Senate Recall Targets Attract Big Donors

Four Republican senators targeted for recall later this year collectively raised $260,434 in five weeks, thanks mostly to a small band of wealthy special interest donors, including Milwaukee’s chamber of commerce which gave three of them $10,000 each.

The senators were targeted for recall because of their support for a successful plan by GOP Governor Scott Walker that slashed public employee collective bargaining rights and for deep cuts to health care, education and other state programs.

The recall process allows targeted legislative and statewide officeholders to exceed normal campaign contribution limits and collect unlimited amounts from donors until the state verifies recall petitions against them and sets an election date. Individual and political action committee contributions to state Senate candidates are normally limited to $1,000 per donor per candidate in a four-year election cycle.

Topping the list in fundraising between December 11 and January 17 was Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald of Juneau who raised $105,663. More than a quarter of that – $28,000 – came from just six donors, including $10,000 from the Milwaukee chamber of commerce’s PAC; $5,000 each from Waukesha liquor distributor Aldo Madrigrano and Madison real estate developer Joe Alexander; $3,000 from Milwaukee Professional Firefighters Local 215 PAC; and $2,500 each from retired Green Bay paper company executive Paul Schierl and Duane Foulkes, founder of metal fabricator Apache Stainless in Beaver Dam.

Senator Van Wanggaard of Racine accepted $64,206. He also drew a $10,000 donation from the Milwaukee chamber of commerce PAC and $3,000 from the Milwaukee firefighters PAC. Robert Schuemann, a retired Signicast executive from Milwaukee, gave $2,000. Wanggaard also got 14 $1,000 contributions from individuals and PACs, including $5,000 from five out-of-state givers who are longtime backers of Milwaukee’s school voucher program: William and Patricia Hume and William Oberndorf of San Francisco, Arthur Dantchik of Gladwyne, Pennsylvania and Virginia James of Lambertville, New Jersey.

Senator Pam Galloway of Wausau accepted $58,915 between December 11 and January 17. More than half her take – $34,000 – came from six committees and individuals. The Milwaukee chamber of commerce and Wausau plastic surgeon John Butler each doled out $10,000; campaign fundraising committees for Republican Senators Mike Ellis of Neenah and Mary Lazich of New Berlin each gave $5,000; and Schierl and Wausau investment consultant Neil Gulsvig each contributed $2,000.

Senator Terry Moulton of Chippewa Falls accepted $31,650 in contributions over the five week period. His biggest contribution was $2,500 from Schierl. He also received 13 $1,000 contributions from PACs and individuals, including $5,000 from the same five out-of-state school voucher supporters who contributed to Wanggaard.

The Man Behind The Mine

Wisconsin's legislature will soon decide whether to reopen part of the northwoods to iron ore mining. Much has been written and said about the proposed new mine in the Penokee-Gogebic Range, but not much attention has been paid to the man behind the project and the sprawling global conglomerate he is connected to.

The Democracy Campaign first started noticing large campaign contributions from mining interests to Wisconsin politicians just over a year ago, long before the mining bill was introduced. All of the money came from out of state. Roughly a quarter of the donations came from West Virginia mining magnate Chris Cline. The rest came from associates of Cline's. Some of those associates are at Cline Resource and Development. Others are with a company called Foresight, which is majority-owned and led by Cline. Still others are with a law firm Cline does business with. The remainder are other mining executives who've done business with Cline.

Environmentalists claim the mining bill being pushed in Wisconsin was written by the mining industry and would gut existing safeguards. The legislation certainly is Chris Cline's dream. And its approach to permit streamlining and environmental deregulation does bear a striking resemblance to the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council's model legislation known as the "Performance Based Permitting Act" and "Groundwater Protection Act."

Cline's Foresight is part of the global asset management firm Carlyle Group, a highly controversial and politically well connected corporate behemoth with tentacles that reach across the defense, aerospace, automotive, energy, health care, real estate, technology, telecommunications and transportation industries. Carlyle Group first earned a mention on the Democracy Campaign's website in a 2005 report we issued about shady Illinois donors who were funneling money to three candidates for governor in Wisconsin.

The Economist describes Carlyle Group as "deeply embedded in the iron triangle where industry, government and the military converge" and says it "arguably takes to a new level the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower feared might 'endanger our liberties or democratic process.'"

Carlyle Group also is into mining, through Chris Cline's Foresight. Which is itself a danger to our liberties and democratic process here in Wisconsin.

