Say It Ain't So, PBS

An eye-opening article in New Yorker magazine tells the story of how public television backed away from its commitment to fund a new documentary film titled "Citizen Koch." Readers learn that the politically meddlesome billionaire David Koch has given public television $23 million, and don't have to read between many lines to come to the understanding that public television cooled on the project in hopes of appeasing Koch.

It's always galling to see a news organization compromise its journalistic principles in the face of financial or political pressures. It's especially painful when you consider that the plan was to air the film on the PBS program "Independent Lens."

Ouch.

I know "Citizen Koch" well. I was interviewed at length for the project and appear in the film. It made its debut at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah at the beginning of the year and got its first screening in our state at last month's Wisconsin Film Festival.

With public television pulling out, the movie's producers have to find other ways to bring it to audiences. That's where you come in. You can watch the trailer and organize a screening in your community. While you're at it, you might consider contacting the PBS ombudsman who is billed as "as an independent internal critic within PBS (who) reviews commentary and criticism from viewers and seeks to ensure that PBS upholds its own standards of editorial integrity."

It's Time For GAB To Reconsider Surrender

Wisconsin's campaign finance disclosure system once was the envy of the nation but now leaves a great deal to be desired. That sad reality came into sharp focus with the recent revelation that a private school voucher advocacy group, the American Federation for Children, told its members and funders that it spent close to $2.4 million last year to influence elections in Wisconsin after reporting less than $345,000 in campaign spending to state election authorities.

That hidden $2 million only came to light because of an enterprising news reporter, and now is the subject of a formal complaint seeking an investigation and enforcement of existing disclosure rules. The American Federation for Children was able to hide that electioneering because of a decision made nearly three years ago by Wisconsin's Government Accountability Board.

In March 2010, the GAB unanimously approved an amendment to the state's disclosure rules closing the very loophole AFC exploited last year to keep nearly all of its election spending a secret. The new rules took effect on August 1 of that same year. They remained in effect for nine days. Interest groups on both the left and the right sued the GAB in three different courts. Before any judge ruled on the cases, the GAB surrendered on August 10, agreeing not to enforce key parts of the new rules.

The decision looked like capitulation at the time, but the GAB insisted that under the agreement it still would be able to "require disclosure of the identity of those sponsoring communications that are susceptible of no reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a candidate. Such ads do not need to say 'vote for' or 'support' to be subject to regulation."

Time has told. The GAB has not acted on that ability. Since 2010, not a single group I am familiar with that sponsored messages plainly aiming to elect or defeat candidates but masquerading as "issue ads" has been required to come clean and disclose their election activity, not even in a case where a group ends up admitting publicly that its so-called issue advocacy was really intended to get its favored candidates elected.

It is clear that the GAB is not doing what it said back in 2010 it would be able to do. And the American Federation for Children revelation makes it equally clear it is time for the board to take down the white flag of surrender and start enforcing its disclosure rules in their entirety.

If the GAB does that, it will be sued again. Interest groups on the left and the right will again argue the rules are invalid because the board lacked the authority to make them. They'll say only the Legislature can close the issue ad loophole. There are two problems with this argument. First, state law says interest groups that spend money for a "political purpose" are subject to registration and reporting requirements under the law and the Legislature's own attorneys said the GAB has the authority to define what "political purpose" means. Second, Wisconsin's elections board has always defined what constitutes a political purpose and these interest groups never challenged the board's authority when past definitions were to their liking. It's only when the definition threatened to cramp their style that they questioned the GAB's rulemaking authority.

The special interests also will challenge the constitutionality of the GAB's disclosure rules. The board is on solid ground here as well. In FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, with Chief Justice John Roberts writing for the majority, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that disclosure can be required if an ad is the "functional equivalent" of advocacy for or against a candidate. Roberts went on to explain what he meant by "functional equivalent," namely advocacy that is "susceptible of no reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate." The GAB borrowed his definition for the 2010 amendment to Wisconsin's disclosure rules.

