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‘You Should Be Outraged’: Candidates Sound Alarm on Stealth AIPAC Meddling in Illinois
"They’re using shell organizations to try to crush progressive candidates in secret," said the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. "We can’t let them get away with it."
Feb 18, 2026
Progressive congressional candidates in Illinois sounded the alarm Tuesday over efforts by AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying organization, to influence congressional races in the state using methods that appear designed to conceal its role as Democratic voters increasingly view the group as politically toxic amid the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
“This isn’t what Democratic voters want. Even AIPAC knows it, which is why they’re hiding their name behind a shady super PAC and their agenda behind whatever ad they think will poll best," Junaid Ahmed, who is running to represent Illinois’ 8th District in the US House, said during a press conference alongside other Democratic candidates.
On Wednesday, The Washington Post highlighted two organizations—with names that betray no association with the pro-Israel lobby—that "sprang into existence late last month" and waded into the Illinois congressional contests.
Elect Chicago Women and Affordable Chicago Now!, according to the Post, "appear to use vendors who have worked with AIPAC-affiliated efforts in the past."
"Elect Chicago Women uses a mail vendor that shares identifying information with a mail vendor used by AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project," the newspaper reported. "UDP’s vendor for phone banking also has the same address as the vendor listed by Affordable Chicago Now."
Illinois State Sen. Robert Peters, a Democratic candidate in the 2nd Congressional District, said AIPAC's efforts to obscure its involvement in the races amount to an admission of the lobby's growing unpopularity with voters across the US. A recent poll found that nearly half of Democratic voters in competitive congressional districts said they could "never" support a congressional candidate they knew was backed by AIPAC.
"So they’re trying to be slick and to use these shell organizations to be able to move money to support candidates who are willing to support the right-wing agenda," Peters said Tuesday.
Daniel Biss, a progressive running to succeed retiring Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) in the 9th Congressional District, decried the "millions of dollars in AIPAC-backed coordinated donations and dark money super PAC ads flooding each of our districts."
“We are here, united, as progressives to say that this kind of massive dark money barrage is exactly the kind of corruption we must stand against,” Biss said at the Tuesday press conference. “It is wrong for our party, wrong for our voters, and wrong for our city. Democrats will not let right-wing groups buy Illinois’ 9th District or any of these seats."
Watch the full press conference:
Drop Site and The American Prospect reported earlier this month that AIPAC "road-tested its stealth approach in a 2024 House primary in Oregon that pitted Susheela Jayapal, the sister of Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), against physician Maxine Dexter."
"Dexter raised relatively little money throughout much of her campaign, then saw a last-minute deluge organized by AIPAC coupled with outside spending through super PACs, which themselves turned out to be funded by AIPAC," the outlets noted. "The timing of the donations meant that there was no meaningful transparency before voters went to the polls, and Dexter expressed a mixture of ignorance and umbrage when her opponents suggested the money actually came from AIPAC."
In the Illinois contests, AIPAC appears to be using similar tactics, secretly funneling money to preferred candidates through super PACs with no outward affiliation with the pro-Israel lobbying group. The primary beneficiaries of the campaign cash, according to Drop Site and The American Prospect, are Laura Fine in the 9th District, Donna Miller in the 2nd District, and Melissa Bean in the 8th District.
Groups linked to AIPAC have so far spent an estimated $4 million in support of Miller, Bean, Fine, and Melissa Conyears-Ervin.
US Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said Wednesday that "if you care about the future of the Democratic Party, you should be outraged about what AIPAC is doing in Chicago right now."
"They’re using shell organizations to try to crush progressive candidates in secret," said Casar. "We can’t let them get away with it."
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'Pay-to-Play'? Donors to Texas Gov's PAC Have Received Nearly $1 Billion in No-Bid State Contracts
“Insider dealing undermines confidence in state government," said one advocate. "People conclude that the government works for wealthy people first and everyday Texans second."
Sep 24, 2025
A new report on no-bid contracts awarded in Texas to corporations after they donated to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's political action committee exemplifies why many people "lose faith in their government," said one advocate at the watchdog group Public Citizen on Wednesday.
The organization released a report, Awarding Influence, on no-bid contracts that were awarded by Abbott from 2020-24 after he declared state emergencies over border security, Hurricane Beryl, and the coronavirus pandemic.
Donors to Abbott's political action committee, Texans for Greg Abbott PAC, received approximately $950 million in at least 89 state contracts during those emergencies. The companies—including through their subsidiaries, PACs, executives, and executives' spouses—donated a collective $2.9 million to Abbott in 96 contributions between 2014-25.
"The timing of the contributions is suspect,” said Andrew Cates, an attorney and government ethics expert. “The groups were awarded the contracts after they made large contributions to the governor or his [super PAC]. If it were the other way around, it could be viewed as a thank-you contribution, but this way feels much more pay-to-play when procurement money flows quickly after large contributions."
Cates said one particular donor, Doggett Equipment Services Group, drew the scrutiny of Public Citizen due to $1.6 million it was awarded in no-bid state contracts that were simply labeled "fees."
The company provides services to the heavy equipment industry across Texas and it CEO, William "Leslie" Doggett, has contributed more than $1.7 million to Texans for Greg Abbott since 2014, either personally or through his corporation.
One of Doggett's companies, Doggett Freightliners of South Texas, received two noncompetitive contracts—identified only as "fees" on paperwork—worth $1.6 million in 2022 and 2023. One of the contracts was finalized eight days after Doggett donated $500,000 to the PAC.
Cates said the Doggett contracts were "especially egregious."
Doggett's apparent transaction with Abbott's PAC did not make his company the largest recipient of no-bid contracts detailed in the report; that distinction goes to Gothams LLC, an emergency management company that received nearly $640 million in contracts in 2021 and 2022.
