WDC Gets Answer on Voter Privacy Issue

In late July, the Democracy Campaign asked Attorney General Peggy Lautenschlager to review a state Elections Board directive to local election officials to ignore a state voter privacy law and requested an opinion from the attorney general about whether the Elections Board is at liberty to instruct election officials throughout Wisconsin to disregard the law.

We got our answer. In a letter from Alan Lee, deputy administrator of the state Justice Department's Division of Legal Services, we were informed that "the law certainly is valid and the Elections Board is not at liberty to ignore it." The letter goes on to say that the Elections Board "has indicated it will comply with the law."

Specifically, the letter from the attorney general's office says the Elections Board "will direct local election officials to cover the (voter registration) number, including the bar code, when making copies of the list." The Board also will "direct poll workers to cover the number, including the bar code, when permitting observers to view the poll list on Election day" and will "suppress the number when running reports from (the Statewide Voter Registration System) in response to open record requests."

Ethics And The Jensen 20

Sixteen of 20 Republican legislators or candidates for higher office who were mentioned in testimony during former Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen's misconduct trial did not answer a recent survey asking where they stand on campaign finance and government ethics reform.

Witnesses said these officials got taxpayer-funded campaign help from state workers or were involved in campaign activities on state time in the 1998 or 2000 legislative elections. Jensen was sentenced in May to 15 months in prison after being convicted of three felony misconduct in public office charges, and a misdemeanor. He has appealed.

Topping the list of those whose names came up during the trial and who did not respond to the survey are gubernatorial candidate Mark Green and Assembly Speaker John Gard, who is running for Congress to represent Wisconsin's 8th District.

The others are Senator Neal Kedzie of Elkorn and Representatives Rob Kreibich of Eau Claire, Jeff Stone of Greendale, Gary Bies of Sister Bay, Judy Krawczyk of Green Bay, Phil Montgomery of Ashwaubenon, Jerry Petrowski of Marathon, Dan Meyer of Eagle River, Steve Kestell of Elkhart Lake, Gabe Loeffelholz of Platteville, Don Friske of Merrill, Kitty Rhoades of Hudson, Mark Pettis of Hertel and Eugene Hahn of Cambria.

Those mentioned during the trial who did respond to the survey were Senator Joseph Leibham of Sheboygan and Representatives Terry Musser of Black River Falls, Stephen Freese of Dodgeville and Terri McCormick of Appleton, who is also running for Wisconsin's 8th Congressional District seat.

Money Trumps Ethics For Most Legislators

Fewer than half the legislative candidates running in the November elections responded to a six-question survey on campaign finance and government ethics reform conducted by WDC, Common Cause and the League of Women Voters.

And the real reason for many of them is not too hard to figure out. A review of the latest campaign finance reports they filed found that many of the legislative candidates who refused to answer the survey raised a lot of money from influential special interests.

Nineteen of 25 incumbent legislators who raised the most campaign contributions between January and June 2006 refused to answer the survey, and another incumbent definitively answered only two of the six questions.

You would think the corruption convictions of five of their former colleagues and an aide in the last nine months would move legislators toward reform out of political necessity. But most of the 81 incumbent legislators who refused to publicly stake out a position on ethics were the same ones who refused to even vote on campaign finance and ethics bills during the past legislative session.

In No Hurry For Ethics

Yesterday we released the responses we've received from candidates for state office to the ethics survey the Democracy Campaign, the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin and Common Cause in Wisconsin sent them three weeks ago. Two of the three candidates for governor – Democratic Governor Jim Doyle and Green Party nominee Nelson Eisman – answered the questionnaire. Republican Mark Green didn't bother.

Green's campaign manager, Mark Graul, denies the congressman is ducking the questions. He says Green is a busy man and just didn't have time.

Graul went on to tip Green's hand on the reform issues covered in our questionnaire. He said Green opposes public financing of campaigns and doubts the constitutionality of requiring sponsors of so-called "issue ads" to disclose how the messages were paid for.

Green apparently has already forgotten the U.S. Supreme Court's 2003 ruling in McConnell v. FEC that left no doubt about the constitutionality of regulating issue ads and the soft money used to finance them.

In the majority opinion written by Justices John Paul Stevens and Sandra Day O'Connor with Justices David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer concurring, little was left to the imagination. "The proliferation of sham issue ads has driven the soft-money explosion.... The evidence connects soft money to manipulations of the legislative calendar, leading to Congress' failure to enact, among other things, generic drug legislation, tort reform, and tobacco legislation...."

The court majority also ruled that "...corporate, union, and wealthy individual donors have been free to contribute substantial sums of soft money to the national parties, which the parties can spend for the specific purpose of influencing a particular candidate's federal election. It is not only plausible, but likely, that candidates would feel grateful for such donations and that donors would seek to exploit that gratitude." And then this: "The idea that large contributions to a national party can corrupt or, at the very least, create the appearance of corruption of federal candidates and officeholders is neither novel nor implausible."

And then the justices stuck a stake through the heart of the 1976 legal precedent established in Buckley v. Valeo that had previously prevented regulation of this kind of activity. "The unmistakable lesson from the record in this litigation, as all three judges on the District Court agreed, is that Buckley's magic-words requirement is functionally meaningless.... Buckley's express advocacy line, in short, has not aided the legislative effort to combat real or apparent corruption, and Congress enacted (McCain-Feingold) to correct the flaws it found in the existing system."

Mark Green better rethink his use of the Constitution to oppose reform. He doesn't have a leg to stand on.

Elections Board To Locals: Break The Law

A state law protecting voter privacy is the latest car to join the crumpled heap that is the train wreck known as SVRS, bureaucratic shorthand for Statewide Voter Registration System. SVRS is being developed under the state's contract with the global outsourcing firm Accenture LLP to develop a computerized voter registration list.

Elections Board and Accenture officials have taken great pains to justify the eye-popping $14 million price tag on the contract by saying the company is developing computer software tailor-made for registering voters in Wisconsin. The Democracy Campaign reported last October that the Accenture software didn't appear to be as customized as advertised. Accenture's off-the-shelf program contained data fields for things like party affiliation and whether a voter owns property, even though such voter information is not collected under Wisconsin law and is incompatible with voter registration practices in the state. Those data fields have been deactivated.

But now the Democracy Campaign has discovered that the Elections Board is instructing local election officers to ignore the state law spelling out what voter information is confidential. In a July 21 memo, the board says the registration identification number assigned to each voter "is not treated as confidential" and "is a public record and must be provided upon request" by individuals and organizations with an interest in having access to elector information stored in the database.

The problem with the Elections Board's position is that it is against state law. Section 6.36(1)(b) of Wisconsin's statutes says no person "other than an employee of the board, a municipal clerk, a deputy clerk, an executive director of a city board of election commissioners, or a deputy designated by the executive director" may view voter registration identification numbers.

It appears that Accenture did not take into account the specifics of Wisconsin's election laws and failed to tailor the software programming to the state's laws and needs, and it appears the Elections Board failed to supervise Accenture's development of the software in order to make certain the purchased voter registration software complied with all applicable Wisconsin laws.

The Law Is The Law

Wisconsin law limits the amount of money candidates for governor can take from special interest political action committees (PACs) to $485,000 in a four-year election cycle. When Green Bay-area Republican Congressman Mark Green decided to run for governor, he wanted to transfer $1.3 million he raised as a member of Congress from his federal campaign account to a state account to help finance his bid for governor.

The Democracy Campaign has long opposed allowing federal office holders to use money raised for federal campaigns in order to run for state office. We opposed Democrat Tom Barrett's transfer of money he raised as a member of Congress to help finance his 2002 run for the state's highest office. It was wrong when Barrett did it, and it's wrong for Green to do it.

Such transfers will not be allowed after 2006 because a rule pushed by the Democracy Campaign was adopted by the state Elections Board last year outlawing the practice for future races, but the board grandfathered Green's plans to use funds from his federal campaign in this year's gubernatorial race. But while the Elections Board blessed a Green transfer, it also ruled that any federal money he uses for his state campaign must comply with state contribution limits and other state campaign finance laws.

The Legislature's Joint Committee for the Review of Administrative Rules objected to the Elections Board rule, but the full Legislature never enacted legislation reversing it before adjourning on July 12, as it is required to do to nullify a rule. After consulting with attorneys with the Legislative Council, the state Revisor of Statutes office and the Elections Board, we believe the rule remains in effect.

The state limit on PAC contributions to a candidate for governor is $485,000. Green transferred $511,405 in PAC donations from his federal account to the state account he's using to fuel his campaign for governor. He also has raised another $156,140 from PACs since launching his state campaign, bringing his total PAC contributions to $667,545. That's $182,545 over the legal limit in state law.

The limit on PAC donations in state law is there for a good reason – to protect the public. The public has a compelling interest in preventing special interests from having too much influence over elections and elected officials. The Green campaign is operating under the assumption that the $511,000 in PAC money transferred in from the congressman's federal account does not count toward the state limit. Green believes he still can raise $485,000 from PACs over and above what he moved from his federal campaign fund. If the law is not enforced and Mark Green is allowed to operate as he sees fit, he will be allowed to take just shy of $1 million in PAC money from special interest groups.

