A couple of legislative primary races in Illinois are serving as stand-ins for the political struggle between the governor and Democratic leaders.

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once wrote that “sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.” That’s the motivation behind a new website created by the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform that provides searchable information on political campaign contributions in the state. 

In what appears to be a fundamentally new strategy in the use of campaign cash in Illinois, the state’s new Republican governor in May doled out $400,000 in a single day from his main campaign committee, giving to all 67 Republicans in both chambers of the legislature.