NEARLY ALL OF STATE’S ATTORNEY HOPEFUL EILEEN O’NEILL BURKE’S BIGGEST FUNDERS ARE WHITE MEN
WBEZ analysis finds no African Americans or women in ex-judge’s top 25 individual donors
The top 25 individual funders of Eileen O’Neill Burke’s bid to be Cook County’s top prosecutor include no African Americans and no women, a WBEZ analysis of her Illinois campaign filings has found.
Those 25 donors — venture capitalists, investment managers, traders, real estate developers, upscale restaurant chain owners, personal-injury lawyers, and so on — account for about half of the $3.1 million in campaign fundraising that O’Neill Burke had reported to the state by Thursday afternoon, just a few days before the end of voting Tuesday.
Her Democratic primary opponent, University of Chicago lecturer Clayton Harris III, won the party’s endorsement but has lagged in fundraising. Harris, whose top 25 donors include nine African Americans and 10 women, has reported $1.2 million in campaign donations.
The funding imbalance is allowing O’Neill Burke, a retired Illinois appellate judge, to flood voters with ads and mailers attacking Harris and talking up abortion rights. In her campaign literature, O’Neill Burke promises she “understands the concerns we all share about crime in our community and will turn things around.”
That messaging is “resonating with voters in every corner of Cook County,” O’Neill Burke’s campaign spokesperson wrote in response to WBEZ’s findings. “A person’s race, ethnicity, gender, religion or sexual orientation has no bearing or influence, because everyone deserves safer and more just communities equally.”
The statement for O’Neill Burke also criticized focusing on the gender of her big donors: “Male-dominated wealth and giving is not unique to Cook County.”
Brown University sociologist Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve, a Chicago native who studies the county’s criminal justice system, said O’Neill Burke has won big business backing by “stoking fears about crime.”
“It remains to be seen if this is a winning strategy for the common voter,” Van Cleve said.
WBEZ determined the race, Latino ethnicity and gender of each candidate’s top 25 donors using photos, surnames and, when available, public affiliations and statements. Both campaigns also had opportunities to review the designations. Race is an important issue in the election: In Cook County, non-Hispanic whites make up about 41% of the population but less than 8% of the people in jail.
The racial chasm extends beyond top donors. It appears in endorsements by local elected officials posted on the candidates’ websites as of Tuesday. Among the 30 elected officials backing O’Neill Burke, 10 (33%) are people of color. Of the 97 who have endorsed Harris, 71 (73%) are people of color.
O’Neill Burke last week reported a $100,000 donation from Daniel O’Keefe of the Chicago investment management firm Artisan Partners, lifting his family’s total for her to $350,000. In recent years, O’Keefe has donated thousands of dollars to Republicans, including U.S. Senate candidates Kelly Loeffler, Herschel Walker, Dr. Mehmet Oz and J.D. Vance.
O’Neill Burke’s biggest donors also include Gerald Beeson and Matthew Simon, executives of the hedge fund Citadel LLC. Like their boss, billionaire GOP donor Ken Griffin, Beeson and Simon have contributed to numerous Republicans over the years. Simon last year also contributed $200,000 to Paul Vallas’ unsuccessful Chicago mayoral campaign.
A statement from Citadel said Beeson and Simon “both grew up in the Chicago area and are active civic leaders who care deeply about solving the significant problems facing the city.”
The Citadel statement said O’Neill Burke “is the best candidate to address the rampant crime and violence across Chicago and make the city safe again for everyone who is proud to call it home.”
Rebecca Goldstein, an assistant professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley, said the funding patterns in the Cook County state’s attorney race resemble
district attorney contests in other parts of the country where finance and real estate interests converged against more progressive candidates.
“Those sorts of businesses tend to be very concerned about the possibility of degradation of the downtown central business district,” Goldstein said. “They’re scared that people and tourists will be scared to go to those parts of town. And so they’re interested in clearing out homeless encampments and moving poor people out of visible sightlines.”
“All over the country, it’s become pretty common to see candidates who are running on … a backlash to progressive prosecution get campaign contributions from these sorts of businesses,” Goldstein said.
A statement from Harris said the message resonating with big donors is not appealing to most voters.
“Eileen Burke’s donor list makes clear that she doesn’t share Cook County voters’ values and that she’ll take us back to the bad old days when we were the nation’s wrongful convictions capital,” Harris said.
In the 2020 Democratic primary, incumbent Kim Foxx faced challenger Bill Conway, who received periodic six- and seven-figure infusions from his father, billionaire investor William E. Conway Jr. A few weeks before Election Day, Foxx’s bid got a $2 million boost from a super PAC connected to New York billionaire George Soros.
Efforts by Harris to attract his own big contributors have not fared as well. His only six-figure donor to date is Fred Eychaner, a frequent Democratic funder who founded Newsweb Corporation. Harris last week reported $50,000 from Eychaner, raising the candidate’s total from that donor and his company to $163,800.
Other recent Harris donations include $56,900 from Leo Smith, a leader of the anti-violence group Chicago CRED. Smith is married to former Illinois state Sen. Heather Steans, whose late father made a fortune in banking. The family and her political fund have now provided at least $80,700 to Harris.
Political committees controlled by Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle last week donated $20,000 to Harris, lifting their total for his campaign to $40,000. Preckwinkle chairs the county Democratic Party organization that endorsed Harris.
Also last week, former 43rd Ward aldermanic candidate Rebecca Janowitz, a longtime Preckwinkle ally, contributed $25,000 to Harris, raising her total for him to $31,900. Janowitz, a retired attorney, has said her wealth derives from a solar industry investment.
THE RACIAL CHASM EXTENDS BEYOND TOP DONORS. IT APPEARS IN ENDORSEMENTS BY LOCAL ELECTED OFFICIALS POSTED ON THE CANDIDATES’ WEBSITES AS OF TUESDAY. AMONG THE 30 ELECTED OFFICIALS BACKING O’NEILL BURKE, 10 (33%) ARE PEOPLE OF COLOR. OF THE 97 WHO HAVE ENDORSED HARRIS, 71 (73%) ARE PEOPLE OF COLOR.