The first casualty of Green's maneuver was Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, who for a time was a candidate for the Republican nomination for governor. Green's federal money gave him such a fundraising advantage that Walker pulled out, saying he could not raise enough money to compete.

Think about it. This race was too rich for Scott Walker's blood. If someone as well-known, well-connected and well-heeled as Walker can't afford to compete, then who can?

Scott Walker is the proverbial canary in a coal mine. His withdrawal was a warning of how toxic to our democracy the campaign money chase has become.

Walker was the first casualty of Green's money shifting. If the law is not enforced and the state limit on PAC contributions is not respected, the next casualty will be what little remains of longstanding protections guarding against special interest ownership of our state government.

AG Candidates On Open Government

For those who feel strongly about our state's open records and open meetings laws check out the responses by some of the Democratic and Republican attorney general candidates to questions posed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council.

Unfortunately, Republican candidate Paul Bucher did not bother to respond even after numerous requests. Maybe people should start asking Bucher if he thinks open government is a big deal, seeing as how he could be Wisconsin's next top cop.

Doyle Donor Helped Abramoff

Michael Chapman, the former chairman of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin and a contributor to Governor Jim Doyle's re-election campaign, helped disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff line up a key tribal client and received more than a quarter of a million dollars for his trouble.

Chapman played a role in getting Abramoff together with members of the Agua Caliente tribe of Palm Springs, California, including arranging an introductory meeting. The tribe eventually hired Abramoff as a lobbyist and paid him and associate Michael Scanlon $10 million in fees.

Chapman reportedly received $271,000 in payments – $171,000 from Abramoff's firm, Greenberg Traurig, and $100,000 from Scanlon's Capitol Campaign Strategies.

Governor Doyle received $325 in campaign contributions from Chapman in 2005. There is no record of Chapman making donations to any other candidate for state office in Wisconsin.

The Democracy Campaign reported in January that Doyle received campaign money from another Abramoff associate, Greenberg Traurig attorney Alan Slomowitz. Doyle decided to return the donation from Slomowitz hours after the Democracy Campaign called attention to it.

The Peasants Are Restless

The political scandals in Wisconsin continue to grow and the criminal convictions mount. The political bosses keep holding their country club fundraisers and pretend not to notice. But voters are getting ready to deliver a wake-up call to the Capitol.

Some prominent veterans of Wisconsin politics are stirring too. Namely three of the state's most senior Democratic leaders – longtime Milwaukee County District Attorney E. Michael McCann, former Governor Tony Earl and former gubernatorial and U.S. Senate candidate Ed Garvey – are saying the state's leaders and the governor in particular need to take dramatic steps at once to clean up the corruption at the Capitol or they'll look for someone who will.

Amid hints of a draft movement to fill Wisconsin's leadership vacuum, citizens are being asked to gather this Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Madison Labor Temple to help decide how to respond to the state's growing crisis of leadership. The Labor Temple is located on Madison's south side at 1602 South Park Street.

When Voting Becomes Undemocratic

Representative Dean Kaufert, one of the co-chairmen of the Legislature's powerful budget-writing Joint Finance Committee, wrote in a guest commentary published by the Appleton Post-Crescent yesterday that the recent effort to overcome the actions of legislative leaders to keep the ethics reform measure Senate Bill 1 bottled up in committee was a threat to the democratic process.

Playing by the rules of a democracy, where the will of the majority is supposed to prevail, reform advocates won. Senate Bill 1 passed 28-5 in the state Senate. The governor pledged to sign the legislation. Assembly leaders promised a vote on SB 1 before going back on their word.

Days before the final showdown on SB 1 in the Assembly on May 2, the bill's lead sponsor in the Assembly, Appleton Republican Terri McCormick, announced that conversations she had with colleagues made it clear a majority of state Assembly members would vote for SB 1 if it was brought to a vote.

Knowing the bill would pass if given an up-or-down vote, Assembly GOP leaders twisted arms behind closed doors until they had bullied enough of their fellow legislators into submission. Even Republican sponsors and backers of SB 1 including Kaufert and Representatives Steve Freese of Dodgeville, Eugene Hahn of Cambria and Terry Musser of Black River Falls were persuaded to oppose the effort to pull the reform bill from committee and take it up in the full Assembly.

Now Kaufert is saying such efforts to overcome stonewalling tactics and force votes are "violations of the democratic process meant to embarrass the leadership."

Amazing. Simply amazing.

Another Corruption Bombshell

A jury in Milwaukee convicted state purchasing officer Georgia Thompson of bid rigging late yesterday.

The jury concluded that due to political considerations Thompson illegally used her influence to steer a state travel contract to a Wisconsin-based firm, Adelman Travel, whose top executives made large campaign donations to Governor Jim Doyle.

The verdict is vindication for prosecutors in the case. Allies of the governor had charged that the ongoing investigation – led by a Republican appointee and two elected Democrats – is politically motivated and baseless. The federal, state and local law enforcement authorities involved in the investigation have asked the Democracy Campaign for assistance and are using our database of contributors to state campaigns in their probe.

Evidence came to light during the Thompson trial that raises new questions about the role of political appointees within the Doyle administration in the travel contract case. In particular, former Administration Secretary Marc Marotta, who now is Doyle's campaign chairman, told the media in October that he had no contact with Adelman officials while bids were being evaluated. Phone records introduced as evidence in the trial appear to contradict that claim. Those records show phone calls were exchanged between Marotta's office and Adelman travel during the process.

Where There's Smoke....

The case against Georgia Thompson is hardly open and shut. But even if the mid-level state purchasing officer isn't convicted of bid rigging, the circumstances surrounding the state travel contract that is at the heart of the federal charges against Thompson look more and more suspicious as the trial wears on.

Even before the first witness testified or the first document was offered as evidence, it was known that the contract was given to the Wisconsin-based Adelman Travel even though an out-of-state competitor, Omega Travel, actually received the higher score from the committee evaluating the bids. And it was known that Adelman executives contributed $20,000 to Governor Jim Doyle's campaign.

Now consider the smoke Marc Marotta is blowing. The former Administration Secretary who now is Governor Doyle's campaign chairman told the media in October that he had not had any contact with anyone at Adelman Travel after the bid process officially started in December 2004. But records introduced as evidence in the trial show phone calls were exchanged between Marotta's office and Adelman Travel while the bid evaluation process was ongoing.

It is possible Marotta himself did not participate in the phone conversations. The phone records do not prove otherwise. But when asked about it now, he does not offer that defense. He just refuses to comment.

At best, it now appears Marotta misled the public about his and his office's role in the travel contract saga. At worst, he outright lied.

'Travelgate' Trial Starts

The Georgia Thompson trial got started yesterday. Federal prosecutors accuse Thompson, a mid-level state purchasing officer, with bid rigging. She was indicted by a federal grand jury on two felony charges of fraud and misapplication of funds. The indictment alleges Thompson steered a state travel contract to Adelman Travel, a company whose top officials contributed heavily to Governor Jim Doyle's campaign.

Thompson is widely considered a small fish caught in a net designed to ensnare much larger targets higher on the political chain of command. But in opening remarks yesterday, federal prosecutor Steven Biskupic made it clear the trial would focus on Thompson, saying his case "is not about the politicians you're going to hear about" during testimony.

The Georgia Thompson-Adelman Travel case is not by any means the only recent example of state government decisions made amidst suspicious circumstances involving large campaign donations. Nor is it the biggest or arguably the best example. We know the scope of ongoing investigations by federal, state and local law enforcement authorities is much broader than just the state travel contract. What remains to be seen is if these investigations will lead to further criminal charges.

'Good Lord'

Wisconsin Public Television's Frederica Freyburg asked Congressman Mark Green if he would pardon his old friend Scott Jensen if he were to be elected governor this fall. Green's answers – yep, he took more than one stab at the question – were as telling as they were awkward.

At first, Green simply muttered, "Good Lord." It went downhill from there.

When he served in the Legislature, Green was part of Jensen's leadership team in the Assembly and he was implicated in the caucus scandal during the former speaker's recent trial. Former caucus graphic artist Eric Grant testified that Mark Graul asked him to do campaign work for Green while Green was in the Legislature. Graul was a Green aide in the Legislature and now is his campaign manager. Among the tasks Grant said he performed for Green on state time was producing Wisconsin Badgers and Green Bay Packers football schedules for campaign use.

Grant also testified that Chris Tuttle signed off on state workers' campaign assignments and approved production of campaign materials. Tuttle was the caucus media director in 1998. Green was caucus chairman from 1994 to 1998. Yet Green lamely contended that Tuttle "didn't work for me in those days and he wasn't mentioned in any of the stories" about the caucus scandal. Tuttle went on to become Green's congressional chief of staff. It was announced yesterday that Tuttle is resigning his post in Green's office to take a job with the U.S. State Department.

Also unearthed during the Jensen trial were two memos distributed in the fall of 1998 to legislative offices seeking campaign help for legislative races and Green's first run for Congress. The memos were prepared by a group called Staff Working for an Assembly Republican Majority, or SWARM.

