SPRINGFIELD — Republican Darren Bailey’s gubernatorial campaign is calling for greater transparency over nongovernmental organizations that receive at least $10,000 in state grants by making them subject to public records and open meetings requests.
In an interview with Capitol News Illinois on Monday, Bailey’s running mate Aaron Del Mar said the campaign is getting behind stalled Statehouse legislation that would make NGOs that receive at least $10,000 or 20% of their total funding from the state subject to the Illinois Freedom of Information Act and the Open Meetings Act.
“Every other level of government here in Illinois is subject to FOIA,” Del Mar said. “But we can’t see once that money leaves state coffers and goes to one of these NGOs or these vendors how they’re spending it. What is the actual outcome?”
The proposal comes as Bailey wages an uphill battle against incumbent Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, a self-funding billionaire who is seeking a third term.
Bailey comfortably won the Republican primary in March but is being vastly outspent by Pritzker and running in a blue state while facing a tough electoral climate nationally for his party. The downstate farmer has also been trying to make amends for statements made during his 2022 campaign, such as referring to Chicago as a “hellhole.”
With President Donald Trump’s deep unpopularity in some parts of Illinois, particularly in Chicago and the suburbs, Bailey and Del Mar have tried to keep the focus on Pritzker and promoting so-called “80-20” issues relating to affordability, public safety and education.
Del Mar said the NGO proposal is in line with those goals, noting that the state’s $56 billion spending plan relies on hundreds of millions of dollars in new taxes, which wouldn’t be necessary if there were savings to be found within grant programs. He said his administration would also launch portals to more clearly track state grant spending.
“It’s a huge amount of revenue and we want to know where it’s going,” Del Mar said. “So we’ve created a new program that we’re going to be launching that is going to be about accountability with NGOs.”
Del Mar said there is an added importance in wake of the federal indictment of Rep. Carol Ammons, D-Urbana, who is accused of, among other charges, using her official position to direct state grant money to three separate nonprofits that paid her daughter. Ammons has pleaded not guilty, though House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch said he’s directed staff to “review the budget to determine whether any funds need to be paused or reconsidered.”
What’s being proposed?
The proposal, sponsored by three members of the right-wing Illinois Freedom Caucus, was filed in February but hasn’t moved past the gatekeeping House Rules Committee.
It would make hundreds if not thousands of private entities “public bodies” under the law. This would subject them to the same rigorous scrutiny that government agencies are under to maintain and produce records. It would also likely result in meetings of these vendors being open to the public under the Open Meetings Act.
Under existing law, executed state contracts are available via public records requests made to state agencies. And certain records held by grantees that directly relate to the service they are performing on behalf of the state are presently subject to FOIA.
Del Mar said the campaign is also calling for a state website to highlight every NGO receiving money. There is currently no website for that specific purpose.
But under the Illinois Grant Accountability and Transparency Act, all active grant programs are included in list form and via a searchable database. Under each program is information such as its purpose, eligibility requirements, procedures and grantees with active awards.
The Illinois comptroller’s office also has a searchable database of state contracts. And all agency spending and contracts executed are subject to review by the Illinois auditor general’s office and the executive inspector general.
Pritzker’s campaign dismissed the proposal as a stunt, noting that the requirements in the bill could be cost-prohibitive for small non-profits and effectively shut them out of state grant programs.
“Darren Bailey is a hypocrite,” said Pritzker spokesperson Alex Gough. “He wants to bring Donald Trump’s cronyism and chaos to our state, including by ‘DOGEing’ Illinois. There’s no person less qualified to demand transparency than a MAGA Republican who can’t bring himself to demand accountability from his own party.”
Similar vein to Illinois DOGE
Republicans for years have scrutinized the Pritzker’s spending plans, with a common critique being that the state’s general fund budget has increased from $40 billion in Pritzker’s first year in office to $56 billion in the current fiscal year.
Though nominally a 40% increase, it amounts to about 7% when adjusted for inflation. Much of the increased spending has been directed towards K-12 education, pensions and growing healthcare costs for state employees and Medicaid patients.
Echoing Republicans across the country, Bailey has focused on finding “waste, fraud and abuse” in government, namely in human service programs that award state grant funds to outside vendors. This became especially pronounced in the wake of a massive fraud scandal that rocked Minnesota’s social safety net last year.
In a memo outlining their program, Del Mar said more than $750 million was allocated in the current year’s budget to NGOs, including “hundreds of millions” in “woke” grants “likely rampant with Minnesota-style fraud.” But Del Mar did not provide evidence to back up the claim or specific cuts a Bailey administration would make the state budget.
In January, Bailey proposed an “Illinois DOGE,” a state version of Trump’s and Elon Musk’s now-shuttered Department of Government Efficiency, to be led by Del Mar.
They said at the time that it would not be a tool to lay off large numbers of state employees or make cuts based on partisan politics — a difference from Trump’s and Musk’s approach.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.