In Citizens United v. FEC, eight of the nine justices on the nation's highest court again came down squarely in favor of disclosure and again upheld Roberts' functional-equivalent test.

Ads like those sponsored by the American Federation for Children clearly meet that test. Groups engaging in such electioneering should have to fully reveal their activities. The Government Accountability Board has the authority and the power and the legal grounds to make that happen, if not the nerve.

It is time for the GAB to summon the nerve.

Closed Loophole Remains Open

More than three years ago, the retired judges who serve on the state Government Accountability Board acted unanimously to close a gaping loophole in Wisconsin's disclosure rules for election campaigning – putting a stop to the phony "issue ad" gambit employed by interest groups that involves careful avoidance of what have come to be known as the "magic words" of election advocacy in order to sidestep disclosure requirements.

Or so they thought.

As Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Dan Bice's recent story about hidden election spending by a national group pushing school privatization makes clear, the issue ad loophole the GAB closed is still very much open . . . and coming in quite handy to groups like the pro-voucher American Federation for Children, thank you very much.

Say what? How can a closed loophole be open?

The GAB's amendment to Wisconsin's campaign finance disclosure rules is on the books, sure enough. But it's not being enforced.

It's hard to fathom why that is. After all, the amended rule's language was taken directly from a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said it's not necessary for an ad to contain magic words like "vote for," "vote against," "elect" or "defeat" to be subject to disclosure requirements. The majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts said groups sponsoring ads amounting to the "functional equivalent" of advocacy for or against a candidate also could be required to disclose their spending and funding sources. Roberts went on to spell out what "functional equivalent" means. The GAB applied Roberts' test to the new disclosure rules for Wisconsin.

Then, while ruling in favor of unlimited election spending in the Citizens United case in 2010, eight of the nine U.S. Supreme Court justices again came down squarely in favor of disclosure of the kind of activity the American Federation for Children engaged in last year. Only Clarence Thomas disagreed.

Yet, as Bice reported, the American Federation for Children told its members and funders that it spent $2.4 million influencing Wisconsin elections in 2012, but only reported about $345,000 worth of spending to state election authorities. In reporting on the complaint the Democracy Campaign filed against AFC, Bice wrote the "difference in what the federation disclosed is due to so-called issue ads that were run by the federation during the 2012 election. Groups are not required to say how much they spend on these types of TV and radio spots...."

Actually, they are required to say. Wisconsin's disclosure rules require them to say. And the highest court in the land has made it very clear these kinds of disclosure requirements are legally valid and constitutionally sound.

But more than three years after those judges who make up the Government Accountability Board acted unanimously to establish the new rules for electioneering disclosure, the agency still is not enforcing them.

So the issue ad hoax continues.

Castrated By Money's Grip

Yesterday I argued that Democrats had better grow a pair before even thinking about beating Scott Walker. Today let's turn our attention to why so many Democrats have no balls to begin with.

Despite a steadily growing gap between the rich and the rest of us, Democrats have been unwilling or unable to make the case for ending corporate welfare and other disastrous trickle-down economic policies. At best they have been unreliable champions of working-class causes; at worst they aid and abet those devoted to feeding the rich and paying ransom to the multinationals.

You can see why this is when you pull back the curtain and look at who is pulling the levers and pushing the buttons. Even before Act 10 kneecapped most public sector unions, Wisconsin Democrats were getting $6 from business interests for every dollar they were getting from labor unions.

Democrats in our state used to compete quite successfully for rural votes. Today they are getting hammered in farm country. That should come as no surprise. Democrats have no rural agenda. They rarely talk about rural issues and even more rarely seek to solve rural problems. There is a reason for that, too. We've done the zip code analyses. There are more than 900 zip codes in Wisconsin. Most of the political money comes from just 32 of them. They are all urban or suburban. Rural people don't make campaign contributions. Politicians can't raise money addressing the challenges facing rural communities.

Neither major party is acting in a way that reflects the will of the people. They are serving their masters. They cater to those who butter their bread. This strangles voices on both sides who would speak to how government can work in the public interest and promote the common good. But it hurts Democrats the most.