Want A Third Party? Would You Settle For Two?

Anyone who has ever paid Senator Mike Ellis a visit in his Capitol office knows the chalkboard. And has heard the lecture.

Scribbled on the chalkboard is a Da Vinci Code of numbers and acronyms that tell of the state's financial condition. Ask and you shall receive the sermon about fund balances and GPR and SEG and structural deficits.

Ellis is a dying breed, a true fiscal conservative. He's also a former math teacher. And he knows the state budget. He knows it's built on a foundation of flim-flam. He'll say as much. More is spent than is paid for. The bottom line is made to look balanced by accounting trickery and more than a little borrowed from the future.

During a recent visit, Ellis went off on the fiscal dishonesty of both sides. The Neenah Republican had choice words for his side's habit of claiming to be champions of fiscal restraint and friends of the taxpayer. He pointed to two numbers on his chalkboard. The first was the amount of spending authorized under the budget signed into law by Governor Jim Doyle. The second was the amount of spending in the budget approved by the Republican-controlled Legislature and deposited on Doyle's desk. The second number was considerably higher.

And these people call themselves fiscal conservatives, Ellis ranted. And worse yet, he marvels, their supporters actually believe the hocum they peddle.

Then he aims his ire in Doyle's direction. The governor claims he's cleaned up the state's fiscal mess and balanced the budget . . . without raising taxes. Ellis has two problems with that song and dance. First, he reminds anyone who will listen that the budget is not really balanced. Smoke and mirrors and credit cards make it appear balanced, but it is structurally out of whack. Hundreds of millions more are spent than are paid for. The bill will eventually come due. Second, under the headline that taxes have not been raised is paragraphs of fine print. Taxes haven't been raised if you only count general purpose revenue tax rates and ignore all the increases in user fees and college tuition. More hocum, as Ellis sees it.

What rankles Ellis the most, however, is how the two parties have melted into one on matters budgetary. In the past, he insists, if the state faced a budget crunch, Democrats stood up and said taxes needed to be raised to pay for needed programs. Republicans said all those programs weren't so necessary and insisted spending could be cut. Sometimes, Wisconsin voters felt important investments needed to be made and sided with the Democrats. Other times, taxpayers felt state officials were playing a little too fast and loose with their money and went for the Republicans.

Now, Ellis says, you can't tell the difference between the two parties. The Republicans' dirty little secret is that they love to spend, he says, especially to build roads and prisons. But they're allergic to raising taxes. Democrats like Doyle likewise keep feeding their pet programs but refuse to raise taxes to honestly pay the bills.

All this must leave voters horribly disoriented, Ellis concludes. Citizens don't know who to believe on the budget, because both sides are for spending without taxing.

That chalkboard in the senator's office don't lie. But it also reveals only the tip of the iceberg that menaces the ship of state. The disorientation voters are feeling is very real, but it goes way beyond the issues of taxing and spending.

Doyle Does Damage Control

Within hours of the Democracy Campaign calling attention to $10,000 in donations from 10 New York City attorneys with a top class-action law firm recently indicted on federal racketeering, money laundering, mail fraud, obstruction of justice and other charges, Governor Jim Doyle's campaign announced it is returning the money.

It's remarkable how it always takes the media or some watchdog group going public with embarrassing facts to prod the people running political campaigns to do the right thing. They're almost never proactive about this kind of thing. Don't they read the newspapers? You'd think they'd see campaign donors indicted by a federal grand jury and maybe come to the conclusion that keeping those contributions is not such a bright idea.

Considering how much time, energy and money campaigns spend digging up dirt on their opponents, it never ceases to amaze that they won't spend a dime to prevent self-inflicted wounds.

Ebert's Review: Thumbs Down!

Before sentencing former Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen to 15 months in prison and banning him from the Capitol for five years, Judge Steven Ebert lectured Jensen for close to 20 minutes about his crimes. In doing so, Ebert spoke volumes about government ethics in Wisconsin and the condition of our democracy.

Ebert said as he listened to testimony day after day, he would "wonder whether or not this trial illustrated the ethical standards of the Legislature and the corrupting influence of money and power. And I have to conclude that yes, it did. Painfully so. It reflected that." He went on to say "Wisconsin's government is indeed in a deplorable state."

The judge told Jensen "you have placed personal ambition and greed above your oath of office," undermining democracy for a "private and venal" purpose. Ebert said Jensen was the ringleader of an "elite cabal" that engaged in "chicanery and deception," and told the Waukesha-area Republican "your acts reflect the truth of the statement, 'power corrupts.'"

Ebert was just getting warmed up. "What occurred was little more than common thievery elevated to a higher plane for one purpose, and that was to push forward your agenda." He added, "I think that represented the degradation of the Wisconsin ideal of democracy."

The judge continued: "You knew what you were doing. You knew it was illegal."

And then this: "Your idea of representative government is if you've got the money, you're represented."

Ebert said the end result of Jensen's actions was the "perversion of the legislative process." He lamented that "there was a time when many of us can remember taking pride in Wisconsin's reputation for good government. Unfortunately, that's no longer the case."

In the end, the judge told Jensen, "to ensure your political party prevailed, you have guaranteed that you're going to be known and remembered for these felony convictions and for the harm you've created...."

Amen.

The Fox And The Donkey

Fox Broadcasting’s news content and presentation is viewed by many as rabidly pro-Republican.

When Fox talk show host Tony Snow was recently picked by President Bush as his new press secretary, Democrats chortled that every Fox broadcaster is already a mouthpiece for the Republican White House.

So it may come as no surprise that Fox executives and employees are interested in politics and make campaign contributions to candidates throughout the country, including Wisconsin.

But what may surprise you is the Wisconsin officeholder who can claim a Fox Broadcasting executive as her biggest individual contributor between January 1, 2003 and December 31, 2005 – Democratic Lieutenant Governor Barbara Lawton.

Lawton has received two contributions – on November 5, 2003 and December 22, 2005 – totaling $6,000 from John Nesvig of Riverside, Connecticut, who campaign reports describe as president of sales for Fox Broadcasting, which is part of Rupert Murdoch’s global communications empire.

With Friends Like These....

The Assembly voted late yesterday to block an effort to bring Senate Bill 1 to the floor for a vote.

The roll call vote on the motion to pull the ethics reform legislation from the Rules Committee and take it up provided plenty of evidence of the considerable arm twisting that was done by Assembly leaders to ensure the bill would remain bottled up. Several Republican sponsors and self-proclaimed supporters of SB 1 — including Representatives Steve Freese of Dodgeville, Eugene Hahn of Cambria, Dean Kaufert of Neenah and Terry Musser of Black River Falls — voted to kill their own bill.

A Ruckus For Reform

More than 150 People's Legislature members picketed in front of the Assembly chamber yesterday morning demanding a vote on ethics reform legislation. Assembly members had to run a gauntlet of picketers as they entered the chamber, with protesters chanting "vote!" and "SB 1" and holding signs with messages such as "Give Clean Government a Chance" or "Stop the Corruption" and calling for "Ethics Reform Now." When the Assembly convened, People's Legislature members shouted "up or down vote" and unfurled a large banner saying "Clean Up Your Act . . . Vote on Senate Bill 1."

One of the onlookers was none other than convicted ex-lawmaker-turned lobbyist Steve Foti. When spotted by rally participants, Foti was greeted with chants of "work release, work release" and "Foti go home!"

A representative of the state technical colleges told one People's Legislature organizer that the pro-reform crowd was so loud that a Senate committee working on a proposed constitutional amendment limiting government taxing and spending adjourned its meeting because members could not hear each other.

The Assembly recessed and members escaped to closed-door caucuses guarded by Capitol police.

To see photos of the People's Legislature protest, go here.

Ass-Backwards Labels

I can't be the only one who thinks today's political labels have outlived their usefulness. The tags "liberal" and "conservative" or "left" and "right" are supposed to serve as a kind of ideological shorthand that helps us make sense of the political world. The code is all garbled.

Many liberals hate the "L" word, or at least fear it, although when you look it up in the dictionary it's hard to see why. The word comes from the Latin liber, which means "free." One dictionary defines liberal as "generous" and "tolerant; broad-minded" and "one who favors reform or progress."

Among the definitions of conservative is "tending to preserve established institutions; opposed to change" and "moderate; cautious."

If Webster's is to be believed, liberals play offense and conservatives play defense. Yet in modern politics, it's the self-described "conservatives" who are on the attack, seeking to dismantle the New Deal and Great Society reforms of yesteryear. And it's the "liberals" who always seem to be on their heels, seemingly incapable of an original thought, gamely defending decades-old programs.

We are sorely in need of some new labels. How about commoners and royalists? Under this new lexicon, we would stop thinking from left to right and start thinking up and down. If the defining standard became whether you are for those on top or for those on the bottom, many "liberals" and "conservatives" fall in the same category as they slavishly service their wealthy campaign donors. The bankruptcy of the old labels is apparent.