The Age Of Ethical Flexibility

People in politics have a funny idea of right and wrong. If my side does it, it's right. If the other side does it, it's wrong.

In Wisconsin there used to be a bipartisan consensus on – and adherence to – high ethical standards in politics and government. No more. A cancerous form of moral relativism has now taken hold across the political spectrum.

We have a Supreme Court justice who has ignored clearcut ethical standards, first in defending himself (ironically enough) against ethics charges and then in close to a dozen cases that have come before him on the high court. When the Democracy Campaign filed complaints against him alleging judicial misconduct, we were immediately accused by those on his side of the fence of being motivated by partisanship. Never mind the position of Supreme Court justice is officially nonpartisan.

We have filed complaints against Scott Walker. And Jim Doyle, on multiple occasions. And against both major state parties. And against legislators from both parties. And every time, we have been accused by people on one side of acting out of a desire to help the other side.

The other night I ran into a reporter for the state's largest newspaper, and he told me readers rip him a new one every time he reports on death threats received by public officials. When police are alerted to a threat against a Republican, one group of readers howl that it clearly was fake or trumped up or otherwise unworthy of coverage. When a Democrat is threatened, another group of readers say the same thing.

Really? I mean, for real? What a pathetic commentary on what ethics have come to in the political arena. Serious transgressions are readily forgiven or overlooked altogether if it's my side at fault, but if the other side twitches that's another matter. Throw the book at 'em!

Is it too much to ask that all public officials, regardless of political affiliation, be held to a consistent standard when it comes to ethics?

Today, apparently it is.

Disclosure Isn't Enough

This is going to sound funny coming from someone who spends nearly every waking hour tracking political money in Wisconsin and shining light on the legal bribery that is the trademark of today's politics.

The truth that campaign finance disclosure provides won't set us free.

Don't get me wrong. Disclosure is important. Hell, it's more than important. It's absolutely essential. And there should be more of it. Far too much is hidden. Voters deserve to know who's paying who. Far too much about the financial transactions in politics is concealed from public view.

But while disclosure is necessary, it is not sufficient. Not even close.

According to the conservative Rasmussen polling firm, public approval of Congress is down to 5%. The firm claims a margin of error of plus or minus 3% for this poll, so if you buy what Rasmussen is selling it's possible as few as 2% of Americans think Congress is doing an acceptable job. As pathetic as this is, it's hardly surprising when you consider another of the poll's findings, namely that half of Americans now believe most members of Congress are corrupt.

This underscores the limitations of disclosure as a political reform. When so many are convinced that elected officials are bought, knowing exactly who did the buying is cold comfort.

Packed courts across the country, and the U.S. Supreme Court in particular, have in recent years ruled most forms of campaign finance regulation out of bounds, with the exception of disclosure. In the high court's infamous Citizens United decision, a 5-4 court majority ruled from never-neverland that unlimited corporate election spending does "not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption." And since the prevention of corruption is currently the only court-approved rationale for campaign finance regulation, finding no sign of corruption in unlimited corporate electioneering paved the way for opening the floodgates.

Yet even in a case decided in a fashion as intellectually and morally bankrupt as that seen in Citizens United, eight of the nine justices came down squarely in favor of disclosure. What such clueless judges don't seem to get is that more disclosure will most certainly give rise to a more widespread belief that the system is corrupt. Not to mention a heightened public appetite for reform that goes way beyond disclosure.

People want government officials who are not corrupt. Disclosure alone cannot give us that. It can show us what we don't have. But it cannot give us what we want. People also want campaign financing rules that facilitate broad participation and encourage greater electoral competition, that make it possible for more people from more walks of life to enter the political arena. Disclosure can't give us that either.

People want election campaigns paid for in a way that promotes political independence and thoughtful representation. What we have now is a system that sentences us to elected officials who are hopelessly beholden to undeniably powerful and unquestionably narrow interests. Disclosure can reveal just how narrow these interests really are and it can give us a measure of their power. It cannot straighten out the mess, it cannot broaden the reach of the citizenry's influence.

People want election financing that fosters greater confidence in the system and yields a government that is viewed as legitimate and reflects the consent of the governed. What we have now is a system that has led half of Americans to believe most members of Congress are corrupt. It's not that all these people believe members of Congress are taking old-fashioned bribes every day. It's that people understand full well that yesterday's under-the-table bribery has been replaced by a newfangled over-the-table variety. More disclosure will raise awareness of legal bribery. It won't do away with it.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm all for disclosure. I work for more of it every day. But that doesn't mean that's all I'm for. Democracy's survival requires much, much more.

