Apparently the Mike Sweeney campaign isn’t too worried about looking hypocritical…. The 29-year-old has been attacking Senator Dan Kotowski (33rd district) all year over the issues of pay raises and taxes. Today the Senate Republicans dumped a bunch of money into Sweeney’s moribund campaign account in order to attack the workhorse Kotowski with a wacky ad.

Sweeney and the Republicans want to talk salary? Fine. The facts are simple:

Kotowski –

- Sen. Kotowski actually co-sponsored (with Sen. Susan Garrett) this year’s action to block legislative pay raises, ticking off Emil Jones in the process. There was some question over the summer of whether or not Jones would it let go through but he did and the vote was 47-nil to stop the raises. (HLR 0132)

- Kotowski gave some of his salary away in the form of a scholarship. Maybe Mike Sweeney should ask Maine South grad Maggie Wave about it sometime. (The Pioneer Press and Daily Herald reported on this last spring so it’s not like Sweeney couldn’t have easily found out about it… if he actually cared about his would-be constituents that is.)

- Kotowski also refused the stipend that was given to legislators last year because of the governor’s idiocy with his past-the-deadline budget goofiness. By the by, Kotowski famously didn’t vote for Blagojevich’s reelection in 06.

Sweeney -

- Mike Sweeney works full time as a manager for a local Walgreens store. He likely makes a decent annual salary in that position; nothing wrong with that.

- But, on top of his regular, work-a-day salary from Walgreens Mike Sweeney also rakes in another $22,000+ from the taxpayers of Elk Grove Township because he is their appointed, part-time Township Clerk.

22k from the taxpayers as a part-time guy who works another job full-time anyway? And he’s attacking the incumbent on salary increases (increases that the guy worked to actually block)…?

Get a new talking point.

- But wait, there’s more. Sweeney hasn’t just been yelping about lege salaries. He’s also been griping about raises.

Yet sure enough his own $22,000 taxpayer-funded salary is actually … you guessed it … a raise over last year, and the year before, and the year before. Yes, fair readers, Sweeney’s been taking in taxpayer funded payraises every single year he’s been a Clerk including this year while he’s been complaining out of the other side of his mouth about payraises in Springfield (even though those raises actually got killed thanks to Kotowski and Garrett).

- Another little aside on Elk Grove Township and use of tax funds… The Republican-led Township trustees have also seen fit to mail out their township newsletter to a bunch of folks on the south end of Wheeling Township (which neighbors Elk Grove) for well over a year. Amazingly, these Wheeling Twp denizens also happen to live in the 33rd district. All that extra printing and postage for people who don’t even live in that township is just a coincidence, I’m sure.

…Speaking of taxes, Sen. Kotowski has sponsored legislation to strike back at Todd Stroger’s stupid sales tax. Since he’s so anti-tax (even though his fellow party members on the Elk Grove Township board seem very ready to literally throw tax money out the window) Mike Sweeney might want to look it up and learn something about the job he’s seeking.

It’s all well and good that both Kotowski and Sweeney actually agree (in word, if not in deed) on these issues. But Kotowski has the record of actually doing something more than just talking about salaries and taxes, as opposed to Sweeney who has happily double-dipped on both his full-time salary and the gravy train of his taxpayer-funded salary and annual raises for part-time work.

Here’s a Kotowski campaign press release from last Thursday. A bit more pertinent today:

Dan Kotowski for Senate | October 9, 2008

Republican campaigns against pay raises, can’t run from the fact that he accepted three pay raises as Elk Grove Township Clerk

Republican Mike Sweeney has run on a campaign pledge to refuse legislative pay raises, but as Elk Grove Township Clerk he collected three taxpayer-funded pay raises over the last three years.

The three percent pay raises applied to all elected township officials for the years 2005-2006, 2006-2007 and 2007-2008, resulting in a nine percent pay raise for Sweeney over the same period.

According to Resolution No. 2004-11, which was approved in 2005 by the Elk Grove Township Board of Trustees, the pay raises were scheduled to kick in each May. In press releases and newsletters to voters, Sweeney has accused state legislators of lining their pockets at the expense of taxpayers.

State Sen. Dan Kotowski has a record of opposing pay increases in the Illinois Senate. He went against his party leadership and led the fight to blockthe legislative pay raise proposed by the Compensation Review Board. In fact, Kotowski was achief sponsor of the resolution, which passed in September and stopped the pay increase from going into effect.

Kotowski also returned to the Illinois Treasury the stipends provided to him during legislative overtime sessions last year. He also contributed $3,000 from his salary to a local educational scholarship.

Kotowski said his opponent’s statements are another example of the misleading, negative campaign that he has run this far.

“My opponent has tried to mislead the voters about my record. He has presented few solutions and presented as his single biggest issue a promise not to accept a legislative pay raise, but he’s already accepted three as township clerk. How can the public trust him to keep this campaign promise if he is says one thing and does another?” Kotowski said.

And here is Mike Sweeney’s two-faced attack:

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Full Disclosure: Regular readers know I’m a Kotowski supporter. New readers may not. I’ve been supporting Dan Kotowski since his first run in 2006 and am volunteering and endorsing him again this year. He’s accomplished more in his first two years in office (15 bills passed and signed into law improving everything from safety to healthcare to veterans’ issues) than many of Springfield’s politicians do in their entire career.

Dan Kotowski has earned my trust and support and I’m happy to help him when and where I can.

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UPDATE: ArchPundit is more concise than I in taking the Republicans to task for their mud-slinging hypocrisy.

…Larry obviously did not inherit the talkiness gene from his mom, unlike me.