If you really want labels that speak truthfully about the condition of our democracy and faithfully describe our current batch of elected officials, how about distinguishing between the naturally born and the test-tube babies? That is, those politicians who are genuine products of their communities as opposed to those who are essentially clones of the political bosses and were groomed in the Capitol farm system. You could call 'em "amateurs" and "professionals" if you prefer. Again, if measured by this standard, most "liberal" politicians and their "conservative" counterparts are cut from the same cloth. The old code fails us again.

There's significance in the increasing uselessness of our old political vocabulary. It means the ground has moved beneath us, but our language has not yet caught up to this shift in the tectonic plates of our democracy. Something historic is happening, but we haven't figured out how to talk about it yet. Once we do, politics will begin to make more sense to more people again. That can only result in something good.

To Cover Your Behind, You Need A Good Front

Back in 2004, the Democracy Campaign issued a report showing how special interest money was increasingly moving under the radar, leaving voters in the dark about who's really paying for election campaigns. This trend away from the fully disclosed, out-in-the-open electioneering of years past to today's clandestine campaigning is enough to bring anyone who remembers clean and open government in Wisconsin to tears.

One of the features of today's election campaigns that is most most degrading to democracy is the rise of money-laundering, law-dodging, character-assassinating front groups. They first started making a significant impact on state elections in Wisconsin in 2000. That year, they operated under names like the Alliance for a Working Wisconsin, People for Wisconsin's Future, Project Vote Informed and Wisconsin Voter Education Fund.

In 2002, they sprouted like weeds. Citizens for Clean and Responsible Government, the Coalition for America's Families, Coalition to Keep America Working and Working Families of Wisconsin joined the fray. Of these four, two were tied to the Democrats and two were for the Republicans. Any idea which is which?

The most notorious of the groups that played a major role in influencing 2000 and 2002 legislative races was Independent Citizens for Democracy. That was Chuck Chvala's group, which specialized in laundering corporate donations that are illegal in Wisconsin through out-of-state receptacles like the Kansas Democratic Party and the Washington, D.C.-based Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.

In 2004, All Children Matter, Americans for a Brighter Tomorrow, Citizens for Wisconsin's Future and the Greater Wisconsin Committee weighed in heavily on behalf of their special interest patrons.

Considering how much these groups' names sound alike, we figured the people who run these stealth operations must be running low on imagination by now. So we started a "Name a Front Group" contest and asked our statewide e-mail network to let the creative juices flow and send us their suggestions.

In a matter of days, we were flooded with entries. Some were cryptic, a few were profane, but most were just laugh-out-loud funny. They included Noxious Lobbyists for Motherhood and Apple Pie, Americans for Free Parking, Citizens Laboring Against Promiscuity (CLAP), Citizens Revering Everything Excellent and Pure (CREEP), the Association of 8-Year-Old Hunters and Other Idiots, Ultra-Patriotic Americans for a More American America and the Wisconsin Faith-based Repeal Of New Taxes Group (Wisconsin FRONT Group).

Our panel of judges narrowed the field down to three finalists, including Citizens for Grass Roots Engagement and Economic Development (Citizens for GREED), Families Allied for Keen Elections (FAKE) and the People's Front for the Corporate Behind.

Then we asked our e-mail network to make the final decision. The winner, with 47% of the votes cast, was the People's Front for the Corporate Behind. Citizens for GREED got 35% of the votes and FAKE received 11%, with the remaining 7% spread among a number of other entries. One of those votes went to a late entry deserving of special mention, People for the Unethical Treatment of Voters (PUTV). If that one had been suggested earlier, it would have been a strong vote-getter.

Thanks to all who submitted entries and all who voted in our contest. It was good fun. What's going on in our elections these days is enough to make you cry. Laughing is a better option. But we also hope this contest served as a good-natured reminder of a most disturbing trend in our election campaigns.

Swift Boat Contributions Floated To Foundations, Disney Resort

More than $342,000 in contributions made by Wisconsin residents and others to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have been donated to conservative foundations or used to pay for a meeting at Walt Disney World.

Swift Boat Veterans is a 527 group named after the IRS code that governs these unregulated electioneering groups that can collect and spend unlimited amounts of money.  They use most of their money on negative television and radio ads like the ones Swift Boat ran criticizing Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s war record during the 2004 elections.

In 2005 and the first quarter of 2006, the group raised only $2,300 but spent $782,541.

Swift Boat, which was co-founded by retired Admiral Roy F. Hoffman, raised $68,700 from Wisconsin residents in 2004.

Finance reports filed with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service show Swift Boat contributed $100,000 on February 8, 2006 to an outfit called the Admiral Roy F. Hoffman Foundation in Fairfax, Virginia.  In 2005, the group donated $10,000 to Hoffman’s foundation, $100,000 to the Vietnam Veterans Legacy Foundation and spent $132,087 on “meeting expenses” at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida.

What Hoffman’s foundation is up to is a well-guarded secret.  The foundation has the same address as a business called Political Compliance Services, which Swift Boat and other conservative Republican groups use for consulting and complying with Federal Election Commission reporting requirements.  

Media reports and the telephone directory list Michael and Susan Arceneaux as company contacts, and an August 24, 2004 New York Times story revealed that Susan Arceneaux helped establish and run Swift Boat.

Stepp One: Help Out The Influence Peddlers

WDC has frequently shown how wealthy, influential campaign contributors get special treatment from elected officials, but we recently found a favorable break of a different kind.

Republican State Senator Cathy Stepp has given back $23,700 in campaign contributions because she decided not to run for reelection this year.

The curious thing is who got their money back.  Many of the returns went to wealthy, influential special interests.

Stepp, a home builder, returned contributions from builders and school choice advocates.  They were mostly contributions between $100 and $1,000 that were made in 2005 before she announced October 3 that she would not seek reelection.  One contributor, Racine manufacturer Willard Walker, got back $1,000 for contributions he made to Stepp in 2003, 2004 and 2005.  

Wealthy out-of-state school voucher interests got back $3,700 in contributions, including Amway founders Dick and Betsy Devos of Michigan and Jim and Lynn Walton of Arkansas whose family founded Wal-Mart.

Missing from the list of returns are the numerous small contributors most of whom probably contributed to her because she is their state senator.
  
Retiring politicians can give back contributions until their campaign coffers are empty, donate the money to charity or contribute to other candidates down the road.  They cannot use the money to buy personal items.

It is unknown whether these donors asked for their contributions back or she decided to return them.  But Stepp raised $66,533 in 2005 and had an ending cash balance December 31 of $36,890 with no outstanding debt.

Why not float some cash back to your real constituents, Cathy?

Not Enough!

Not upfront enough. Not open enough.

That’s our take on a nearly year-old group called Enough! that was formed to oppose additional off-reservation casinos in Wisconsin. The group’s executive director, Brian Nemoir, has refused to identify the group’s members and funding sources. The State Ethics Board feels they are not legally required to do so.

Here’s what we do know about the group and its chief. Nemoir said in January the group has about 300 member organizations and individuals. Our guess is a lot of them are restaurants, taverns and others in the tourism industry which has had a longstanding beef over how Indian gambling hurts their pocketbooks.

Last year the group spent $165,366 on three lobbyists – an ex-Republican state senator and two aides to former GOP Governor Tommy Thompson – to push a bill that would require legislative approval of Indian gaming compacts. The governor now has the lone authority to do so.

Curious thing – the group spent 161 hours lobbying in the first half of 2005 and 243 hours in the last six months of the year, but their costs dropped from $87,500 to $77,866.

The proposal, Assembly Bill 461, has been stuck in the Senate for five months with two weeks to go before it dies, but Doyle, whose 2002 election campaign benefited from $700,000 worth of contributions by three tribes, has said he opposes it.

Nemoir is an Oconomowoc resident and former state GOP party official who runs a business called Full Impact Communications. Nemoir is also a campaign consultant whose latest client, Republican Representative Ann Nischke, should have been a slam-dunk winner in the mayoral race in heavily Republican Waukesha. She outspent her Democratic opponent 3-to-1, with more than a third of it going to Nemoir who charged the campaign $12,450 for printing, postage, design and automated telephone messages.

California Cheese Wheys In On Green Campaign

Mark Green has been tied to convicted Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the state Capitol caucus scandal, indicted former GOP House leader Tom DeLay and some shady Illinois donors.

But what could really get him in trouble around here is taking campaign cash from a California cheese maker.

Yep, Green’s year-end 2005 campaign finance report shows he collected $845 from a salesman for the Hayward, California-based Pacific Cheese Company.  The company is among several featured on the Real California Cheese web site, and boasts being the “leading supplier of high-quality natural cheese in the western United States.”

Wisconsin lost its decades-long title as the nation’s #1 dairy state in the 1990s to California, and to rub it in Sunshine State cheese makers frequently run talking-cow television ads to push their product here.

In a state that once banned the sale of margarine, should this guy really be taking money from California cheese makers if he wants to become Wisconsin’s next governor?

Drug Execs Travel On UW's Dime

Check out the latest report from our friends at the Center for Public Integrity.