True Conservatives Should Demand Campaign Finance Reform

I can't be the only one who has noticed that those who most vigorously defend and promote the dominance of the One Percent's money in elections also claim to want smaller government.

One of the more perplexing ironies in modern politics, if you ask me. I say that because the system of legal bribery they favor makes the limited government they profess to desire a pipe dream.

Politicians who are constantly in need of deposits into their campaign war chests have a powerful incentive to keep government as big and intrusive as possible. That way, they hold both a carrot and a stick that come in mighty handy for fundraising purposes.

The bigger the government, the more elected officials have at their disposal to reward the generosity of political benefactors. A subsidy here. A no-bid contract for government work there. A juicy slice of political pork today. A hefty tax break tomorrow. That's the carrot. No campaign donations, no political favors. That's the stick.

At the same time, politicians know that many if not most of the biggest campaign donors have an ideological preference for smaller government. Conspiring with their fellow lawmakers to keep government large gives them the ability to go to those donors election after election and promise to get government out of their hair . . . and their wallets. If they actually delivered a smaller government, the sense of urgency to pony up would dissipate and the politicians' leverage would be lost.

When it comes to getting wealthy interests to part company with some of their riches, politicians get 'em coming and going. Sitting at the controls of a big government, they have it in their power to provide donors with a return on investment you can't get on Wall Street in the best bull market. But if public largesse isn't enough of an inducement to cough up a campaign contribution, they can use the implied threat of heavy-handed government intervention to crack open checkbooks. High taxes and burdensome regulation are valuable commodities if you are in the business of shaking the political money tree. They make promises of tax cuts and less red tape possible.

This reality makes it illogical for advocates of limited government to tolerate a campaign finance system featuring privately sponsored candidates for office who inevitably become legally bribed elected officials. If you really believe that government which governs least governs best, you should want anything but the status quo. If you are a libertarian and not allergic to common sense, you should want to remove the irresistible temptation found in the current system for politicians to trade on the size and reach of government to advance their own personal political fortunes.

Blessing The 'Wink And Nod'

Yesterday a federal appeals court struck down a decades-old Wisconsin law limiting what individuals can give in a year to political action committees to $10,000. Reinforcing the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the Citizens United case and extending the high court's money-is-speech doctrine, the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the longstanding $10,000 limit violated the free speech rights of interest groups that sponsor their own political ads.

Writing for the three-judge panel, Judge Diane Sykes wrote that interest group ads "do not pose a threat of actual or apparent quid pro quo corruption, which is the only governmental interest strong enough to justify restrictions on political speech."

It is naive in the extreme to believe that elected officials won't notice several hundred thousand or a few million dollars spent on campaign ads singing their praises. It is even more naive to think they won't appreciate the support of the friendly interest group that sponsored the ads. And it is as certain as the sunrise that such groups will be rewarded for their kindness.

What the court did yesterday was bless wink-and-nod corruption. Limits remain on the donations politicians can directly solicit. But after wealthy donors max out their contributions to candidates, they can give unlimited sums to special interest surrogates who will sponsor additional advertising touting those candidates. The candidates don't even need to ask. Everyone knows how the game is played. With a wink followed by a nod, the money flows to the right places, it's turned into a winning message, the anointed politicians are installed in office, and once handed power they direct all manner of favors back to those who paid for them to be there.

This is what the money-is-speech logic gets us. To call it logic strains the word's true meaning well beyond the breaking point. If logic leads to the conclusion that money equals speech, then the greatest infringement on First Amendment rights is poverty. Logic would demand that the miserable excuses for judges who gave us the Citizens United decision must now outlaw poverty since it violates free speech rights based on their own tortured interpretation of the First Amendment.

They won't do that, of course. They will never acknowledge that by ensuring the rich have unlimited "free speech" they also guarantee that those without much money will be silenced. They can't allow themselves to follow their legal reasoning to its logical conclusion. That would require them to start acting like judges and stop being tools of the 1%.

Playing Games With Clean Government Laws

I was asked in recent weeks to write an assessment of Wisconsin's campaign finance disclosure laws and their enforcement for a six-state review being done by the Midwest Democracy Network. Here's what I had to say about the agency responsible for enforcing our state's election and campaign finance laws:

"The Government Accountability Board has distinguished itself with an even-handed and politically independent approach to election administration and enforcement of campaign finance, lobbying and ethics laws."

