Being Crooked Pays Off

Of course there are loopholes - these a$$holes likely wrote the legislation:

• Disgraced ex-Ald. Edward M. Burke has been out of elected office since May 2023 and out of prison since summer after a conviction on corruption charges and hasn’t been actively raising campaign money.

  But his campaign coffers stand to grow nonetheless, and one of Burke’s campaign accounts could still someday provide him with a huge personal windfall.

  Convicted in 2023 in a racketeering and bribery case, Burke is allowed to pocket roughly $2.4 million from one of his campaign funds, Friends of Edward M. Burke, and spend that money on virtually anything he’d like — political or not.

  Burke, who long represented the Southwest Side’s 14th Ward, is one of about 100 current and former political figures, or their heirs, who are allowed to still convert campaign money — whatever they had in their accounts on June 30, 1998, when a law changed — to personal use.

The "Friends of Burke" account has gained over $800,000 in interest and capital gains alone over the past few decades. 

Even long dead politicians have much of their old campaign funds interest bearing accounts that benefit their estates (i.e. heirs), providing income streams that will long outlive the people who raised the campaign cash.

Too bad taxpayers can't get it diverted to some of the burgeoning debt these same pols voted us all into while they pocketed "contributions" to be doled out long after their convictions....and lives, ended.