Food & Drug Administration employees have taken hundreds of trips since 1999 paid for by groups and universities that have financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry, which the FDA regulates.

Number 10 on the overall list, and #3 among universities, was the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  The report says the UW spent $47,000 on 50 trips for FDA employees.

UW-Madison is a heavyweight among research institutes, and has conducted clinical trials for Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and other drug companies.

Thanks, Dee

Wisconsin State Journal investigative reporter Dee Hall was named Newspaper Journalist of the Year this week by the Milwaukee Press Club.

It is hard to imagine an award recipient who is more deserving. Dee is the reporter who blew the lid off the Capitol by uncovering illegal campaigning in the Legislature by state workers operating out of the caucus offices. Dee's reporting led to criminal investigations that ultimately resulted in the convictions of five of the state's most powerful lawmakers as well as several Capitol staffers. Three of them already have been sentenced to jail and a fourth, former Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen, awaits sentencing but appears headed behind bars. The corrupt legislative caucus offices also have been abolished and new workplace rules were put in place in the Legislature to prevent future abuses of the same nature.

To see the stories that earned Dee Hall this distinction, go here.

Congratulations on the much-deserved award, Dee! And thank you. All who value clean and open government in Wisconsin are in your debt.

Unconventional Wisdom

According to conventional political wisdom, people hate Congress and their state Legislature, but love their own representatives. Recent polling done by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press does serious harm to this popular theory. The Center's findings show that 35% of Republicans and 34% of Democrats believe their own member of Congress is guilty of taking bribes. A whopping 55% of independents hold that dim view of their own elected representatives in Congress.

Cash For Contracts

We reported earlier this week that executives from two out-of-state companies gave heavily to Governor Jim Doyle's re-election campaign after getting state contracts. No one from either of the companies, Chicago-based Equis Corporation or Indianapolis-based Crowe Chizek, had ever donated to Doyle previously. Or to any candidate for state office in Wisconsin, for that matter.

Our findings prompted a flurry of media coverage. To see a sampling, go here.

Spokespeople for the Doyle campaign and the two companies all said, presumably with straight faces but with their fingers crossed, that there was no connection between the donations and the contracts.

One Crowe Chizek bigwig who works out of offices in Indianapolis and Chicago told The Associated Press his $4,500 in donations to Doyle were a reflection of his interest in community involvement. "As we get involved and do business in communities, we encourage all of our people to get involved in those communities in various ways," Crowe Chizek executive Robert Lazard was quoted as saying.

A spokeswoman for the governor's campaign told reporters she believed the company employees arranged the fundraising events at which the donations were made. But several of the donors contradicted this claim, saying they received invitations to fundraisers from the Doyle campaign after their companies won contracts.

Governor To Rent Or Own?

Democratic Governor Jim Doyle is poised to act on a bill that would exempt the rent-to-own industry from elements of a state law designed to prevent Wisconsin consumers from getting ripped off.

The bill resembles proposals Doyle consistently opposed before 2002 when he was attorney general.  He even used consumer protection laws to sue the industry to the tune of $8.4 million in refunds for customers and penalties.  

But that was before $22,500 in campaign contributions.  

Doyle received no campaign contributions prior to 2002 from backers of the bill which include the rent-to-own industry and one of their suppliers, Ashley Furniture, and General Electric.  Since then he has accepted contributions totaling $2,500 in 2002, $7,000 in 2003, $8,500 in 2004 and $4,500 in 2005 from these special interests.

Now there are rumblings Doyle may sign the proposal, Senate Bill 268.

How it got to his desk is also an interesting story.  The measure was introduced in July 2005 and defeated 18-15 in the Senate in November.  It was suddenly reconsidered and approved 18-14 without any changes in early March 2006.

Word on the street is Senator Ron Brown told fellow Republicans, who control the Senate 19-14, that he needed this bill to pass to help his reelection this November.  Among Brown’s constituents are a rent-to-own store owner and Ashley Furniture.  Controversy over a planned expansion by Ashley helped Brown unexpectedly defeat former Democratic Senator Rod Moen for his job in 2002.    

Stripping For Family Values

Recent campaign finance reports show Republican Majority Leader Michael Huebsch of West Salem is the latest of five legislators since 2003 to accept campaign contributions from a western Wisconsin strip club owner.

Huebsch, a graduate of fundamentalist Oral Roberts University, accepted $250 on August 9, 2005 from Ambrose Schwartz who is identified as owner of the 4 Mile Gentlemen’s Club (Warning: link may be offensive to some viewers) in Fountain City.

Others who have accepted money from Schwartz and who have voted for so-called family values proposals like anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage and anti-contraception legislation include Republican Senator Dan Kapanke of La Crosse, $523 in October 2004; Democratic Senator Roger Breske of Eland, $352 in October 2004; Republican Senator Ron Brown of Eau Claire, $100 in December 2003; and Republican Assembly Speaker John Gard of Peshtigo, $475 in October 2003.

The Same, Only Different

In its quest to distinguish itself from ruling state Republicans, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin has cooked up a new slogan: "The Democratic Difference."

What's the Democratic Difference, you ask? Freedom, family and fairness.

Uh, sorry, but these "core values" are platitudes with which no one can disagree. And which no one could meaningfully distinguish from Republican platitudes.

Good lord, we need a second party movement.

Redefining Independence

The Doyle Administration is a broken record when it comes to the Public Service Commission's autonomy. Whenever the Democracy Campaign has raised questions about whether political considerations are influencing PSC decisions, the administration and the utility regulatory agency say over and over and over again that the PSC is an "independent agency." The more they say it, the more hollow it rings.

For starters, an agency that is truly independent of the governor would not be run by appointees of the governor. And there would not be a revolving door separating the agency and the governor's re-election campaign.

The revolving door at the PSC continued to spin as Governor Doyle announced that top PSC aide Dan Schoof will become his new campaign manager. The shakeup in Doyle's campaign team was made necessary when old campaign manager Rich Judge was linked to the Capitol corruption scandal in court documents made public just before the start of the Scott Jensen trial.

Before Schoof became the PSC's executive assistant, that staff post at the agency was held by former Doyle campaign operative Dan Ebert, who Doyle later appointed chairman of the commission. Ebert's wife, Katie Boyce, is Doyle's chief campaign fundraiser.

With Or Without Jensen

While waiting for the jury's verdict in the Scott Jensen corruption trial, my thoughts keep straying. I find myself thinking less about Jensen and more about his compatriots who will remain on the ship of state whether or not he is convicted. And I keep thinking about how they don't get it.

All but a handful of them don't get that the people are on to them. Most of them can't move a muscle without a pollster's blessing, so you'd think a poll showing only 6% of Wisconsin residents believe elected officials are representing voters' interests would get their attention. Hasn't seemed to. They keep playing the same crooked game.

They don't seem to get that the law is on to them. Prosecutors are parading state lawmakers into courtrooms and the common thread through all the criminal charges is the campaign money chase. The response of those not yet indicted? Raise money from wealthy special interests with even more reckless abandon. Wisconsin legislators collected more money in 2005 than they've ever raised in a non-election year.

As their appetite for cash intensifies, state politicians are getting less and less choosy about the company they keep. Check the list of Illinois donors to Wisconsin candidates for governor and you find a creepy cast of characters including convicted criminals, indicted lobbyists and political wheeler-dealers, and even a shadowy figure with publicly chronicled mob ties.

Most of all, the bosses at the Capitol don't get what every gambler is said to know: That the secret to surviving is knowing what to throw away and knowing what to keep.

What the politicians are throwing away is priceless. What they insist on keeping are things no one should have too much of or hold for too long.

In exchange for money and the power it buys, they are giving away truly precious possessions - their dignity, self-respect, integrity and their own good names, even their freedom, not to mention our state's reputation for clean and open government.

The more they do to make their big campaign donors love them, the more ordinary voting citizens hate them. They've gotten elected and re-elected, but at what price? On a good day, the public thinks of them as something between used car salesmen and child molesters.

Maybe in their minds, fleeting power is worth such a tawdry legacy. But have they given even a moment's thought to the violence they are doing to the memories of the revolutionaries who created this great nation? Are they so consumed by ambition and overcome by arrogance that they forget our country's founders rebelled against a king's power, at the risk of certain death if their revolution failed?

The way today's Capitol bosses are conducting the people's business is not only an ongoing act of political vandalism, it is profoundly un-American. The American system of government was poured from a crucible heated by hatred of a despot's grip. Sadly, those who've seized power today have more in common behaviorally with that king than with the George Washingtons and Thomas Jeffersons and Ben Franklins and Tom Paines who risked life for liberty and overthrew him.

The America I know and love is based on the idea that no one should hold too much power or hold even limited authority for too long a time. That America is under assault right here in our own state.

Rule Giving Dentists A Toothache

WDC recently found a surprise winner among political action committees that made contributions in 2005 - the Wisconsin Dental Association.

Wisconsin Dental PAC contributed $33,695 in 2005. That is the most they have ever contributed in a year, and their first time at the top of the PAC heap. They've rarely ever made the top 10.

