Education reform linked to donation?
Rep. Jehan Gordon insists her support of bill predates $100,000 campaign donation
How much did campaign donations smooth the way for education reforms?
The head of an out-of-state group that helped craft the education reform package Illinois lawmakers passed nearly unanimously this spring put a focus on that question with some unguarded comments at a conference at Colorado's Aspen Institute early this month.
And because she was one of the biggest recipients of campaign cash from Jonah Edelman's Stand For Children organization - some $100,000 in 2010 out of about $444,000 in donations she raised in the last six months of her successful re-election campaign - state Rep. Jehan Gordon, D-Peoria, is caught up in the controversy. She insists her support for reform predates those campaign contributions.
Teachers unions were boycotting Democratic candidates for the state
Legislature who had supported pension reforms during 2010, Edelman said during his Aspen remarks (which are available