Reform Enemies Getting Creative

The search is on. For the poison pill, that is. Even as the Wisconsin State Journal today editorialized that state lawmakers have run out of excuses for inaction on ethics reform, the Assembly’s ethics reform stonewaller-in-chief, Speaker-elect Mike Huebsch, is telling reporters that he and his legislative allies plan to try attaching an amendment to the ethics bill requiring a photo ID to vote in Wisconsin.

The photo ID requirement does not have the votes to pass in the new Legislature as a stand-alone bill. Repeated attempts to enact it in the past failed. It is a divisive and highly partisan idea that could take the “bi” out of bipartisan support for ethics reform legislation in a real hurry.

Opponents of ethics reform know that if a clean ethics bill is given an up-or-down vote, it will pass in both houses and will be signed into law by the governor. They know the only way to kill reform is to lace the legislation with poison. And Huebsch just tipped the obstructionists’ hand.

Howie Rich Sets Up Shop in Wisconsin

Our friends at the national Center for Public Integrity are reporting that Howard Rich has located two of his tax-exempt political organizations in Wisconsin and appears to be operating them illegally in our state.

Sure enough, the groups – the Parents in Charge Foundation and the Legislative Education Action Drive – list their addresses as 10 East Doty Street, Suite 800, Madison, WI 53703. And as of today, neither organization has been authorized to conduct business in Wisconsin by the state Department of Financial Institutions, the agency with which all nonprofit corporations must register if they are going to operate in Wisconsin.

Both of these private school voucher advocacy groups pulled up stakes across the border in Illinois and ran from the law there before landing here.

Who is Howard Rich? He's a New York real estate magnate. Friend of Grover Norquist. Godfather of the national movement to put a "Taxpayer Bill of Rights" in state constitutions. Sugar daddy to state puppet groups, like-minded candidates and a dizzying array of shell companies – Club for Growth State Action, Fund for Democracy, U.S. Term Limits, Americans for Limited Government and America at its Best. The list goes on and on.

He clearly likes to play dress-up, creating organizations around the country that sound like grassroots citizen movements but are actually pure Astroturf. There's "Oklahomans for Good Government" and "Colorado at its Best." And "Missourians in Charge." Also "Montanans in Action" and "Oregonians in Action." And "South Carolinians for Responsible Government." Then there's my personal favorite: "Protect Our Homes Idaho." All of them are really One Multimillionaire New York Real Estate Mogul with a Right-Wing Agenda.

For more on Rich and his operations, check out HowieRichexposed.com. Also go here, here and here.

Procedure Bites

This postscript to our recent blog, "Voters' #1 Concern," comes courtesy of All Politics Watch, a weblog on the online edition of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

TUESDAY, Nov. 14, 2006, 6:34 p.m.
By Patrick Marley

Freese offers advice

Madison -- Before Assembly Republicans elected new leaders today, they recognized outgoing representatives, complete with plaques from the trophy shop owned by Rep. Dean Kaufert of Neenah.

As speaker pro tempore for a decade, Rep. Steve Freese (R-Dodgeville) was in charge of running Assembly debates and playing referee when the two parties disagreed over debate rules. He lost his race last week, which some have attributed in part to his vote against bringing an ethics bill to the floor for debate.

Freese had sponsored that bill, but voted against bringing it to the floor after his colleagues decided behind closed doors to kill it.

"If anybody ever says a procedural vote will never come back to bite you, don't believe them because I can point to examples all over the state," Freese told his fellow Assembly Republicans.

Turning Off The Mic

Mega media conglomerate Clear Channel and progressive talk radio always seemed like a poor fit. Still, it was disheartening – no, make that thoroughly disgusting – to hear that Clear Channel is pulling the plug on progressive talk on Madison's Air America affiliate – WXXM 92.1 FM "The Mic" – in favor of Fox Sports Radio.

I love sports as much as the next guy, especially baseball and my beloved Chicago Cubs. And I bleed Badger red, particularly during the college basketball season. But do we need more sports on the broadcast airwaves, at the expense of passionate discussion of political issues and civic affairs no less? Of course not.

