Political campaigns in Illinois have provided churches and religious charities with $650,000 over the past two years

In the run-up to last Tuesday’s general election, both presidential candidates made a point of visiting religious congregations and meeting religious leaders – a time-honored part of politics aimed at wooing voters in the fold.

In Illinois, political candidates and campaign committees also intersect with religion by routinely giving money to churches and other religious charities — collectively totaling about $650,000 this year and in 2023 in the form of donations, event sponsorships and other payments, according to a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of Illinois State Board of Elections data.

About two-thirds of that total — about $420,000 — went to schools, churches and other charitable efforts and causes that could be identified as Catholic.

More than $180,000 of that Catholic sum went to Misericordia, a North Side organization long led by Sister Rosemary Connelly, which serves adults and children with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Of that, $150,000 came from a 2023 donation from the campaign fund of retired Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke, founder of Special Olympics and wife of convicted ex-Chicago Ald. Edward M. Burke.

More than $200,000 was spent this year and last to churches of various denominations, with St. Bruno Catholic Church one of the largest recipients at $18,200 – all recorded as donations from Ed Burke’s campaign funds, including four donations from a total of $800 made in September. ahead of the start of his prison sentence following his conviction on corruption charges.

Nearly $16,000 was given through campaigns to Victory Apostolic Church in Matteson, with more than $6,000 coming from south suburban Mayor Sheila Chalmers-Currin’s campaign fund.

One of the largest recent donations to an Illinois church was $10,000 given in March to Liberty Christian Church in the state of Liberty from the campaign fund of a former Adams County sheriff.

Baptist churches and other groups received more than $60,000 in campaign money in Illinois in 2023 and to date this year. Campaign committees on behalf of Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle paid for the Monumental Baptist Church at 729 E. Oakwood Blvd. $6,875 – all for space rental.

“We hold our precinct meetings from there,” a spokesperson for Preckwinkle, who is also the head of the Cook County Democratic Party, said of the historic South Side building.

Gov. JB Pritzker’s campaign donated $2,500 to a Baptist church in the East St. Louis area in April, one of at least five payments to religious congregations this year by the JB for Governor campaign committee, including $5,000 in the spring to the African Methodist Episcopal Church on the South Side.

Mayor Brandon Johnsons The campaign committee has spent $5,500 on churches in 2023 and 2024, including $3,700 for “GospelFest” for Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church on the South Side last year, and $1,200 for Lighthouse Church of All Nations in Alsip this year for what the election reports described as “event production.”

Jewish houses of worship and other Jewish groups and charities received more than $30,000 in campaign money, while Muslim organizations received more than $4,500, with $1,000 coming from the Bridgeview Active Party to which the south suburb’s mayor, Steve Landek, belongs.

In 2024 and 2023, more than $100,000 went to religious schools, the vast majority of which were Catholic, and more than $17,000 of that total went to the all-girls Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School on the Far Southwest Side.

The largest recent expense to Mother McAuley was $4,000, spent on a school event by the campaign fund for candidate judge Bridget Duignan, now a Cook County judge.

A campaign committee that raises and spends money to help sitting judges win their retention races in Cook County has made nine donations totaling $3,100 this year to eight churches on the South and West Sides and in Markham.

Experts say campaigns give money to faith groups for a variety of reasons — with some politicians wanting to help institutions that help their communities spiritually or through social services, and some simply trying to curry favor with a group of potential voters, even as America increasingly finds itself in the dark. favor comes from a group of potential voters. secularized and fewer and fewer people regularly participate in organized religion.

“You fish where the fish are,” said a local elected official whose campaign funds have been donated to religious groups, who spoke on condition he not be named.

David Brockman, a scholar for the Religion and Public Policy Program at the Baker Institute at Rice University in Houston, says this is “the first time I’ve heard of money flowing that way,” noting that such donations “have a resemble the visits of politicians to a church, synagogue or mosque during worship, which is common.”

“If it’s not altruistic,” Brockman said, some political figures may view giving campaign money as a “kind of investment” in some sense.

Research shows that regular churchgoers are more likely to vote, and in this year’s presidential election, evangelical Christians were seen as a powerful force for Donald Trump.

In addition to state and local campaign funds, federal candidates also give money to religious groups. U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider, a Democrat who represents the northern and northwest suburbs, has made two donations totaling $500 to Waukegan churches in 2023, according to the Federal Election Commission.

A campaign fund for U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, gave $500 this year to Old St. Patrick’s Church in the West Loop, a congregation that has been one of the largest recipients of campaign money over the years: about $175,000.

U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s campaign fund has paid an affiliate of the First United Methodist Church more than $40,000 over the past two years to rent office space in the temple building in the Loop.

Campaign funds in Illinois are generally allowed to pay or donate to faith groups, but tax-exempt churches and many other religious groups are not allowed to donate to political campaigns under Internal Revenue Service rules.

But some still do. Election records show New Life Covenant Church at 1021 E. 78^e St. made a $5,000 contribution to Chicago Ald. Michelle Harris’ campaign fund in May.

Harris did not return a call, but a church official says, “While reviewing the donation, we realized this donation was made from the wrong account” and “is currently being resolved on our end.”