Chicago Ald. David Moore is running almost as an outsider. His fundraising is significantly dwarfed by Alexi Giannoulias and Anna Valencia, but Moore is portraying his bid as a grassroots campaign as he attempts to increase his profile statewide.
Giannoulias and Valencia have been the traffickers and targets in most of the ethics debate.
“And he understood. He has a lot of respect for me to understand that and that was it. Nothing went further,” Valencia said, also saying that she has not been contacted by law enforcement or any inspector general investigators, even though one alderman, a backer of Giannoulias, has asked for Chicago’s IG to look into Valencia’s conduct.
Amid the fallout and the questions about her husband, Valencia has vowed that Kazmi will not lobby state officials if she’s elected secretary of state. The secretary of state’s office oversees registrations for all state lobbyists. “I’m not trying to be evasive,” he said. “He is aware, but I keep my personal conversations with the president, out of respect for him, personal.”
Alexi Giannoulias, a Democratic candidate for secretary of state, speaks at a candidates forum at the Union League Club of Chicago on May 26, 2022. Giannoulias also taught a political science course at Northwestern University, began investing in a handful of restaurants and took a job as wealth director in the Chicago office of Bank of New York Mellon, helping introduce new clients to the bank.