am, I did not get any special preference and I know (Allyene) wouldn’t have either if she didn’t keep her grades up and didn’t honestly work hard for it,” she said.

Boland, who was in Springfield on Friday and participated in other votes, did not cast a vote on this particular bill. He did not immediately return calls seeking comment from Illinois Statehouse News.

State Rep. Bill Black, R-Danville, is an ardent opponent of the scholarship program and has not participated in it for years.

But Black voted against the proposal to remove campaign contributors from consideration because he would rather abolish the program completely.

Black said the scholarship program is detracting from the difficult situation with the state’s colleges and universities.

“If we would fund higher education rather than dither and dather with these General Assembly tuition waivers, maybe tuition wouldn’t have to go up 6, 8, 10 percent per year,” he said.

State Rep. Bob Pritchard, R-DeKalb, voted in favor of the proposal, but said he had reservations.

“There are a lot of loopholes. Somebody could run their contributions through somebody else. Somebody could donate through their company or business. If people are going to be unethical, they’re going to find a way to do it,” he said.

Pritchard added that he voted for a different proposal that would eliminate the scholarship program altogether. The state Senate has yet to consider the elimination proposal.

State Rep. Mike Smith, D-Canton, said he also would prefer the program’s elimination, but considered this proposal a good first step.

“Any effort we can do to clean up the program we can do is good, considering the abuses that we’ve heard,” he said.

The proposal now moves to Gov. Pat Quinn for consideration.