Kay to Hoffman: “Live Up To Your Own Ethics Proposal”

State Representative Candidate Dwight Kay is challenging his opponent, incumbent Jay Hoffman, to give back $440,000 in campaign donations collected from contractors who do more than $50,000 in annual business with the state. According to an analysis by the Kay campaign, Hoffman has taken money from 174 large state contractors who have reaped $7.2 billion in state contracts in the past five fiscal years.

In an ironic twist, according to Kay, Hoffman would be precluded from taking this money under his own ethics proposal, which Hoffman introduced as House Bill 6699 just two weeks ago.

“Mr. Hoffman has voted to stand by the Governor and his veto of House Bill 824, the comprehensive ethics reform proposal supported by Barack Obama, nearly a dozen ‘good government’ groups and 110 state legislators,” said Kay. “His only response is that I should support his proposal on ethics reform. But, in hypocrisy that can only be created in Springfield, Mr. Hoffman’s campaign records show he can’t even live up to his own proposals.”

A study of the campaign finance records of the Committee to Elect Jay Hoffman shows his campaign has harvested hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from the same contractors Hoffman has proposed to ban from giving to state legislative campaigns.

“Hoffman and Blagojevich are ‘peas in a pod’ when it comes to unethical fundraising,” said Kay. “Mr. Hoffman’s campaign against me is likely to be just like Governor Blagojevich’s 2006 campaign, a negative assault fueled by pay-to-pay fundraising on steroids. If Hoffman has any decency, he should ‘walk the walk’ on his own ethics proposal, instead of just being ‘all talk’ on the issue.”

Even worse, 125 of the contractors are major IDOT and State Tollway contractors, representing a major conflict of interest for Hoffman, who serves as House Transportation Committee Chairman.

“I don’t care if you call it ‘Pay-to-Play’ or ‘Pay-to-Pave’ politics, it’s just wrong,” said Kay.  “It’s time for Mr. Hoffman to come clean and inform the voters whether or not he is being investigated by federal prosecutors.”

The path of House Bill 824 has met significant hurdles in 2007 and 2008, including a 14-month delay in the Illinois Senate where Blagojevich-ally Emil Jones refused to call the legislation for a vote despite the fact that 42 of 59 Senators were co-sponsors. Then, in what Comptroller Dan Hynes called an effort “not to strengthen it… but to kill it,” Governor Blagojevich vetoed the legislation and added language outside the bipartisan compromise of the landmark legislation.