The Democratic Party is seen as the party of government. That's a curse these days when most people do not believe the government is working for them. Most do not believe elected officials are hearing their voices or doing their will. They are convinced the politicians are doing the bidding of their big donors. And they are right. Good luck winning elections as the party of government at a time when government is almost universally considered corrupt.

In the face of all this, Democratic operatives and campaign consultants keep painting by numbers, pretending to be politically savvy above all else, putting on airs about knowing how the game is played. These insiders keep lecturing candidates about how winning is all about raising money and watching polls and doing TV and raising more money.

I suspect they know this is a path to ruin for their side, but they are too risk averse and not creative enough to innovate. Their savvy pose is a mask. It covers intellectual and strategic bankruptcy. They don't know how to escape the trap they are in. They can't win the money game, but they don't know how to win without money.

The proverbial 800-pound gorilla on the Democratic side has been the state teachers union. Thanks to Act 10, that gorilla just lost over half its weight. WEAC sunk more than $2.3 million into the 2010 elections, but just over $946,000 into 2012 races.

Yet the savvy political players on the Democratic side keep droning on about how the path to political power is paved with money. Never mind that Tom Barrett ceaselessly dialed for dollars and pulled in an impressive $6.6 million, only to be hopelessly outgunned by Scott Walker, who had more than $36 million. Never mind that Democrats took the consultants' mantra to heart and focused like a laser beam on fundraising, hauling in another $6.6 million for last year's state legislative contests, only to have their Republican opponents spend $9.9 million against them.

Never mind that Democrats can't speak their minds and can't act with the courage of their convictions for fear of alienating the donor class. Never mind that this segment of society won't give Democrats nearly as much as they give Republicans even if Democrats do cower before them.

Never mind all that. Wisconsin Democrats, your party's establishment continues to send an unmistakable message about where your focus needs to be and where your energy must be expended. In the nearly two decades the Democracy Campaign has been operating, the Democrats' state party chair has reached out to us one time. That was to ask if we would support legislation he was discussing with his Republican counterpart to increase the limits on campaign contributions to candidates and parties.

As politely as I could, I told him he was out of his cotton picking mind.

Democrats Won't Find Answers Without Asking The Right Questions

Anywhere you go in Wisconsin, if you run into someone from the Democratic Party's rank and file, you get the same question: Who's going to run against Walker?

Sorry Democrats, but that's the wrong question.

It's not who or what you are against that matters. It's what you are for that will count. If your party just runs against Walker, the governor will be reelected.

In this age of growing income inequality and economic injustice, Democrats have been unable to trademark an effective alternative to Republican supply-side theory, better known as "trickle-down economics." Come on, how hard is it? Hell, any farmer knows that if you've got cows and pigs and chickens, you can't just feed the cows and hope some nourishment trickles down – splatters is more like it – to the pigs and chickens. All of the animals need to be fed. Call it "farmer economics" for Christ's sake and get busy putting some common sense policies behind the brand.

Oh, and when you challenge trickle-down insanity, you will be called socialists. Instead of indulging your party's impulse to duck and cover, grow a pair and stand your ground for a change. America – which has never been socialist – had economic policies under which the country grew together for the three decades after World War II. Every income class got ahead. Since trickle-down became the economic law of the land a little over three decades ago, America's rich got vastly richer, the poor got poorer and the middle class has been slowly but surely disappearing.

Farm country used to be fertile territory for Democrats, but they have been getting their heads handed to them in rural Wisconsin for quite some time now, including in almost all of the state's poorest counties. Used to be the Democrats were known as the party of the poor. But it's hard to be the party of the rural poor when you don't have a rural agenda. Name me a signature modern-day Democratic program or policy addressing the challenges facing rural communities. It's not that Democrats don't have a compelling or even coherent rural agenda. They don't have rural agenda, period.

