Republican Judy Biggert starts her general-election campaign for a seat in the U.S. House from the 13th Congressional District with about $400,000 in debt left from a rugged and costly primary battle.
But she already appears to have a fundraising advantage over Democrat Susan Hynes, according to the latest campaign-disclosure reports.
Biggert, 60, a three-term state representative from Hinsdale, won the GOP nomination for Congress by defeating five other candidates in the March primary.
Since then, she has raised about $188,000 in new contributions and, after expenyses, had roughly $127,000 in her campaign fund as of June 30, according to a report filed this week with the Federal Election Commission.
A similar report shows that Hynes, 48, who is making her second run for Congress in the 13th District, raised about $64,300 between April 1 and June 30 and had $41,600 in her political fund.
Biggert also had about a 2-to-1 advantage over Hynes in the amount of contributions received from political action committees, according to reports.
The owner of a corporate communications firm in Naperville, Hynes was unopposed in the Democratic primary.
She and Biggert are competing to fill the seat being vacated by veteran U.S. Rep. Harris Fawell (R-Ill.), who announced last summer that he intended to retire after 14 years in the House.
The 13th Congressional District is quintessential suburbia, sprawling across the southern third of DuPage County as well as parts of northern Will and southwest Cook Counties.
Hynes ran a credible though unsuccessful campaign two years ago against Fawell. But she probably needs to keep up with Biggert in the never-pleasant chore of raising campaign contributions if she is to have a chance at victory in a district that traditionally has sent Republicans to Congress.
On Wednesday, the Hynes camp challenged Biggert to agree to put limits on spending for the fall campaign.
“If salary caps work for sports teams, then why not agree to a spending cap in the congressional race,” said Tilden Katz, Hynes’ campaign manager.
Hynes has voiced support for public funding of congressional campaigns, a proposal Biggert opposes.
A spokeswoman for Biggert rejected the challenge, saying political donations are a means of expressing support for a candidate.
“They may think of politics as a sport, but we don’t,” said spokeswoman Kathleen Lydon. “We’re not for restraining people’s expressions of support as long as there is full and immediate disclosure.”
Biggert favors an end to the limits on campaign contributions–now $1,000 for individuals and $5,000 for political action committees–but would require quicker disclosure of all donations. She says the existing regulations were written before the advent of relatively inexpensive, high-speed data transmitters.
In an interview last month, Biggert said she would rather not put her own money into the fall campaign.
“Not anymore,” she said. “I put enough in. I would like to have some debt reduction too.”
For the primary, Biggert raised about $350,000 in political donations and lent another $400,000 in personal funds to her campaign–partly in response to concerns about mailings financed by Gary L. Bauer, a Washington-based conservative political activist and abortion foe. Biggert favors abortion rights.
Bauer’s political action committee, Campaign for Working Families, spent at least $31,000 on mailings in support of conservative state Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Wheaton), Biggert’s chief opponent in the GOP primary.
