Progress Illinois

Earlier this month, we questioned GOP Rep.-elect Aaron Schock's statement in a fundraising letter that, towards the end of his campaign, he went "out on a limb financially by $80,000" to combat what he called "insidious, non-stop attacks."  The phrasing of the letter made it sound like he himself had donated that amount.  But all we could find in his campaign finance records at the time (which went up to October 15) was a $50,000 personal contribution towards the beginning of the campaign. 

Since then, Schock's campaign has filed their "post-general" report, which details their receipts and expenses between October 16 and November 24.  It answers our questions about Schock's "$80,000" figure, but also raises others.

The latest filing shows his campaign with $9,000 cash-on-hand and slightly over $110,000 in outstanding "debts and obligations." These debts are spread between four different line items (click image below for larger version):

Two of them are straightforward: a $9,300 invoice from the Peoria Civic Center (presumably for his election night party) and a $15,000 "win bonus" to Wilson Grand Communications, who appear to have been Schock's media consultant (the campaign paid the Alexandria, VA company more than $650,000 over the course of the year). 

The other two debts amount to $86,500 and were probably what Schock was referring to when he said he went "out on a limb financially" in the weeks before Election Day. The first is a $16,500 printing expense -- perhaps for a last-minute mailer.  The final line item is a $70,000 debt to Sara A. Owens of Peoria for "contractual services."

So who's Sara Owens?  According to his FEC records, she was a paid campaign staffer.  Her name first surfaced in Schock's payroll records in May and she continued receiving $2,500 bi-monthly checks through Election Day.  

So what "services" did the campaign "contract" her to provide at the last-minute?  It's possible that Owens advanced the campaign that amount for some last-minute ad spending.  After all, in his fundraising letter, Schock referred to his decision to match the Democrats' "burst of extra late campaign ad spending to hold our own."

But thanks to the vague description in their FEC filing, it's hard to know for sure what that money was used for.