Daniel Arce has a prescription for success. He runs his family’s eyeglass business, Tropical Optical. He also heads the Mexican American Political Action Committee.
Together, his business and his political fund have given more than $590,000 in campaign contributions in the past decade to a host of elected officials, including former Gov. Rod Blagojevich and key Hispanic legislators.
During that time, Tropical Optical has seen a dramatic rise in its government business.
Since 2000, Arce’s company has gotten more than $13 million in taxpayer money to provide eye exams and glasses for more than 60,000 uninsured students from Chicago’s public schools, as well as providing vision tests for his rapidly growing Medicaid business, which has become one of the biggest in the state. Arce makes the glasses for the uninsured students, though not for the Medicaid recipients, whose glasses are made by Illinois prisoners.