By Joe Ragusa

BLOOMINGTON – Because of the special election to replace Aaron Schock, Darin LaHood and Rob Mellon can raise funds for both the primary and general election in 2015 and 2016, effectively doubling the cap on maximum contributions for a single fundraising period.

LaHood has raised about $51,000 extra for his campaign this way while Mellon has not raised any money for 2016.

“The oddness of having four elections in sixteen months, or the potential of that, that’s the reason why under the law they allow you to raise money for the next two elections (the 2016 primary and general election),” LaHood said.

Mellon said LaHood is just building up his political influence.

“He’s going to do what Aaron Schock did: You raise a ton of money and once you have that position, it’s a position of power,” Mellon said.

Campaign committees are free to donate to other campaigns as long as they fall under the $2,700 cap per election or the $5,000 cap per election to political action committees or party committees.

“He can affect every single local election,” Mellon said. “He can affect state senate races, he can affect state representative races, he can affect Mayor races, he can affect county clerk races.”

LaHood said his focus is solely on the 2015 election and if he loses, he’ll refund some of the donations he has received.

“This is a unique situation with a special election in the middle of the summer,” LaHood said. “This is the only thing on the ballot and so all of our resources are going to get the vote out, remind people there’s an election and talk about where I stand on issues.”

Both candidates have made errors regarding their campaign finance reports.

Mellon reported a $5,000 donation from one individual, Maurine Magliocco, that he said was meant to be from Maurine and her husband. The cap is $2,700.

“It was an oversight, of course,” Mellon said. “I don’t think it indicates I would have an oversight on anything else.”

A spokesman for the Federal Election Commission said the donation can be amended, as long as both donors agree to it.

LaHood’s campaign failed to disclose what election his expenses were for in the last report filed for the period of July 1 to Aug. 21. LaHood said he’s abiding by the law.

“We hired two election law lawyers from the very beginning. We’ve been fully compliant with everything,” LaHood said. “I think if you look at my track record in the State Senate for four-and-a-half years, it’s been an exemplary record on abiding by campaign finances laws.”

$183,000 weren’t designated for either the special election or next year’s regular election. WJBC is still waiting on a response back from the LaHood campaign as to why those designations weren’t made.

LaHood has raised $1.2 million while Mellon has raised a little over $10,000. The election is Thursday.

Joe Ragusa can be reached at [email protected].