A little digging found the dentists are spitting over a proposed rule that would let the state certify dental hygienists to clean the teeth of Medicaid patients without a dentist's supervision.

The Department of Health and Family Services offered up the rule because Medicaid patients have a tough time getting dental care in some areas. Dentists have long claimed they do not receive a high enough reimbursement rate from the program, so some people go without dental care.

Rather than give the dentists more money, the department decided to spread the wealth around and effectively expand dental service for the poor. The rule is still being considered by legislators.

The dentists are employing a common special interest strategy with their contributions: Play both sides. Most of the dentists' contributions have gone to the legislative campaign committees run by the Republican and Democratic leaders in the Assembly and Senate. The Committee to Elect a Republican Senate, the State Senate Democratic Committee and the Republican Assembly Campaign Committee each received $6,000 in contributions and the Assembly Democratic Campaign Committee snagged $4,300 - all in the first seven months of 2005.

Curious to see who wins this one. The dentists, or poor people who can't afford to contribute and dental hygienists, whose PAC contributed nothing last year and only $300 in 2004.

Falk Sends Back Cash

Kathleen Falk, a Democratic attorney general candidate, returned $5,000 to the wife of a Madison developer shortly after WDC blogged that the contributor violated campaign contribution limits in 2005.

Falk's year-end campaign report said the November 28 contribution came from Marc Vaccaro, who had previously contributed $9,500 to Democratic Governor Jim Doyle in June. The $14,500 in total 2005 contributions meant Vaccaro violated the $10,000 annual contribution limit.

The Falk campaign said later that the $5,000 contribution was not made by Vaccaro, but by his wife, Astrid Van Zon. That let Vaccaro off the hook, but the campaign said it would return the money anyway because Miss Van Zon had previously made a $10,000 contribution in 2005 - to Doyle.

Atta Boy, Don

Republican Representative Don Friske of Merrill filed a corrected campaign finance report Friday, two days after WDC blogged about substantial differences between fundraising and spending between his electronic and paper campaign finance reports (see "So Which Is It, Don?).

His amended electronic report now agrees with the higher fundraising and spending figures in his paper report.

So Which Is It, Don?

WDC regularly finds simple math errors on campaign finance reports filed by candidates for the legislature. Mathematical mistakes involving the amounts candidates raised or spent or have in their campaign accounts usually range from a few dollars to a few hundred dollars.

What is rare to find is a huge discrepancy between the paper version of the candidate's report filed with the State Elections Board and the electronic version, which is the one the public can more readily access, filed on the board's web site.

Both reports should be identical but that's not the case with Republican Representative Donald Friske of Merrill.

Friske's electronic report shows he raised $850 and spent $22.62 between July and December 2005. His cash balance as of December 30 was listed at $7,406.62.

However, a check of Friske's paper report shows he raised $5,315 and spent $5,784.25 between July and December 2005. His cash balance was listed at $6,109.99.

Developer Violates Contribution Limit

Newly filed campaign finance reports show a Madison developer violated contribution limits in 2005 by donating $14,500 to two candidates for statewide office.

Records show Marc Vaccaro contributed $9,500 to Democratic Governor Jim Doyle in June 2005 and $5,000 to Democrat Kathleen Falk, a candidate for attorney general, in late November.

Vaccaro, owner of Great Lakes Companies, may be better known for the five Great Wolf Lodge indoor water parks he has built around the country since the late 1990s.

State law limits to $10,000 a year the amount an individual can contribute to state and local candidates and committees.

Let's see what the State Elections Board does with this one.

Stay tuned.

If They Admit, You Must Acquit

Scott Jensen's legal defense against felony charges of criminal misconduct in public office has taken a sharp turn down Surreal Boulevard. With his trial scheduled to begin February 21, the former Assembly speaker and current member of the Legislature's powerful Joint Finance Committee appears to be pinning his legal hopes on a story everyone who has passed through adolescence knows all too well: "Everybody was doing it."

Well, maybe not everybody, but at least some pretty big somebodies. Another former speaker who now is a sitting state Supreme Court justice, David Prosser, is prepared to testify that he stole from Wisconsin taxpayers by engaging in the same illegal campaigning that Jensen is accused of orchestrating. So is Joe Strohl, a former Senate majority leader turned Capitol lobbyist. Lucky for Prosser and Strohl that the crimes to which they are confessing took place more than six years ago, the statute of limitations for prosecuting felonies in Wisconsin.

Unlucky for Jensen that the offenses he is accused of committing are plenty recent enough to prosecute. And as District Attorney Brian Blanchard has told the court: "A claim that 'other guys were doing it' is a confession, not a defense." Something every parent has said to a child, in so many words, at one time or another.

If by some temporary loss of sanity a judge or jury fails to apply this basic common sense in response to Jensen crying selective prosecution, you have to think that motorists in every corner of the state who've been ticketed for speeding will be interested in having the likes of Prosser and Strohl testify that they too have speeded.

The Blind Leading The Bland

Even his closest political allies concede Jim Doyle lacks pizazz. What's more, some have taken to calling the charismatically-challenged governor "Velcro Jim" because bad news seems to stick to him as easily as it slid off "Teflon Tommy" Thompson. And while Tommy was a darling to his right-wing base, Doyle has done little to inspire and much to alienate his.

One thing Doyle has in common with his hated rival is uncommon skill at raising money. The governor and his handlers obviously are betting that he can buy his way out from under any ethical cloud and at the same time overcome his drabness with a blizzard of feel-good TV ads about him and feel-scared ads about his opponents.

Tommy Thompson still reigns as Wisconsin's undisputed king of campaign fundraising, having raised more money than any other candidate in state history over his more than three decades in public office and four terms as governor. But Doyle is catching up fast, raising money at a considerably faster clip than Tommy ever did . . . even in his last and most expensive campaign.

So far, Doyle has raised more than $5.9 million for his re-election bid, compared to the $3.2 million Thompson raised at the same point in his last campaign. At every stage, Doyle has outpaced Thompson. In the first six months after taking office, Doyle raised $562,954 compared to the $151,090 Thompson raised in the first half of 1995. Thompson stepped up his fundraising in the second half of that year, raising $441,681. But Doyle took in $944,904 in the comparable period. Doyle then raised $907,870 in the first half of 2004 and another $878,042 in the second half, compared to $383,307 and $536,712, respectively, for Thompson in the two 1996 reporting periods.

As he headed into 2005, Doyle really kicked his fundraising machine into high gear, accepting $1,442,315 in the first half of the year and $1,164,865 in the last six months covered in the report he filed yesterday. Thompson's comparable fundraising figures in 1997 were $868,460 in the first half of the year and $851,854 in the second half.

On top of direct donations to his re-election campaign, big donors are ponying up "soft money" to groups that will run their own ads benefiting Doyle. The flood of soft money is coming from an array of corporate interests and especially Indian tribes.

A total of nearly $23 million was spent on the 2002 governor's race by candidates and special interest groups, almost triple the $8 million spent on the 1998 race. With Doyle's record-breaking fundraising and with just one Indian tribe reportedly budgeting a staggering $7.2 million for political spending in 2006, the pricetag on the governor's office will surely far exceed 2002's.

In a conventional political year, Jim Doyle would hold a commanding advantage over his Republican rivals, neither of whom has half as much cash on hand as the governor and neither of whom is able to lay claim as Doyle can to the support of Wisconsin's dominant new political force – the tribes and other casino gaming interests.

But 2006 is shaping up to be anything but a conventional political year, what with mushrooming corruption scandals and a growing majority of voters feeling the state and nation are headed in the wrong direction. Doyle's formulaic, paint-by-numbers handlers appear blind to this year's potential unconventionality. They seem almost blissfully unaware that they may yet find themselves holding a strong hand, only to discover the game they're playing isn't cards.

'The Capitol Is On Fire'

Yesterday's "public telling" at the Capitol was memorable in so many ways. Citizens asking pointed questions about government corruption and political reform to blown-up photos of Governor Jim Doyle, Assembly Speaker John Gard and Senate Majority Leader Dale Schultz because they refused to answer in person or in writing. Legislative whistleblower Lyndee Woodliff describing in a trembling, barely audible voice how she saw lawmakers become lawbreakers. Retiring Milwaukee County District Attorney E. Michael McCann saying you'd have to be "dumb as a shovel" to believe insiders' claims that big campaign donors don't want anything in return for their money except good government. McCann went on to say the "Capitol is on fire" with corruption.

And then there was the scene-stealing Doris "Granny D" Haddock, who turns 96 today and charmed the overflow crowd of more than 300 People's Legislature members with her special blend of passion and wit. One of her better lines was a story about a member of Congress who said, in so many words, that he is not tainted by his association with indicted Indian tribe lobbyist Jack Abramoff because he had sold out to Indian gaming interests long before he ever met Abramoff.

Granny D completed a 3,200-mile walk across the country to draw attention to government corruption and the need for political reform at the age of 90 and obviously believes the long journey to reform is nearing paydirt. The power of her example inspired more than a few in the standing-room-only crowd. One participant from the northwoods took the day off from work and drove 300 miles to be a part of the forum. He said "if Granny D can walk 3,200 miles for the cause, then I surely can drive 300 miles."

