Dupage Policy Journal

Republican leaders in DuPage County are questioning the decision by Addison Township supervisors to hire Veritas Strategies, a consulting and lobbying firm with ties to Democratic politics—a move they say lacks transparency and raises ethical concerns amid the township's shift in leadership.

Newly seated Township Supervisor Bobby Hernandez described the firm as part of his "transition team" but declined to disclose its duties or pay without a formal public records request, according to Patch. 

DuPage Policy Journal has filed a public records request seeking the contract agreement and all correspondence between the township and firm. 

The hire was approved at the May 29 township board meeting, where the agenda referenced a “consulting firm” without naming Veritas or outlining its role. 

“I would just say it's another example of the damage that the Democratic Party is doing to DuPage County,” Kevin Coyne, chair of the DuPage County GOP, told the DuPage Policy Journal. “Clearly, it's wrong to pay your political consultants with taxpayer dollars. It's shocking to us that they would do something so brazen.” 

Veritas is a registered lobbyist in Illinois, with clients that include the Associated Beer Distributors and the Outdoor Advertising Association. 

According to the Illinois Secretary of State, Bill Velazquez is the registered agent of Veritas. 

Velazquez, a former campaign aid and manager of "Latino outreach" for Sen. Bernie Sanders during his 2016 presidential run, has been the subject of media reports for alleged unethical conduct.  

In 2019, Velazquez briefly served as Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia's (D-Ill.) top staffer before resigning that same year amid allegations that while working for Sanders, he told a campaign strategist—in response to her lodging a sexual harassment complaint against a Mexican game show host and Sanders surrogate—"I bet you would have liked it if he were younger," according to the Chicago Sun Times. 

The Addison Township/Veritas controversy comes just months after the April elections when Democrats flipped control of the township from Republicans for the first time in decades.

Hernandez defeated two-term GOP Supervisor Dennis Reboletti, a former state representative, and Democrats also won the clerk’s office and all four township board seats. 

In one of the most significant election upsets in DuPage County this year, Democrats not only took the supervisor’s seat but also swept all four township board positions and the clerk’s office—positions that had long been held by Republicans.

“These were the last remaining seats of the majority of Republicans in the entire county,” Reid McCollum, chairman of the Democratic Party of DuPage County, told the Daily Herald.

Hernandez’s win came largely on the strength of mail-in ballots, with the Democrat overcoming an Election Day deficit to ultimately take a 357-vote lead—a margin expected to grow. The result underscored the GOP’s continued disadvantage in vote-by-mail turnout.

In the aftermath of the April 1 election Coyne called the results "embarrassing" and noted the GOP would be focusing on vote by mail in upcoming elections. 

Addison Township is one of nine townships in DuPage County, Illinois, with a population of over 88,000 residents and more than 32,000 housing units, according to the 2020 census.

The Township contains parts of several communities, including Addison, Bensenville, Chicago (a portion of O'Hare airport), Elmhurst, Elk Grove Village, Itasca, Lombard, Villa Park and Wood Dale.