{"id":792386,"date":"2026-05-13T02:01:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T02:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/792386\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T02:01:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T02:01:14","slug":"paul-vallas-fined-214k-over-illegal-city-campaign-donations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/792386\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Vallas fined $214K over illegal city campaign donations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former mayoral candidate Paul Vallas is being fined $214,000 for violating campaign finance rules by accepting excessive contributions from people who were doing business with the city, the Chicago Board of Ethics announced Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The board unanimously found this month that an unnamed \u201cunsuccessful candidate\u201d in the 2023 city elections broke rules by accepting $202,000 in contributions from 12 people doing business with the city, even though city law limits such contributors to giving no more than $1,500 annually to candidates seeking city office and elected officials, according to a statement the board released Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Vallas confirmed Tuesday that he is the unnamed candidate. In a statement, Vallas said the board \u201cflagged 12 of the well over two thousand contributions, claiming that they exceeded campaign limits and to return the contributions.\u201d He noted that \u201cthe largest contribution was the $50,000 made by the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce\u201d political action committee.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe of course will appeal,\u201d Vallas said in the statement.<\/p>\n

Vallas, who narrowly lost to Mayor Brandon Johnson<\/a> in the April 2023 runoff, raised $19.5 million<\/a> from thousands of contributors throughout his campaign, more than $13 million of which came after he placed first<\/a> in the hotly contested February primary.<\/p>\n

When Vallas\u2019 campaign committee was notified of the violation by the city\u2019s Office of Inspector General, then led by recently departed former Inspector General Deborah Witzburg<\/a>, his campaign fund did not return the money to the contributors, nearly all of whom had requested refunds, according to the board.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first time Vallas has been cited by the ethics board for such violations. More than two years ago, the ethics board voted unanimously<\/a> to find probable cause that Vallas had violated the campaign contribution limit rule, stating that Vallas\u2019 campaign committee accepted a $5,000 contribution from an unnamed entity, exceeding the $1,500 cap. At the time, the board fined Vallas $10,500.<\/p>\n

In 2023, Johnson beat Vallas 52% to 48% after the two men advanced to the head-to-head election. Vallas is a longtime consultant and former CEO of Chicago Public Schools under former Mayor Richard M. Daley.<\/p>\n

In the board\u2019s latest report, the eye-catching $214,000 fine includes $1,000 for each of the 12 violations, plus all of the unreturned money.\u00a0But like the contributors who asked Vallas\u2019 campaign fund for their checks back, the Board of Ethics might also go unpaid.<\/p>\n

Illinois State Board of Elections records show Vallas\u2019 campaign fund remains active but is $23,600 in debt, owed\u00a0mostly to Oak Lawn-based Island Construction, Vallas\u2019 wife, Sharon Vallas, and Vallas himself.<\/p>\n

The ethics board\u2019s inability to collect full fines from its rulings is not a new phenomenon.\u00a0So much so that ethics board\u00a0leaders plan to ask the Chicago City Council to pass an ordinance so that candidates can be held individually responsible for paying such fines even if their political committees\u00a0are\u00a0broke.<\/p>\n

The vote\u00a0on the fine\u00a0was prompted by an investigation\u00a0that Witzburg and her former office shared with the board in December, the statement said.<\/p>\n

The board also fined a former city employee $5,000 for interviewing for a job with an organization tied to their city work, and\u00a0it\u00a0issued a $500 fine\u00a0against\u00a0a city employee who accepted a cash gift from an unlicensed \u201cride share hustler\u201d at O\u2019Hare International Airport.<\/p>\n

The board also determined that a now-former city employee committed three minor violations by using their city email to discuss their children and by using their title and authority to solicit a job opportunity for their child.<\/p>\n

But board members unanimously agreed there was \u201cinsufficient evidence\u201d to determine the employee violated their fiduciary duty to the city.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former mayoral candidate Paul Vallas is being fined $214,000 for violating campaign finance rules by accepting excessive contributions…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":792387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5124],"tags":[323476,49468,323475,140782,960,36931,5386,1818],"class_list":["post-792386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago","tag-323476","tag-49468","tag-board-of-ethics","tag-campaign-contributions","tag-chicago","tag-fines","tag-il","tag-illinois"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116564805963875949","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=792386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/792387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}