Clear Channel clearly is putting its bottom line ahead of the best interests of the citizenry and our democracy. You don't have to take my word for it. Listen to Clear Channel magnate Lowry Mays, who has been quoted saying, "We're not in the business of providing news and information.... We're simply in the business of selling our customers' products."

What Mays stunningly but deliberately overlooks is that his company has received a free license to use the public's airwaves on the condition that its programming must serve the "public interest, convenience and necessity." More sports at the expense of democracy does not meet that condition. This move should be reconsidered.

If you feel like talking back to your radio, contact the station (WXXM, 2651 South Fish Hatchery Road, Madison, WI 53701 Phone: 608-274-5450 FAX: 608-274-5521) and also Clear Channel corporate headquarters (Clear Channel, 200 East Basse Road, San Antonio, TX 78209 Phone: 1-210-822-2828). To sign a petition to WXXM's management, go here.

Voters' #1 Concern

National exit polls showed that concern about corruption and ethics in government was the top concern of voters in Tuesday's election, outranking even the Iraq war as the biggest motivating factor for the housecleaning that significantly altered the political landscape at the national and state levels alike.

Corruption was a key issue in state legislative races in every nook and cranny of Wisconsin, and ethics became a deciding factor in several. All five Assembly incumbents who were thrown out of office – Steve Freese of Dodgeville, Rob Kreibich of Eau Claire, Judy Krawczyk of Green Bay, Gabe Loeffelholz of Platteville and Mark Pettis of Hertel – were implicated in the state caucus scandal and were among the state lawmakers identified in testimony during former Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen's criminal trial as having received the illegal campaign help that Jensen was convicted of masterminding. All five also cast votes against ethics reform legislation, Senate Bill 1.

A sixth Assembly Republican incumbent may yet fall. Initial reports had Debi Towns up by six votes in the 43rd district. A canvass of the vote total now has Democratic challenger Kim Hixson ahead by nine. A recount will undoubtedly be done.

Overall, it was a rough day Tuesday for the Lobbyists' Legislature. Voters overcame formidable institutional obstacles to change – from incumbent-friendly district lines to huge cash advantages for current office holders – to significantly realign power at the Capitol.

In the Senate, three Republican incumbents were swept out and a Democrat won an open seat vacated by a Republican, giving the Democrats an 18-15 majority in the upper house. Democrats gained seats in the Assembly for the first time in 16 years, picking up a total of at least seven seats and narrowing the Republican majority to 53-46. Make that eight if Hixson ends up besting Towns in the 43rd. That would whittle the GOP majority in the lower house down to 52-47.

There were four other near misses for Democrats in Assembly races in the 47th, 80th, 87th and 96th districts. These four races were decided by a combined 1,054 votes out of more than 86,000 votes cast in those districts. Assuming Hixson holds on to his lead, then Democratic victories in three of these four districts would have given the Democrats a 50-49 majority in the Assembly. If just 624 votes in the three closest of those races had gone to challengers instead of the incumbents, Democrats would have taken over both houses of the Legislature.

Before the election, Capitol insiders were reminding everyone who would listen that all politics is local and insisting that strong anti-war sentiment and low approval ratings for President Bush and the GOP-controlled Congress would not be a factor in state legislative races. But the Legislature has been rocked by political scandals mirroring those plaguing Congress, and a strong throw-the-bums-out impulse produced a much larger turnover than anyone had predicted.

Now it's time for the newly elected state Legislature and governor to get down to business and meaningfully address the electorate's top concerns. Campaign finance and ethics reform is at the top of the agenda for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Dave Zweifel, the editor of The Capital Times, is calling on Governor Jim Doyle in particular to take the lead in pushing reform.

Are they listening? Do they hear?

Trash Talk

The Associated Press was reporting with more than a week to go until Election Day that the major parties had spent nearly $160 million in ads attacking congressional candidates, compared to $17 million spent on ads with a positive message.

As AP reported, that's nearly $10 of nasty for every dollar of nice.