I went on to say that the agency's independence "is now coming under attack, however, with legislation enacted this year giving the governor veto power over any rules or regulations approved by the GAB." I also sympathized with the agency's budgetary plight, noting the financial pressures brought on by more or less continuous rounds of cuts have left the GAB "strapped for resources at a time when its workload has increased dramatically with a flurry of recall elections to administer and a new voter ID law to implement."

This is not the first time I have sung the GAB's praises or come to the agency's defense. I share this to show that I am no enemy of the Government Accountability Board.

But I am beginning to wonder if the GAB is intent on making me into one.

On October 11 the Democracy Campaign filed an open records request with the GAB seeking evidence of any enforcement action taken relating to the law requiring disclosure of the financial interests of campaign donors who give more than $100. More than seven weeks later, I received a letter dated November 29 from the GAB's director informing me that the agency "has no records responsive to your request."

The letter also claims the agency responded to our request more than three weeks earlier, on November 7 to be exact. Judge for yourself.

On October 12, Democracy Campaign research director Michael Buelow received an e-mail from GAB public information officer Reid Magney confirming that our open records request had been received and promising to "respond as soon as possible."

About a month later, on November 7, Mike e-mailed Magney to inquire about the status of the request.

Magney replied that same day, shortly before noon: "There is nothing we can report to you at this time." (This, evidently, passed for a formal response to our request in GAB director Kevin Kennedy's mind.)

Buelow, shortly after noon: "Can you tell me when you will have something?"

Magney, five minutes later: "At this point, there's nothing I'm able to tell you. And I can't tell you today when I'll be able to tell you. If/when we are able to say something, we'll be in contact. Sorry."

Just over three weeks later, Kevin Kennedy told us that they already told us, but were telling us again that they had no records to give us. Kennedy also asserts in his letter that the board had received just two complaints since 2008 alleging a failure on the part of candidates to provide required employer and occupation information about their donors. The Democracy Campaign alone filed three separate complaints in June of this year. And we know the advocacy group One Wisconsin Now also filed a complaint in September 2010 alleging more than 650 violations of this particular law.

Kennedy's letter concludes with the claim that the GAB "takes all campaign finance reporting requirements seriously" and tries to explain away the absence of any evidence of enforcement action by saying it is "unlikely that the Board could successfully obtain a forfeiture if a committee was, in fact, making good faith efforts to obtain information."

State law requires campaign committees to file complete reports providing information including, among other things, the occupation and employer of contributors who give over $100. The law does, indeed, require committees to "make a good faith effort to obtain all required information."

The GAB apparently has an odd way of defining good faith. Looking at just one report filed by Scott Walker's campaign more than two years ago covering contributions to Walker from January through June 2009, we found employer information required by law still has not been supplied for 176 of the governor’s contributions totaling $57,159.

Eyeballing that lengthy list of improperly reported donations and I see more than two dozen instances where the Walker campaign could have easily found the omitted information by looking either at our website (because we took it upon ourselves to research the financial interests of these donors) or campaign finance reports filed by other candidates who received contributions from the same donors and disclosed their occupations and places of employment.

So how good is Walker's faith? What kind of effort has been put forth when donations received over two years ago still have not been properly disclosed? It's not that hard to find the required information. I know. It's what we do. Doesn't the Walker campaign have Google?

With some of these donations, it's hard to believe Walker doesn't know the donors personally. For example, he got a $2,000 donation in March 2009 from Keith Burns of the accounting giant Ernst & Young. Walker's campaign still hasn't disclosed his employer. Even in the unlikely event the governor hasn't actually crossed paths with Burns, you'd think his people must be aware of LinkedIn.

Then there's a $500 donation Walker reported receiving in June 2009 from Oconomowoc auto dealer James Tessmer. To this day, Walker's campaign hasn't disclosed Tessmer's employer in its reporting of this contribution. The campaign must know Tessmer. The Better Business Bureau does.

With some of the donors, it's laughable to think Walker doesn't know them personally. Mary Kohler gave Walker $3,000 in March 2009, and yet as of today the Walker campaign still has not disclosed her financial interests. Terry and Mary Kohler are major Republican donors in Wisconsin and nationally and have been for years.

Has the GAB fined the Walker campaign for failing for over two years to comply with the disclosure law in good faith? No, it has not. Has the Walker campaign been required to return any of the improperly reported donations? No, it has not.

Is the GAB taking the open records law as seriously as it should and is the agency rigorously enforcing the law that upholds the public's right to know the financial interests of major campaign donors? No, it is not.