Shortly after she left her state job as a senior adviser to Gov. J.B. Pritzker, longtime political operative Nikki Budzinski collected more than $500,000 in consulting and other fees in 10 months, including more than $80,000 from a Springfield lobbyist Budzinski had helped while working for the governor, a Better Government Association investigation has found.
Based on government records, the BGA documented that $100,000 of that came from progressive organizations that don’t disclose their contributors even though Budzinski is now running as a Democrat for Congress from a downstate district on a platform that includes getting “dark money” out of politics.
