Powerful Political Family Playing by Its Own Set of Rules
CHICAGO (January 23, 2015) -- Rules are for suckers. That's the message that the powerful Mell family is sending in the 33rd Ward, where a hinky in-kind rent contribution deal looks to violate campaign finance laws.
DNAinfo Chicago is reporting that neither Ald. Deb Mell, appointed to her seat, or her father, who held the office for decades, seemed to know anything about the contributions in question involving an office he owns and both share in the ward.
Father Mell has in-kinded his daughter thousands of dollars in rent, over the $1000 limit for lobbyists set by the city.
Kristen Crowell, executive director of United Working Families, a new progressive political organization, said the excess violates campaign finance laws, a position "backed in an informal statement by the legal counsel for the Chicago Board of Ethics," the news website reported Thursday.
Read the full report here.
"The people of the 33rd Ward have seen their services cut and their voices ignored by the type of politics practiced by a powerful political family that believes it can play by its own set of rules," Crowell said Thursday.
