Illinois partisan politics formally undermined a staff finding that state Senate President Don Harmon’s political fund violated campaign contribution limits last year, as state election authorities dropped a proposed fine of nearly $10 million against the Oak Park Democrat.

For its second straight meeting , the eight-member Illinois State Board of Elections, composed of four Democratic appointees and four Republicans, remained split along party lines over whether to accept the recommendation of an impartial hearing officer who upheld the determination that Harmon’s main fundraising arm violated campaign contribution limits that Harmon himself had championed as a state lawmaker.

Prompted by a Chicago Tribune inquiry into the Friends of Don Harmon for State Senate campaign committee,

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