Sun-Times Owners Give $225,000 More To Kim Foxx, $975,000 Total

CHICAGO — House Speaker Michael Madigan didn’t endorse Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, or even mention the race, on the election palm card is organization hands out to 13th Ward voters.

When the Sun-Times found out, a reporter asked Cook County Democratic Party boss Toni Preckwinkle if that meant Madigan “isn’t a team player.”

Preckwinkle didn’t answer the question, which in the political boss’s defense didn’t specify the identity of the “team” Madigan might be letting down.

Did the query refer to county Democrats who endorsed Foxx? Or, maybe, Preckwinkle assumed the “team” was Sun-Times owners helping fund the state’s attorney’s hotly contested re-election bid?

You can’t really blame Preckwinkle if she was confused.

Earlier this month, following the Sun-Times editorial board’s early endorsement of Foxx, the public learned some of the paper’s owners — Michael Sacks, Elzie Higginbottom and the Service Employees International Union — donated $750,000 to Foxx’s re-election campaign. A sum that the paper still hasn’t disclosed to its readers.

Since then, Sacks has contributed another $200,000 to Foxx’s campaign. SEIU, which is part of a collection of unions that own the paper, padded the “Friends for Foxx” campaign war chest with another $25,000.

That brings total Foxx campaign contributions from Sun-Times owners to $975,000, plus one endorsement, public records show.

Some of the paper’s owners also have contributed to Madigan.

For instance, the House speaker’s personal campaign fund reported receiving $1.1 million from SEIU in January, and $600,000 from Sacks on March 26, 2019 — five months after Sacks made the contribution to Madigan — and two days before the Sun-Times announced Sacks bought a stake in the paper, according to state election board records.

It looks like Madigan might not be a “team player” on either Foxx-supporting squad.

Or maybe he's learned not to trust endorsements.

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting and Emmy-nominated producer, was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docu-series on CNN. He was a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary, "16 Shots."

More Chicago Stories from Mark Konkol:

• Blago Warns Taxpayers Of Pritzker's $7 Million Deal With Madigan
• Calumet Bakery Crew Worked 24-Hour Shifts to Make 42,000 Paczki
• 4 Pols Shaming Chicago: Pritzker, Rahm, Blago and Kim Foxx
• Pritzker Follows Up Phony Blago Outrage By Dodging Questions
• When Blago Gets Home Let's Talk About Calls He Got From Pritzker
• Mayor Releases Koschman, Markham Investigative Reports: EXCLUSIVE
• Lightfoot Administration May Add Ex-Con Pols To Hiring Blacklist
• City Hall 'Do Not Rehire' List Omits Chicago Hall of Shamers
• Don't Quit, Kim! Let Voters Express Facebook Outrage Election Day
• 750,000 Reasons Sun-Times' Kim Foxx Endorsement Shouldn't Shock