Get Big Money At Menards

In recent weeks, Republican Senator Dave Zien has taken to publicly poking the Department of Natural Resources in the eye over the agency's handling of a proposed expansion project at Menards' Eau Claire headquarters.

Zien claims state environmental experts have treated the large home improvement retailer shabbily and cost the state jobs. It is the typical claim of awful treatment businesses and individuals make when they want to use their land anyway they please and the state won't let them.

But the DNR and some of Menards' employees involved in the project have said recently their relationship has improved and they are working together to find a way to make the project work.

Zien made his comments as a member of a newly created Senate committee - the Select Committee on DNR Regulatory Reform - which is roaming around northern Wisconsin to encourage DNR bashing and gin up support for Republicans running in the November elections.

There may be more to this for Zien, however. It turns out Menards' employees are Zien's second largest source of campaign contributions when grouped by employer, giving him $4,350 since 1993.

Abramoff Update

Democratic Governor Jim Doyle and Representative Tom Nelson decided to return $1,200 in campaign contributions Tuesday from associates of convicted Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff hours after the Democracy Campaign revealed the donations.

'Team Abramoff' Money In Wisconsin

Two former colleagues of sullied Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff have contributed $2,200 to Wisconsin candidates for state office, including $1,000 to Democratic Governor Jim Doyle who later hired the contributors' law firm to lobby the federal government, the Democracy Campaign has found.

Abramoff has pleaded guilty to bribery, tax evasion and defrauding Indian tribe clients, as well as to wire and mail fraud in a separate Florida case.

Neither of the two contributors, Washington lawyers Alan Slomowitz and Michael D. Smith, have been charged in the lobby scandal surrounding Abramoff. The pair was among numerous members of "Team Abramoff" who worked with Abramoff at the law firms of Preston Gates and Ellis and later Greenberg Traurig.

Campaign finance reports show Slomowitz contributed $1,000 to Doyle on December 2, 2003 and made two $500 contributions to former Democratic gubernatorial candidate and current Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett on June 10, 2002 and June 30, 2001. Smith contributed $200 to Democratic Representative Tom Nelson on April 1, 2004, a month after Abramoff resigned from Greenberg following initial media reports about the scandal.

Doyle hired Greenberg Traurig for $20,000 a month plus expenses in April and May 2005 to represent the state as the Pentagon considered closing numerous military bases in Wisconsin and around the country. Slomowitz was one of the company's two lobbyists put on the job.

On a related note, Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Green has been taking shots over e-mails that indicate his former chief of staff and now campaign manager, Mark Graul, got tickets to concerts, professional wrestling and sporting events from Abramoff in 2000.

A Sign Of The Times

It will be harder for local communities to remove ugly, deteriorating billboards thanks to the Republican-controlled Legislature and Democratic Governor Jim Doyle, who alone has received $17,450 from the outdoor advertising industry since 2002, including $3,000 during the first six months of this year.

The measure, Assembly Bill 155, sponsored mostly by Republicans and opposed by local government and environmental groups, was introduced in March and passed 70-27 in the Assembly and on a voice vote in the Senate this fall.

The bill the governor signed into law December 21 was similar to one he vetoed in the 2003-04 legislative session. It was highlighted by WDC along with other proposals and laws that take away local control in an August 2005 report, Gagging Democracy.

In addition to billboard owners, the proposal was backed by business, manufacturing, realtor, tourism, construction, automobile dealer and agricultural equipment interests. These special interests gave $6.9 million to current legislators from 1993 through June 2005, including $5.62 million, or 81 percent, to Republican legislators.

Those special interests gave Doyle $553,312, or 40 percent, of the $1.39 million in large individual and political action committee contributions he accepted during the first six months of 2005.

There's No Eye In Team

Reasons abound why Wisconsin has gone blind to political corruption. Among them is the pathology evident in the major political parties. Belonging to a political party used to be like joining a club. Now it's more like getting caught up in a cult.

The frightening characteristics of religious cults are on prominent display in the two major parties. Even in a state like Wisconsin with its long history of independent politics and maverick politicians, party leaders now make constant references to what their "team" thinks. They enforce an unwritten rule forbidding lawmakers and their staffs from socializing or otherwise fraternizing with members of the opposing party. They feed members "talking points" that at first seem innocuous enough but after awhile resemble indoctrination in a terrifying group-think that rationalizes corrupt and even criminal behavior. Rank and file members who do not walk lockstep are first stripped of choice committee assignments or otherwise punished. If they don't fall in line, more pliable replacements are recruited.

The leaders of the major political parties who populate Wisconsin's state Legislature and our nation's Congress are not remotely representative of the people. These bosses are obsessed with who's right and who's left. If they’d spend half as much time thinking about what's right and wrong, we wouldn't be in the midst of political corruption scandals of historic proportions. And the majority of citizens might not feel politically homeless, as they do now.

The people of Wisconsin and America are not as hopelessly divided as the political pundits like to claim. We all have much in common. But the party bosses thrive on playing up what distinguishes them from their political enemies, and this cult mentality leads them to ceaselessly drive wedges between groups of citizens.

There's much that needs doing if we are to restore some sense of honor to government. But while we endeavor to throw the bums out, we also need to think about creating a political home for common folks. We need a common party. One where common sense matters more than ideological purity. And one where talk of the common good is not so uncommon.

Maybe one of the existing parties will finally take notice of the public's wholesale retreat from public life, sense a growth opportunity, and make an offer the commoners can't refuse. Maybe.

Just as likely, we're approaching one of those historic turning points that calls for the creation of something brand new and tests our capacity for democratic renewal.

Either way, the near future promises to be exhilarating . . . or petrifying, depending on how you take to social upheaval. Because the status quo is not sustainable. Something's got to give.

Political Ghosts Past And Present

Irony sent Bill Proxmire to meet his maker and Chuck Chvala to jail on the same day. Two of Wisconsin's most notable political figures now begin to fade into memory. But Prox's name will forever be attached to the state's proud past and his memory will always evoke images of independence and integrity. He will be fondly remembered for his considerable wit, his legendary frugality, his tireless handshaking and, of course, those Golden Fleece Awards. His relatively modest list of legislative achievements will be forgiven. Bill Proxmire was the embodiment of Wisconsin's tradition of clean and open government.

Chvala's political epitaph reads simply "convicted felon." He is the ghost of our political present, a tragic symbol of the culture of corruption that has been allowed to take root at the State Capitol. His many legislative accomplishments will be forgotten, overwhelmed by memory of his arrogant disregard for ethical boundaries. He will forever be associated with one of the darkest periods in Wisconsin history. He broke the law. He got caught. He was brought to justice. He is disgraced. His legacy is one of shame. Shame that he brought on himself and that he brought on the whole state.

Now what will we take from our encounters with these ghosts of Wisconsin's past and present? Will we choose to make things right?

Atta Boy

Republican candidate for governor Mark Green finally submitted a revised campaign finance report in order to properly identify more than $387,000 in special interest campaign contributions listed in his initial January 2005 campaign finance report.

WDC called on the campaign November 2 to do the right thing by voters and tell us who these big givers are.

Shortly after we blew the whistle, the State Elections Board said it had mistakenly told the campaign it did not have to identify the occupations and employers of these special interests. The board said it was now requiring the Green camp to submit the additional information.

WDC doesn't really care who screwed this one up - Green for not divulging information to voters he already had from federal campaign reports he filed from 2002 through 2004, or Elections Board members, who chronically drop the ball and fail the public when it comes to enforcing Wisconsin's campaign finance laws.

We're just glad the information is finally there for voters to view.

The Connecticut-Kenosha Connection

When the Democracy Campaign reviewed Governor Jim Doyle's latest campaign finance report, we couldn't help but notice the amount of money he was receiving from Connecticut. Over three-quarters of the Connecticut money came from the Mohegan Indian tribe. This was not the first time Mohegan money showed up on a Doyle campaign report.

The question was why.

Now we know. The Mohegan tribe is partnering with Wisconsin's Menominee Indian tribe and Kenosha businessman Dennis Troha and his Kenesah Gaming Development LLC to develop and eventually manage a casino in Kenosha.

The idea of a tribal casino in Kenosha has been dogged by controversy and is hardly a done deal. But campaign finance records show the project's backers are busy lubricating the political machinery. Aside from the Mohegan donations, Troha was the biggest single donor to Doyle's 2002 campaign for governor. And his family remained at the top of Doyle's donor list for 2003 and 2004.

The Democracy Campaign's report on Illinois donors to the three major-party candidates in the 2006 race for governor shows that Nathan Cambio and his wife, Tina, are Doyle's top Illinois contributors. Cambio is employed by ATC Leasing, one of Troha's family businesses.

He Owes His Soul To The Company Store

While reviewing campaign finance reports filed by state candidates, the Democracy Campaign found that Republican candidate for governor Scott Walker often failed to follow state law by not disclosing the occupations and employers of contributors who made 114 donations to his campaign totaling $75,850.

