ALD. PAT DOWELL
Then Alderman Pat Dowell ran unsuccessfully to replace Bobby Rush for the First Congressional District, she violated federal election laws by failing to report spending and using donations from her state campaign funds for her federal campaign, according to a report from the Federal Elections Commission.
In February, Dowell agreed to pay a $7,000 fine for the violations and promised to “cease and desist from violating” the law in the future, according to the report.
In 2022, Dowell suspended her campaign for Illinois Secretary of State before entering the race to replace Congressman Rush but lost to Jonathan Jackson in the Democratic Primary. During that race, according to the report, Dowell committed election violations when she used the same accountant for both her state and federal committees.
The 17-page report was in response to a complaint by Terrance Whitehead of Chicago.
In his complaint, Whitehead accused Dowell and her congressional committee of violating federal election law by using $169,024 in state-level campaign donations to fund expenses for her federal-level campaign.
Those expenses included consulting fees, media relations services, staff payments, legal fees, rent, printing and office supplies.
According to the report, Whitehead’s complaint lists over 120 of these disbursements totaling $169,024. Whitehead’s complaint also states that Dowell’s federal committee’s 2022 April Quarterly Report “shows few or no similar expenses, continuing to reinforce” the allegation that the state committee made disbursements for Dowell’s congressional campaign.
Federal election officials agreed with Whitehead, saying Dowell and her treasurer, Mattie Lacy, violated the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971.
According to the report, Dowell denied the allegations, asserting that her committee’s shared accountant inadvertently reported some of the Federal Committee’s disbursements on the State Committee’s disclosure report and that the State Committee filed an amended disclosure report correcting the errors.
In a statement Dowell said, “during her campaign for Congress, “errors occurred because my campaign team did not effectively manage the regulatory differences between federal, state, and municipal campaigns, each of which has its own distinct rules. I deeply regret these errors and take full responsibility for them. We have been working with the FEC to understand the issues fully and rectify them. The Pat Dowell for Congress committee and the FEC have reached a mutual agreement to settle the matter … I now consider this matter closed.”
In addition, federal election officials said Dowell failed to disclose $20,638.87 in expenses in her federal campaign reports. Those expenses include payments that went to Pearl’s Place ($212), L2 Lounge ($5,960.78), EF Design Group ($3,425), CABC ($4,000) and the Democratic Party of Illinois ($2,000).
The report said because those expenses were disclosed on the original state committee report but not on the amended report and not disclosed on the federal committee’s disclosure reports covering the same period, there was “reason to believe that Dowell, the state committee, and the federal committee violated reporting requirements of federal campaign laws.”