CHICAGO – This week, one-time Chicago Tribune owner and real estate billionaire Sam Zell handed $1.8 million from his Turnaround Illinois PAC to Liberty Principles PAC, adding to the $2.5 million they received last month from U-line founder and owner Dick Uihlein.
That makes nearly $4.3 million available to radio talk show host Dan Proft – the head of Liberty Principles PAC – for use in the upcoming GOP primary.
Sam Zell started the Turnaround Illinois PAC in 2015 with his own $4 million check and another $250,000 from Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner.
That exchange of funds places three of the nation's wealthiest - Uihlein, Zell and Rauner – hand in hand with Proft, whose funding efforts elevated an array of Republican House primary candidate campaigns in 2014, frustrating House Minority Leader Jim Durkin.
In its first month of formation, Turnaround Illinois conducted a $30,000 survey, paid out tens of thousands to consultants and attorneys, and then transferred $1.8 million to a 501 c4 associated with the Turnaround Illinois agenda.
During the third and fourth quarters of 2015, Turnaround Illinois paid out $50,000 each quarter in consulting and legal fees. Other than those expenses, Zell and Rauner's money was untouched in Turnaround Illinois until they handed $1.8 million to Proft's political action committee.
House Republican Leader Jim Durkin's Leadership Committee coffers are embarrassingly low in comparison to Proft's $4.5 Million – at the end of December 2015, it boasted a mere $66,107.40 available for the upcoming election year.
The House Republican Organization shows more – $290,416 – as of the last filing:
