The Governor, A Hedge Fund Tycoon, $112 Million And The Income Tax Initiative That Voters…

It was a battle of the billionaires in Illinois over a measure called the Fair Tax amendment. The state’s wealthiest resident and its billionaire governor spent more than $111 million backing opposite sides of a ballot initiative to repeal the state’s constitutional requirement for a flat income tax rate. The initiative’s most prominent supporter, Governor J.B. Pritzker — the country’s richest politician (net worth: $3.4 billion) and a scion of the wealthy Pritzker family — faced defeat as voters rejected the measure by 55% to 45% with 98% of the vote reporting, according to the Associated Press.

Pritzker poured $58 million into Vote Yes For Fairness, the main  group backing the ballot initiative, in an effort to fulfill a key goal of his administration since taking office last year: tackling the state’s budget deficit by raising the income tax on the highest earners. Illinois has been mired in a yearslong debt crisis, with its bonds close to non-investment grade or “junk” status, and Pritzker pitched the tax amendment as a way for the state to raise much-needed revenue and pay back its debtors. 

But hedge fund titan Ken Griffin — the richest person in the state with an estimated $15 billion fortune — countered Pritzker by giving $53.75 million to the Coalition to Stop the Proposed Tax Hike Amendment, the major anti-initiative group in the campaign. Griffin reportedly called Pritzker a “shameless master of personal tax avoidance” in an email sent to Citadel employees in October.

“The citizens of Illinois have delivered a clear message to our political leaders in Springfield,” Griffin said in an emailed statement to Forbes. “Now is the time to enact long overdue reforms to save our state from fiscal ruin. Illinois should forever be a place where people want to live, work and raise a family.”

For his part, the governor conceded defeat but criticized his fellow billionaires for opposing the amendment. “While the fair tax would have helped to address our budget crisis with the least damage to the working families of Illinois, the millionaires and billionaires opposed it to protect their own wallets, deceiving the public about its purpose,” he said at a press conference on Wednesday. “There will be cuts and they will be painful.” (See here for an analysis of why the measure failed to pass.)

The race also pitted family members against one another: J.B.’s billionaire cousin Jennifer Pritzker, a longtime Republican (and recent Joe Biden donor), gave $800,000 to the anti-amendment side. She was joined by another Illinois billionaire, investment guru Sam Zell, who contributed $1.1 million.

The governor wasn’t entirely alone in his high-dollar support of the yes campaign: eBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s Omidyar Network pitched in with $500,000 to Vote Yes for Fair Tax, another pro-amendment group. Forbes did not find any other known billionaires among the contributors listed in data from the Illinois State Board of Elections.

Altogether, four groups — Vote Yes For Fairness, Vote Yes For Fair Tax, and two groups opposing the amendment — raised nearly $122 million, making it the priciest ballot initiative in Illinois history. Governor Pritzker has a history of big spending in political races: he put $172 million into his own successful bid to unseat his Republican opponent, then-Governor Bruce Rauner, in 2018. That race was one of the most expensive gubernatorial elections in U.S. history, rivaling the 2010 California governors’ contest, where another billionaire — former eBay CEO Meg Whitman — spent $144 million in a failed attempt to defeat sitting Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat.

Editor’s note, November 5, 2020: This article was updated to include an emailed comment from Ken Griffin.