Anyone who has been watching the ads in state races in Wisconsin knows that the ratio might very well be worse here.

The professional political consultants who drive the strategic decisionmaking – and the ad buys – privately admit that campaigns are getting a diminishing return on each ad because viewers are increasingly tuning out the unrelentingly trashy messages. The campaigns' response to less bang for each buck? Raise even more money and buy even more ads.

The mantra of the political pros is that negative advertising is so prevalent because it is so effective. Yeah, sure they work. They make people a helluva lot more negative about politics and politicians. They make people hold their noses and choose between the lesser of evils.

If airlines advertised the way politicians do, would anyone in America fly again?

The candidates and their handlers can't seem to see beyond Election Day. They see negative ads as their ticket to office, but then when they get there they must realize that the public sees them as something between used car salesmen and child molesters. The way they are attaining power cripples them, undermining the very thing their legitimacy as elected officials depends on. Voter trust.

Going negative may be getting them elected, but it's also making it next to impossible for them to govern. I think the bosses at the Capitol are smart enough to see that. Which brings me to the real reason they can't get their campaigns out of the gutter. It's not that negative ads are so effective. It's that they're easy. It's far easier to tear something down than to build it in the first place. And it's far easier to trash an opponent than to inspire people.

Today's ads are a reflection of the poverty that grips our democracy. The greatest tragedy of our times is the absence of political leaders with the capacity to inspire.

It's Not A Church Thing, After All

Just when we thought the blog posted earlier today covered all the bases Bishop Robert Morlino has been running on behalf of the proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and civil unions, the bishop added a peculiar new twist to this increasingly bizarre story.

The bishop today sent an open letter to "friends in the State of Wisconsin" defending his actions by seeking to distance the Catholic Church from his efforts to promote the marriage amendment. In the letter, Morlino says, "...these public positions are not 'Catholic' issues. These are not tenets of our 'faith' which we are defending. They are universal truths, based on reason alone."

When all past attempts to explain why the printing and distribution of 110,000 "Vote Yes" fliers does not amount to electioneering failed, Morlino now cites a higher law. "When we recognize the objective truth, we need to reconcile ourselves to that truth, never the other way around – this is the natural law," he wrote.

Morlino goes on to say, "This is a truth of reason; it is true for every human being. When I speak in this vein I know that some will call me arrogant for claiming to know the objective truth. This claim is actually an act of humble submission to the Creator – Whose truth this is, not mine, and Whose existence can be known by reason alone."

Which leaves us with just two questions for Bishop Morlino. The first is: Huh? The second: Now that you have that off your chest, will you respect the public's right to know and disclose how much the Madison Catholic Diocese has spent to influence the outcome of the state marriage referendum and where the money came from?

Democracy, By Order Of The Patriarch

When the Democracy Campaign recently shined light on the efforts of the Madison Catholic Diocese to influence the outcome of the statewide referendum on the proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and civil unions, Bishop Robert Morlino's first reaction was to brandish the First Amendment in his defense.

Calling for public disclosure of the diocese's political activities was an attack on freedom of religion, Morlino asserted, going as far as to say our defense of the public's right to know is "persecution" and an attempt to "intimidate" the church.

When it later dawned on the bishop that the Democracy Campaign had not challenged the diocese's right to take a position on the marriage amendment or publicly advocate its position or incorporate its position into church teachings, but rather simply wanted the diocese to publicly disclose clear electioneering activities, Morlino quickly took a different tack.

In an interview with a Madison TV station, he acknowledged that printing and distributing 110,000 fliers urging people to vote yes had "political implications" but insisted that it did not amount to electioneering because the materials were merely being offered but not forced on people. "If I had some way of forcing people to do it that would be electioneering," he reasoned.

Now it's becoming obvious that Morlino not only has an other-worldly conception of political campaigning, but also a rather unconventional idea of what constitutes "forcing." In a front-page commentary in today's Wisconsin State Journal, columnist Bill Wineke reports Morlino sent all the priests in the Madison Diocese a "personal and confidential" letter last week ordering them to play a 14-minute recorded sermon detailing his positions on the marriage amendment, the death penalty referendum and the issue of embryonic stem-cell research at all services next weekend.

