Campaign money near Chicago City Council votes: $508,017 from interested parties in the year before 42 roll calls

How much money alderpersons received from companies, unions and lobbyists tied to legislation in the 365 days before voting on it, across all 50 wards.

By Chicago PoliticsUpdated Oct 17, 2026

The City of Chicago seal in the City Council chamber, before the Council's Oct. 14, 2026 meetingCity of Chicago video

What this is, and what it isn't. For every final City Council roll call this term on legislation we could tie to an outside interest, we added up the campaign contributions each alderperson who voted received from that interest in the 365 days before the vote. This shows money arriving near votes. It is not evidence that any contribution influenced any vote, and nothing in this story suggests that it did. Contributions are legal and reported publicly; most of the votes below were unanimous.

By that measure, Chicago's current 50 alderpersons received $508,016.85 from interested parties in the year before 42 roll calls since May 2023, according to Illinois State Board of Elections and Chicago Board of Ethics records. Forty-nine of the 50 received some. Two votes account for 45% of the total: the 2025 short-term rental ordinance and the 2023 Fraternal Order of Police contract.

How we did it

The votes: final roll calls on key legislation this term, from the City Clerk.
The interests: a company, union or organization is tied to a piece of legislation when its lobbying filings with the Board of Ethics match the legislation, by record number, street address, the client's name in the title, or similar wording, or when it is named in the legislation's title.
The money: contributions of $150 or more (the itemizing threshold) to any campaign committee tied to the alderperson, from the interest itself, from people who list it as their employer, or from its registered lobbyists, received in the 365 days up to the vote.
Double counting: one contribution can fall in the year before more than one vote and then counts toward each. A lobbyist's contribution counts toward every client tied to the vote that the lobbyist represents. So the $508,016.85 is a sum of member-vote pairs, not of distinct dollars.
Matching is approximate. Name and wording matches can be wrong. The match method for every link is in our data.

The script that recomputes every figure is `tools/on-my-block/stories/s7moneynearvotes.py`; it reads the per-vote files our money pipeline publishes (`site/data/moneymatters/`), and its totals for each member match the Money near votes figures on our ward pages.

Where the money went

Of the $508,016.85, $474,688.39 (93.4%) went to members who then voted yes. Members who voted no received $17,154.99. That mostly reflects how rarely the Council votes no: 312 of the 335 member-vote pairs were yes votes.

The short-term rental ordinance. On May 21, 2025, the Council passed amendments to the City's short-term rental rules, filed by Ald. Bennett Lawson (44th Ward), 49 to 0 with one absence (SO2024-0013637). Airbnb, Inc. lobbied on it, and its filing matched by record number. In the year before the vote, 46 alderpersons received a total of $122,998.14 from three of Airbnb's registered lobbyists: $44,499.07 each from John Dunn and Patrick Carey and $34,000 from Lara Dailey. These are the lobbyists' personal contributions; each lobbyist represents other clients too.

The police contract. On Dec. 13, 2023, the Council approved the amended collective bargaining agreement with the Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 7, filed by Mayor Brandon Johnson, 42 to 7 (O2023-0006332). The union is named in the title. In the year before the vote, four alderpersons who voted yes received $105,430.99 from it:

Ald. James Gardiner (45th Ward), $63,930.99 in three contributions;
Ald. Marty Quinn (13th Ward), $20,000;
Ald. Nicholas Sposato (38th Ward), $20,000;
Ald. Samantha Nugent (39th Ward), $1,500.

How each ward voted

41 yea, 6 nay, 1 not voting · Dec 13, 2023 · Passed

Yea Nay Not voting

O2023-0006332: the roll call, the timeline and the documents

Outdoor patio dining. On Dec. 13, 2023, the Council voted 49 to 0, with one member not voting, for changes to the City's outdoor patio dining rules (O2023-0005763). Three interests were matched to it by wording: the Chicago Federation of Labor, the Illinois Restaurant Association and Friedman Properties. Twenty-seven members received $61,789.56 from them in the year before the vote: $34,289.56 from the federation, $26,750 from the restaurant association and $750 from Friedman Properties.

Which members received the most?

Summed over all their votes this term:

Gardiner: $70,430.99 across 8 votes, $63,930.99 of it before the police contract vote.
Sposato: $24,333.32 across 6 votes.
Quinn: $23,000 across 3 votes.
Ald. Nicole Lee (11th Ward): $20,633.32 across 16 votes, the largest part, $5,600, before the Nov. 9, 2023 vote on the Chicago Paid Leave and Paid Sick and Safe Leave Ordinance (SO2023-0002980, passed 36 to 12), from United Airlines employees and the Illinois Restaurant Association.
Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd Ward): $19,333.32 across 12 votes, $4,500 of it from Airbnb's lobbyists before the short-term rental vote.

The median member received about $7,750. Ald. Byron Sigcho-López (25th Ward) is the only member who received none by this measure. Each of the top five voted yes on every vote counted for them.

What the numbers can't tell you

A count like this can't tell whether a contribution followed a member's position, preceded it, or had nothing to do with it. Most of the money in it arrived before votes that passed with no opposition.

What it means on your block

Every alderperson's contributions, and the money we can tie to their votes, are on their ward page under Money; the Council-wide view is on our Money page. The records come from the Illinois State Board of Elections and the City's Board of Ethics, and anyone can check them there.