MEDIA CONTACT: Melanie Krakauer (312) 607-4977

CHICAGO (June 20, 2017) – Today, the Illinois State Board of Elections split 4-4 on whether to find that the Committee for Frank J. Mautino made illegal campaign expenditures.

In May, the Illinois State Board of Elections ruled that the former campaign committee of Illinois Auditor General Frank Mautino willfully violated the board’s May 2016 order requiring the committee to amend spending reports with information about expenditures the committee had made at two Spring Valley, Illinois, businesses. But the board declined in May to rule on the underlying claims that started the case: that Mautino’s committee had made illegal expenditures involving Happy’s Super Service Station and Spring Valley City Bank.

At today’s meeting, the board considered a motion asking the board to find that expenditures made by Mautino’s committee were illegal under the Election Code. The board split 4-4 in its decision, which means the motion failed.

The Liberty Justice Center and its client David Cooke, who filed a complaint against the Mautino committee, will appeal the board’s order to the Illinois Appellate Court.

Jeffrey Schwab, staff attorney at the Liberty Justice Center, released the following statement in response to today’s ruling:

“The board should have ruled on the merits of the complaint against the Committee for Frank J. Mautino in May, but it didn’t. The board had an opportunity to correct that mistake today. But only half of the board’s members were willing to do that by finding that Mautino’s committee had broken the law – despite clear evidence that the committee did, in fact, break the law. If the board will not address the merits of complaints filed by citizens, the people of Illinois will continue to lose trust in their government.”

Schwab represents David Cooke, a citizen from Streator, Illinois, who filed the complaint against Mautino’s committee. Cooke offered the following reaction:

“I am happy that half the board was willing to find, consistent with the evidence, that the Mautino committee made improper expenditures. Unfortunately, there is no majority on the board willing to address the substance of my complaint. If the State Board of Elections is unwilling to rule on claims brought to it by citizens, then I doubt that citizens will exert the time and effort to bring such claims to the board in the future.”

BACKGROUND: The case began in February 2016, when David Cooke, a retired nuclear power plant operator who lives in Streator, Illinois, filed a complaint with the Illinois State Board of Elections alleging that the Committee for Frank J. Mautino violated the Illinois Election Code. Specifically, Cooke alleged that payments totaling more than $225,000 that Mautino’s committee made from 1999 to 2015 to Happy’s Super Service Station in Spring Valley, Illinois, could not reasonably have been legitimate payments for fuel and vehicle repairs. Cooke also challenged approximately $200,000 in “expenditures” the committee reported it had made to Spring Valley City Bank, but that were actually cash withdrawals from the committee’s checking account that were spent elsewhere.

In March 2016, the State Board of Elections ordered Mautino’s committee to file amended campaign reports disclosing what vehicles, if any, the committee owned and explaining the payments to Happy’s Super Service and transactions involving Spring Valley City Bank. But the committee never provided the amended reports.

On May 15, the board ruled by a majority vote that the committee’s failure to amend its reports was “willful” and without excuse and imposed a $5,000 fine against the committee. But the board declined to rule on the merits of Cooke’s complaint, concluding that the issue was not yet properly before it.