Nothing shapes today's politics more than the widely shared fear that the American Dream is being downsized, especially for our kids and grandkids. All across our state and nation, mom and dads are anguishing over how this generation of young people might wind up being the first in our country's history not to be better off than their parents. It's increasingly difficult to see how kids will have any shot at a middle-class existence without education or training beyond high school, but equally hard to see how paying for college is affordable.

Walker is outflanking the Democrats on access to higher education, calling for a two-year freeze on UW tuition. Despite the growing anxiety over the increasingly uncertain pathway to the middle class, Democrats haven't offered much of anything to allay the fears that will define our politics for years to come. A high school diploma clearly doesn't cut it anymore. Where are the voices saying it's time to extend the promise of free public education beyond high school?

Democrats don't ask that question because they fear the question that follows: How could we possibly afford that? Well, how did people without any formal schooling and with far more limited financial means than we have today manage to build a first-rate public school system in the first place? And the nation's first kindergartens? And America's first system of vocational, technical and adult education? And a world-class university system? They afforded these things because they knew their kids and grandkids would need them. Same goes today.

Democrats need to search their souls before searching for candidates. They need to find some nerve before they can find someone who can beat Scott Walker.

A Choice Decision For Big Donors

A legislative committee has decided to ignore advice from one of its nonpartisan policy experts and keep Republican Governor Scott Walker's plan to create up to nine school voucher programs in the proposed 2013-15 state budget.

The voucher expansion plan was among 58 items the Legislative Fiscal Bureau says have more to do with state policy than state spending.  The bureau traditionally prepares a list of non-spending items before the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee makes changes to the state's two-year master spending plan so it can decide whether the items should be pulled and introduced as separate legislation.

But the GOP-controlled legislature's decision to keep a policy issue like expanded school choice in the budget shouldn't be too much of a surprise.  The program has wealthy and generous friends who have spent nearly $10 million mostly to help elect Walker and other Republican candidates for statewide office and the legislature, a recent Democracy Campaign report shows.

In addition to the $2.35 million in campaign contributions and outside election spending Walker has received from school choice backers, Republican Senator Alberta Darling of River Hills who co-chairs the Joint Finance Committee has accepted nearly $58,000 in contributions from school choice supporters.  And the American Federation of Children, a group that fights to preserve and expand school choice, spent an estimated $1.3 million to help Darling and other incumbent Republican senators win their 2011 recall elections.

The state budget is the only proposal the legislature must approve every two years while stand-alone bills fail or die by the hundreds.  Though controversial, Walker's plan to expand school vouchers is tucked among hundreds of spending initiatives and pet programs favored by most legislators and they have to approve the state budget one way or the other. 

 

NRA Campaign Support Shoots Down Expanded Background Checks

Governor Scott Walker and the GOP-controlled legislature say they will block efforts to enhance background checks on gun sales in Wisconsin because it's unnecessary, burdensome and doesn't have enough legislative support.

But outside the Capitol a number of polls - here and here - show eight of 10 Wisconsin voters support requiring background checks on gun sales between individuals and at firearm shows - something state law does not require.

The conflict between the political support and public support for more background checks is likely the nearly $2 million in outside election spending and campaign contributions spent since 2002 on Wisconsin candidates for statewide office and the legislature by the National Rifle Association which opposes nearly all forms of firearm regulation.

The NRA spent nearly $1 million to help Walker win his 2010 general and 2012 recall election.  The group spent $964,422 on outside electioneering activities to support Walker and contributed $10,000 to his campaign from its political action committee.  Walker says state policymakers should approve his budget proposal to increase funding to treat mental illness to reduce gun violence rather than expand gun sale background checks.

The group spent about $107,000 on campaign contributions and outside electioneering activities in legislative races from 2002 through 2012, and all but $1,000 went to support Republican legislative candidates.

The rest of the NRA's expenditures during the 10-year period - about $861,000 - was spent on outside electioneering activities and campaign contributions to support GOP candidates for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general in the 2006 and 2002 elections and two conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court candidates in the 2008 and 2011 spring elections.