After pandemic contracts began to slow in 2022, Gothams received just one contract worth $43 million—but after its founder, Matthew Michelsen, started sending donations to Texans for Greg Abbott that totaled $600,000, the firm received 10 contracts worth $66 million.
"People lose faith in their government when they see a system that appears to benefit those who can buy access to elected officials,” said Adrian Shelley, the Texas director of Public Citizen. “Even when no laws are broken, insider dealing undermines confidence in state government. People conclude that the government works for wealthy people first and everyday Texans second."
In another example from the report, infrastructure development firm HNTB Holdings received an emergency contract worth $2.6 million in 2021 to provide software updates. Since 2015, the company, its PAC, and its senior officials have contributed $193,750 to Texans for Greg Abbott
“All of the companies identified in this report, either through corporate PACs or individuals affiliated with the company, contributed significant amounts to Texans for Greg Abbott," said Cassidy Levin, a research fellow at Public Citizen. "Lawmakers should adopt stronger restrictions on pay-to-play practices in government contracting and implement reporting requirements for the governor’s office in the aftermath of an emergency.”
The group called on Texas officials to make changes to the state's contract procurement rules, including by:
- Banning no-bid contract awards to companies whose PACs, officers, or families of officers have made political donations above a given threshold within the last election cycle;
- Barring recipients of no-bid contracts from making contributions above a given threshold for a given period of time;
- Establishing a more thorough and transparent reporting process of the awarding of no-bid contracts after disaster and emergency declarations; and
- Imposing penalties for noncompliance, including contract forfeiture.
The report acknowledges that "disaster response includes the rapid deployment of resources to areas of need" and that "the speed involved may make normal contract bid and award procedures impossible."
However, reads the conclusion, "ethics laws should be sufficient to eliminate conflict and the appearance of conflict in government decision-making."
Shelley added that "there are simple safeguards that lawmakers could implement to avoid apparent conflicts of interest while still allowing the state to respond quickly to emergencies.”
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Susan Collins Advanced Trump Tax Bill After Receiving $2 Million from Private Equity Billionaire
The five-term Maine senator's populist opponent has seized on her ties to Wall Street, saying: "I don't think private equity deserves more time with a senator than someone who works two jobs to get by."
Sep 04, 2025
As she gears up for a tough midterm race against a progressive challenger in 2026, Sen. Susan Collins is struggling to shake her reputation as a sellout to corporate interests. A new report out Wednesday may make that even more difficult.
Collins (R-Maine) was one of just three Republican senators not to vote for President Donald Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" Act in July, which slashes over $1 trillion from Medicaid to help pay for tax cuts for the rich and is expected to result in over 10 million people losing health insurance coverage.
But Collins did cast a crucial vote to advance the legislation to the Senate floor. An exclusive report from Tessa Stuart in Rolling Stone gives us damning insight into a possible reason why:
[Collins] cast that vote just one day after private equity billionaire Steve Schwarzman, the chair of the Blackstone Group and a man who will personally reap huge rewards from the bill, kicked in $2 million toward her reelection effort.
On June 27, Schwarzman gave $2 million to Pine Tree Results PAC, a Super PAC backing Collins; on June 28, Collins cast a decisive vote allowing Trump's bill to advance to the floor. The vote was 51-49. Vice President JD Vance was present at the Capitol, on hand to break a tie, but was not needed after Collins voted in favor of the bill.
The bill went on to pass the Senate just a few days later, to Schwarzman's presumed delight, since the legislation both extended the pass-through business deduction—treasured by the owners of private equity firms—and made it permanent, allowing partnerships to deduct 20% of their pre-tax income.
Collins' office has strongly denied that Schwarzman's influence had anything to do with her vote to advance the bill. As press secretary Blake Kernen noted, a tie in the Senate would have been broken by Vance, so "the motion to proceed would have passed without her vote."
However, Stuart notes that this was not Collins' first conspicuous donation from Schwarzman or the private equity industry at large.
According to OpenSecrets, Collins' campaign committee and leadership PAC received over $715,000 from private equity and investment firms—more money than any other person elected to Congress during the 2020 election cycle. It included maximum individual contributions from both Schwarzman and his wife.
That number does not include an additional $2 million that Schwarzman donated to her reelection super PAC in 2020. As Stuart points out, this donation came after Collins dropped a proposed amendment to Trump's 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, opposed by private equity. That amendment would have "[made] childcare more affordable, by making changes to the private equity industry's beloved carried interest loophole," Stuart wrote.
While Collins denies that her votes are influenced by the piles of money gifted to her by private equity, one of her most formidable challengers in 2026, oyster farmer and Marine veteran Graham Platner, has often seized on her extensive industry ties to hold her up as the poster child for the "oligarchy" he is trying to unseat from power.
"I believe that input from working people is far more important than input from someone who simply has money," Platner thundered during a Labor Day speech in Portland alongside Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). "I believe that we shouldn't be settling for crumbs while billionaires eat the cookie we baked. I don't think private equity deserves more time with a senator than someone who works two jobs to get by."
If Democrats are going to regain the Senate in 2026, Maine will be an essential state to win, something that looks increasingly possible as approval ratings for Collins have plummeted over the first half-year of Trump's second term.
Nearly 7,000 attended Platner's speech, during which he railed against the five-term senator Collins' long history of casting "symbolic" dissenting votes against her party, like opposing Trump's tax legislation, or voting to codify Roe v. Wade, to posture as a "moderate" without actually disrupting their agenda.
"Susan Collins' charade is wearing thin," Platner said Monday. "No one cares that you pretend to be remorseful as you sell out to lobbyists. No one cares while you sell out to corporations, and no one cares while you sell out to a president, who are all engineering the greatest redistribution of wealth from the working class to the ruling class in American history."
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