Hello Supporters,

Today we have an update on our previous report about campaign donations by long-term care industry groups to some of the officials named on this petition.

According to Illinois Sunshine, State Representative Robyn Gabel's campaign committee, Friends of Robyn Gabel, accepted a $40,000 donation from the Health Care Council of Illinois on October 6th, and a $7,300 donation from the HCCI just last week, on December 3rd. These donations move the HCCI into the number two spot in Friends of Robyn Gabel's lifetime donor list, behind only the Affordable Assisted Living Coalition. 

Which means Gabel's top two all-time donors are long-term care industry groups.

Industry money keeps flowing into the campaign coffers of State Senate President Don Harmon, too. (Harmon, whose campaign fund has received millions over the years from various LTC groups, is fresh off a party-line deadlock that spared him from a nearly $10 million fine for alleged campaign finance violations. Last year, advocates for long-term care residents expressed worry that Harmon was impeding the progress of a nursing home retaliation bill, though that bill finally passed earlier this year.)

On September 29th, Harmon notched a $100,000 donation from the HCCI, the latest drop in the $2.1 million bucket from that organization alone. (On November 13th, Harmon accepted another $10,000 from the HCCI.)

On September 29th, Harmon also netted $150,000 from the Affordable Assisted Living Coalition, making for a $250,000 haul from the LTC industry in a single day.

Don Harmon isn't named in this petition. But he has the rare distinction of having taken campaign money directly from Albany Care, its sibling SMHRFs, and from other affiliated companies, despite the fact that none of these facilities are in his district. Harmon accepted the most recent of these donations in 2019. 

In the past, State Senator Sara Feigenholtz (Illinois 6th) has also taken donations from Albany Care and its affiliated companies, though none of those SMHRFs are in her district, either. (She does, however, sit on the state senate's Public Health and Behavioral and Mental Health committees.) Feigenholtz netted $10,000 from the HCCI on September 30th and $5,000 from the Affordable Assisted Living Coalition on November 3rd. 

State Senator Laura Fine, who chairs the Behavioral and Mental Health Committee, accepted $10,000 from the HCCI on November 10th. It's not Harmon-level cash, or even Gabel-level cash, but that single donation does top the previous lifetime amount of $9,000 Fine had received from HCCI up to that point. State Senator Fine, who is running in the crowded primary to succeed retiring Representative Jan Schakowsky (IL-9th), lists no donations from the Affordable Assisted Living Coalition.

Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, who is also running to succeed Rep Schakowsky, lists no donations from the HCCI or the AALC. Neither does billionaire Governor JB Pritzker, whose top donor is . . . billionaire Governor JB Pritzker.

We said it last time, and we'll say it again: These donations are allowed -- assuming they comply with local and federal campaign finance laws, that is. Our elected officials are allowed to accept them, if they choose.

And we're allowed to ask what it all means. 

What does this money mean for a system currently tagged with an abysmal national ranking, a system whose operators have a history of masking their profits?

What does it mean for the people living within that system?

And what does it mean for reform efforts aimed at improving the lives of those people?

For an industry that collectively bemoans how little money it's making -- how plagued it is by "persistent underfunding," how it sure could use friendly legislation and a boost from taxpayers -- it seems to give plenty away to select elected officials. 

And for elected officials who tout themselves as champions of the vulnerable, they certainly seem to take a bunch of money from industry powers-that-be. 

But just because they CAN take the money, that doesn't mean they SHOULD.

We'll have more updates before the end of the year, including news of a whistleblower lawsuit filed last year against Albany Care alleging a retaliatory firing, and a report on an investigation from October that, according to IDPH and various witnesses, substantiated a claim of sexual abuse by an Albany Care employee against an Albany Care resident.

Thank you for your continued attention and support.

In solidarity, 

The Fitzsimons Neighbors Group