Dark Money Super Pac’s are lining up behind State Rep Jaime Andrade
THREE NEW DARK MONEY PACs are flooding Illinois spending more on State Rep Jaime Andrade than any other candidate in Illinois government—spending more than $270,000 to bankroll Jaime.
WHO’S BEHIND THESE PACs?
American Future is funded by Draftkings, the sports gambling company. Follow the money here.
Making Our Tomorrow is paid for by Meta, the tech giant seeking to advance its AI data center agenda in Illinois, and block AI regulation. Follow the money here.
Common Ground Collective is bankrolled in part by anti-tax billionaire and AIPAC donor Michael Sacks. Follow the money here.
Learn more about DRAFT KINGS funneling money into Jaime’s campaign
Learn more about META funneling money into Jaime’s campaign. Note: Jaime is the chair of Illinois legislature's AI subcommittee.
State Rep Jaime Andrade has taken more than $1.2 million in donations from corporations and lobbyists including NASCAR. If he wanted a new career as a race car driver, here’s what his car might look like.
Maintaining the status quo has paid off for Jaime. While 40th District residents struggle to afford basic needs, Jaime allies himself with the same actors driving the cost-of-living crisis.
Jaime Andrade wants voters to forget that he owes his career to machine politics. But he spent 17 years working for machine ward boss Dick Mell, who handed him the 40th district seat in 2013 in a game of machine musical chairs. Because daughter Deb Mell wanted to be alderwoman—Andrade was appointed to take her place as our state representative.
A product of Chicago’s political machine, he votes as directed. A practice that has helped Jaime rake in more than $1.2 million in donations from the same interests he claims to oppose.
Photo: Jaime Andrade Jr.
Photo: Former Ald. Dick Mell
Mike Madigan’s Man in the 40th
Once in Springfield, Jaime voted “in lockstep” with party boss Michael Madigan. For his loyalty, Jaime was rewarded with nearly $300,000 in campaign dollars from Madigan controlled PACs.
Even once Madigan was implicated in the ComEd bribery scandal, Jaime continued to support him, refusing to join the growing chorus calling for his resignation. The reason was clear: Jaime wanted to keep the money flowing, even asking the Chicago Tribune, “Who’s going to be sure campaigns are funded?”
An FBI wiretap revealed that Jaime even asked Madigan for help making extra money to pay for his children’s private school. Before he was convicted for bribery last year, Madigan testified that he had helped Jaime’s wife land a plum state job, after deciding not to hire her directly “because it would be publicly disclosed.”
“Jaime Andrade came to me and—same story—he needs money.”
“Who’s going to be sure campaigns are funded?”
Jaime’s Money: Pay-to-Play Politics in the 40th
Now that Madigan has left Springfield for federal prison, Jaime has found some new patrons, taking millions from billionaire ideologues, corporations seeking political favors, and the lobbyists they employ to influence state legislators and make our lives less affordable.
Actual progressives running in our district have refused to accept campaign dollars from big corporations. Not so for Jaime.
How can we count on Jaime to represent the interests of 40th District residents when he takes checks from Amazon, which wants to build more data centers that will strain our power grid, guzzle our water, and increase our energy bills?
Or Peoples’ Gas, which is currently seeking a $200 million rate hike that will increase our monthly bills?
Jaime has even accepted nearly $260,000 directly from lobbyists, including Michael McClain, the former ComEd lobbyist now in federal prison for a far-reaching bribery scheme.
Billionaire Bedfellows
Perhaps most alarmingly, Jaime Andrade is aligning himself with the same interests actively combating a progressive agenda in our city and state.
Some of Jaime’s top individual donors are billionaire hedge fund manager Michael Sacks and his wife, Cari Sacks, who have collectively donated more than $25,000 since 2017 to Jaime’s campaigns, and maxing out legal contribution limits this cycle with $14,600.
Sacks is a radical opponent of progressive taxation who’s fighting tooth and nail to ensure that billionaires and big corporations don’t have to pay their fair share.
Photo: Michael Sacks, Jaime donor
Jaime has also accepted more than $20,000 from the pro-charter group Stand for Children, which has helped starve public schools by expanding charters nationwide.
He’s even taken money from the right-wing and anti-trans Illinois Policy Institute as well as powerful Republicans in the state legislature.
A “Proven Progressive”?
Now that it benefits him, Jaime Andrade is running as a progressive. But he’s never even bothered to join the House progressive caucus, and he only takes stances that won’t offend his donors or party leaders. On the issues that matter most to progressives, we can’t count on Jaime to lead.
Housing affordability? Jaime has refused to sign on to legislation to lift the ban on rent control, while taking nearly $130,000 from real estate interests.
Criminal justice reform? Jaime has pushed for harmful juvenile sentencing increases, skipped a vote finalizing the abolition of cash bail, and joined conservative lawmakers in denouncing 2020’s racial justice protests.
Universal childcare? Instead of fighting for it in Springfield, Jaime went to Mike Madigan to ask for help covering rising childcare costs for his own family—and no one else’s.
Standing up to Trump and ICE? This year, as our neighborhoods organized rapid response teams and school patrols to defend immigrant neighbors, Jaime was nowhere to be found until the crisis peaked in October—even as other Northwest Side elected officials found ways to actively support this work and protect our communities from Day One.
The genocide in Palestine? Jaime has never called for a ceasefire and has told residents he won’t back a bill that reverses a decade-old law penalizing companies that support the Palestinian boycott, divest, sanctions movement.
Jaime Andrade says he’s a “proven progressive” who will stand up to corrupt billionaires, price-gouging corporations, and Donald Trump’s dangerous agenda. But where’s the proof?
