Policy Papers

This Public Policy Papers section is a series of academic research papers written by faculty of the Center for State Policy and Leadership of the University of Illinois at Springfield. The papers address many public policy issues in Illinois. You can read the papers online (Read more>>> ) or download the paper as a Portable Document Format file (PDF). Other papers will be added periodically.

Raising Rod: Illinois Politics' $26 Million Man
By Kent D. Redfield
Professor of Political Studies,
University of Illinois at Springfield
Reprinted from the Almanac of Illinois Politics — 2004,
which was published in November 2003.

"This is a story about raising money — a lot of money. In an unsuccessful two-year quest for the office of Illinois governor that began in 2001, former Republican Attorney General Jim Ryan spent $15.8 million dollars. No one running for statewide office in Illinois had ever spent more. By comparison, the former Republican Governor George Ryan spent slightly less ($15.7 million) over the two-year period in his run for governor. Raising that kind of money for a political campaign is not easy. A candidate needs a vast personal fortune or a lot of wealthy friends. Think about having one week to raise $25,000. Now make the job four times as hard. Think about trying to raise $100,000 in a single week. If a candidate raised $100,000 a week every week for two years, that candidate would still be $5.4 million short of raising $15.8 million dollars.

On the Democratic side of the ticket, U.S. Representative Rod Blagojevich formed a political committee in 2000 to launch his run for the Illinois governor's office. Over the next 134 weeks he raised slightly more than $194,000 per week. When all was said and done, Blagojevich raised $26,036,116 in his run for governor, becoming the first $26-million-man in Illinois politics." Read more>>>
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Illinois Budget Deficit & Revenue Structure
By Charles N. Wheeler III
Director, Public Affairs Reporting Program,
University of Illinois at Springfield
Reprinted from the Almanac of Illinois Politics — 2004,
which was published in November 2003.

"Red ink has long been a frequent — albeit unwelcome — part of Illinois' fiscal history. Indeed, one of the first tasks of the new General Assembly after Illinois achieved statehood in 1818 was to pay the outstanding debt left by the territorial government, the grand sum of $59.53. Adjusted for inflation some 185 years later, that's still only $838.45, too insignificant even to count as a rounding error in the state's current fiscal crisis." Read more>>>
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