One of the improperly reported contributions came from John Savage, a state Elections Board member who is supposed to enforce compliance with state campaign finance laws. Savage gave Walker's campaign for governor $500 and the Walker campaign reported Savage's occupation as "debtor."

Debtor indeed. Savage owes his Elections Board post to Republican Party bosses. He is the state GOP's appointee to the board.

Aside from his role as political crony, Savage is a Milwaukee attorney, tax scofflaw and onetime inner-city slumlord.

Another big donor whose occupation the Walker campaign drew a blank on is former Secretary of Administration and now utility executive James Klauser, who also gave Walker $500.

The Populist Face Of Plutocracy

As if Wisconsin did not already have enough phony front groups with motherhood-and-apple-pie sounding names flying under the radar and carpet bombing our airwaves and mailboxes with trashy ads, now a shadowy Milwaukee-area group that has specialized in removing local officials from office through recall elections is aiming to expand its sphere of influence statewide.

Citizens for Responsible Government is attempting a recall campaign against liberal Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz and is beginning to set its sights on recalling Governor Jim Doyle. Democrats are not the far right-wing group's only targets, however. CRG takes particular pleasure in tormenting Republicans who are not sufficiently loyal soldiers in the neocon army. A feature of the group's web site is its "RINO Alert" devoted to outing any Republican In Name Only.

CRG has been linked to Tosans for Responsible Government, which was formed in 1997 and later helped defeat a moderate Republican state senator, Wauwatosa's Peggy Rosenzweig. She was replaced by Tom Reynolds, whose loopy ideas include a proposed private Autobahn on which motorists could drive as fast as they want for a fee. Even right-wing radio talk show host Charlies Sykes calls Reynolds a "nut job."

Along with its recall campaigns in Milwaukee County, CRG took credit for defeating former Senate Majority Leader Mary Panzer and replacing her with the far more right-wing Glenn Grothman, nicknamed "Spooky" by legislative colleagues.

The group has been described in the media as a "populist movement." More closely inspect the tangled web that defines the organization's shape, and its grassroots look like AstroTurf.

Early in 2002, Tosans for Responsible Government created the Wisconsin Conservative Leadership Coalition to spread its ideals to the rest of the state. It publishes the Wisconsin Conservative Digest. That publication's editor is JJ Blonien, a friend of CRG and its satellites. One such satellite group with which Blonien is associated is United Wisconsin, which is pushing the so-called Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR) in Wisconsin.

United Wisconsin is affiliated with the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, which itself was created with funding from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. The Koch family's charitable empire was built from the oil and gas fortunes of Fred Koch, a founding member of the John Birch Society.

Americans for Prosperity's state director in Wisconsin is Mark Block, a top fundraiser for President George W. Bush and a notorious figure in Wisconsin politics in his own right. He masterminded a late-1990s scheme to illegally funnel money into the reelection campaign of Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Jon Wilcox. As Wilcox's campaign manager, Block illegally coordinated activities with a pro-school voucher group known as the Wisconsin Coalition for Voter Participation. The case produced the largest fine ever handed down by the state Elections Board.

The Survey Says...

An astonishing – and largely unreported – finding of the most recent statewide poll conducted by the St. Norbert College Survey Center for Wisconsin Public Radio is that political corruption is one of the most common answers people gave when asked to identify the most important problem facing the state of Wisconsin.

As many people cited corrupt politicians and the lack of political representation as the state's number one problem as mentioned gas prices. Amazingly, the sorry state of democracy in Wisconsin ranked ahead of health care, crime, poverty and the environment as the top concern of state residents. Only taxes, jobs and education outpolled political corruption.

St. Norbert's poll comes on the heels of a Wisconsin Policy Research Institute survey showing that only 6% of state residents believe elected officials are representing them.

The Rent-A-Politician Industry

The rent-to-own industry has been trying for years to win an exemption from state consumer protection laws and hasn't been bashful about lubricating the political machinery with big campaign donations.

The industry has not hit paydirt yet, but has enlisted some important new allies and appears to have succeeded in resuscitating a consumer protection exemption bill that was all but dead.

When the state Senate took up the industry's exemption bill last week, it was defeated 18-15. Not one, not two but three motions to reconsider the vote were then offered. On the third attempt, the bill was revived by a one-vote margin, 17-16.

That's where one of the rent-to-own industry's new allies comes in. Sources close to the legislative negotiations tell the Democracy Campaign that an Ashley Furniture executive called Senate leaders to urge them to bring the bill back for another vote. Ashley reportedly plans to place its merchandise in 300 new rental centers if the bill passes.

A top executive with the Eau Claire-area furniture maker made $1,000 contributions right after the 2004 election to the bill's lead sponsor, Eau Claire Republican Ron Brown, and another Eau Claire-area senator, Republican David Zien, who also signed on as a sponsor of the exemption legislation.

Ashley also has taken quite an interest in another of the exemption bill's newfound supporters, Governor Jim Doyle.

Doyle's apparent willingness to sign the bill if it passes the Legislature is curious because during his long stint as state attorney general he often locked horns with the rent-to-own industry. He once sued the Texas-based Rent-A-Center for failing to disclose credit provisions and engaging in deceptive advertising. The lawsuit resulted in an $8 million settlement that was used to pay restitution to customers scammed by the company and its subsidiary Colortyme Inc.

The Democracy Campaign's database of contributors to state campaigns shows that Rent-A-Center has made a couple of large donations to Doyle this year and has been feeding campaign money regularly to the Committee to Elect a Republican Senate and the Republican Assembly Campaign Committee.

Another firm, Eau Claire-based Lebakken Rent-to-Own, also has given Doyle $3,000 since March 2004.

Neither Rent-A-Center nor Lebakken Rent-to-Own ever gave Doyle any money when he was attorney general. Ashley Furniture also never donated to Doyle until he ran for governor.

A Canary In A Coal Mine

In his column about the recent People's Legislature rally for reform at the Capitol, Bill Lueders, news editor of the Madison weekly Isthmus, recounts an incident that alerts the unsuspecting to the toxic environment in the people's house.

Lueders writes: "At one point, attendees . . . swarmed the Capitol to urge lawmakers to support their reforms. I went to catch the action outside the office of Assembly Speaker John Gard, arguably the Legislature's most powerful player.

"A receptionist directed me down a hallway to his room, but a moment later kept a protester with a 'Hello, my name is Nobody' tag from entering this same corridor. I asked about the double standard and was told, 'It depends on who it is.'

"The protester asked the receptionist to convey his displeasure with Gard's performance. She disappeared down the hallway and returned. Then a man emerged from within the chamber and shut the hallway door."

Hypocrisy Unlimited

To justify their stonewalling of campaign finance reform legislation that would reestablish public financing of state campaigns in Wisconsin, the mantra of the bosses at the Capitol is that it is wrong to spend taxpayer money on election campaigns when there are so many other pressing needs and so little money to meet them.

Forget for a moment that the state is invariably out of money when the powerless need help but there always seems to be plenty of cash on hand when a big campaign donor is looking for a perk or lawmakers want a pay hike. Hypocrisy at the Capitol runs much deeper than that.

As one of the Democracy Campaign's founding members and first executive director so aptly describes, legislators never raised a stink about using taxpayer money on election campaigns when they were paying state employees to run their campaigns on the taxpayer's dime in the corrupt legislative caucus offices.

One budget after another crafted by the very same legislators who ridicule public financing of elections as "welfare for politicians" contained $4 million a year for the state offices that were used as election headquarters for current office holders and were eventually abolished when they became the focal point of criminal investigations that yielded nearly four dozen felony charges against legislative leaders who oversaw their operation.

Ironically, $4 million is the annual cost of the public financing provisions of the leading campaign finance reform bill before the Legislature. When that same sum was spent year after year on illegal electioneering by state employees on state time, the bosses who run the Capitol vigorously defended it. But when it is proposed that the money be given to any qualified candidate for state office and not just those already in power, suddenly it is fundamentally wrong.

The Accidental Reformer

Of course back-to-back felony convictions of former lawmakers and protesters rallying against corruption on the steps of the Capitol have something to do with the sudden momentum behind reform legislation. But if a single individual can be credited for getting things moving on reform after years of stonewalling by legislative leaders, it has to be James H. Miller.

Miller is not a prosecutor or a maverick legislator or a good-government activist. He is the head of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, a self-styled "free market think tank." Miller's group is based in the decidedly upscale Milwaukee suburb of Thiensville and is funded by the right-wing Bradley Foundation.

Miller recently conducted a poll to take the public's temperature on a variety of topics. He clearly was surprised by what people told him when his questions turned to state government ethics and the public's impression of state elected officials. Miller found that only 6% of state residents believe elected officials are representing them.

It is difficult to overstate the impact of this poll finding. Before the poll was released, nearly all state lawmakers were resting easy, convinced that they are not implicated in the corruption scandals at the Capitol. Miller's poll made it painfully clear that while they may not have been implicated – yet – by law enforcement officials, every last one of them has been tied to the scandals by the public.

Nothing kindles interest in cleaning up your act like the knowledge that the people are on to you. We have Jim Miller of all people to thank for that.