Sheriff Dart's Own Employees Gave More Than $71,000 to His Reelection Campaign, an Analysis Finds
An analysis by South Side Weekly and Type Investigations found that 119 Cook County Sheriff's Office employees contributed more than $71,000 to Sheriff Tom Dart's campaign between November 2022 and June 2026 - nearly a third of the money he collected from individuals. The sheriff's office says every contribution was voluntary.
Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart's reelection campaign is increasingly funded by the people who work for him, according to an analysis of campaign records by South Side Weekly and Type Investigations published October 28. In all, 119 employees of the Cook County Sheriff's Office contributed more than $71,000 to Dart's campaign fund from November 2022 to June 2026, nearly a third of his total dollars collected from individuals, the analysis found.
The share has climbed across three election cycles, rising from about 11 percent of individual contributions in the 2014 cycle to roughly 30 percent in this one, according to the analysis. Dart's campaign committee, Friends of Dart, has raised more than $315,000 during the current cycle and held more than $445,000 in cash on hand as of September 30. Dart, 64, is seeking a sixth term as head of an office with more than 5,000 employees that runs the Cook County Jail and polices many of the county's unincorporated areas.
It is legal for Cook County elected officials to collect campaign donations from their employees so long as donations are not solicited during work hours and there are no strings attached, the report notes, and most of the employee money came from Shakman-exempt at-will political employees - a group that has grown in the sheriff's office from 172 in 2011 to 339. The sheriff's office and its legal counsel maintain that all contributions are voluntary exercises of First Amendment rights and deny any coercion, according to the reporting. By contrast, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and several other county officials voluntarily pledge not to accept employee contributions.
The analysis also recounts past accusations: a 2023 lawsuit alleged that senior officials in the sheriff's office were coerced into working for Dart's 2022 reelection campaign, and a joint FBI-sheriff's office task force reportedly investigated allegations as part of a wider probe that yielded no criminal charges, according to a separate lawsuit. Two former jail officials settled a lawsuit in 2025 alleging they had been coerced into doing unpaid campaign work. The Cook County Board of Commissioners could amend the county's ethics ordinance to prohibit the practice, the report notes.