The bishop warned the priests that "any verbal or non-verbal expression of disagreement with this teaching on the part of the priest will have to be considered by myself as an act of disobedience, which could have serious consequences."

TV Hates Democracy

Democracy isn't newsworthy. At least not on local TV news. That's the unavoidable conclusion of a new University of Wisconsin study showing that a typical 30-minute evening newscast featured 36 seconds of election coverage in the month after the traditional Labor Day kickoff of the 2006 election campaign season.

What the five-state study further illustrates is that local TV news really isn't all that much about the news. Well over half of a typical "newscast" is actually devoted to advertising, sports and weather.

The results of this study are staggering and downright depressing. National and regional research show that most Americans get most of their news from local television news broadcasts. Yet those newscasts offer precious little news and treat the democratic process as a non-story. The UW study shows that what little election coverage is aired focuses largely on who is likely to win, not on providing information voters can use to make up their own minds.

While substantive coverage of elections by television broadcasters is almost non-existent, the same TV stations are reaping millions of dollars from paid political advertising, which in turn drives up the cost of running for office. Voters are exposed to an exponentially larger number of political ads than substantive political news stories.

The airwaves over which stations broadcast their programming are owned by the American people, not by the broadcasters as is often mistakenly assumed. The results of the UW study show that most broadcasters are retreating from their obligation to serve the public interest, including their responsibility to inform citizens so they can participate in the political process.

Selective Enforcement And Selective Outrage

The state Elections Board decided yesterday to stick by its August 30 ruling ordering Republican candidate for governor Mark Green to get rid of nearly $468,000 in illegal donations, but punted the question of whether another $775,000 that the state Justice Department and a circuit court judge contend runs afoul of federal law should also be dumped by the Green campaign.

It's pretty obvious that political calculations and public relations implications were behind the Board's reluctance to wade any deeper into the legality of Green's money. The Board's chairman said as much, telling reporters after yesterday's meeting that the controversy over the Board's previous ruling on August 30 "kind of put the kibosh" on efforts to consider any further action.

It's somehow fitting that this latest chapter in the Board's long history of selective enforcement of Wisconsin's campaign finance laws was brought on by the selective outrage expressed by the state's political bosses, radio talk show hosts and letter-to-the-editor writers. Democrats pounced on the rulings that the donations were illegal to make Green out to be a corrupt lawbreaker. Republicans focused instead on the politicking in advance of the Elections Board's August 30 decision to characterize Green as an innocent victim of a rigged process.

In truth, Green is neither a criminal nor a victim. There is no evidence that he willfully set out to break the law. The Elections Board had previously wrongly permitted then-Congressman Tom Barrett to transfer large sums of money he raised in Washington to his campaign for governor in 2002. The Board's legal counsel also evidently gave the Green campaign some very dubious advice that left Green with the impression that he was on the right side of the law.

But how Green responded to later evidence that his money dump was in fact illegal cost him any claim to victimhood. The Democracy Campaign pointed out how the donation from Green's federal campaign committee to his campaign for governor violates Wisconsin's campaign finance laws, and Green didn't dispute the laws we cited, but rather said his donation was really a "conversion" of funds and the law shouldn't apply. When the Elections Board disagreed with this creatively murky interpretation of crystal clear laws and ordered him to divest himself of nearly a half million dollars, Green effectively said "order, schmorder." When state Justice Department attorneys and then a circuit court judge said the Elections Board had actually let Green off easy considering that nearly all of the $1.3 million his federal campaign donated to his state campaign for governor is illegal under federal law, he continued to say in effect "screw the law."

Of course, Green has every legal right to challenge the Elections Board's order and the circuit court judge's decision. But he is not following the customary legal path in exercising that right. Green's legal team clearly has assessed the chances of getting the circuit court ruling reversed on appeal and decided against following the normal route of asking the state appeals court to review the lower court's ruling. Instead, he is doing what lawyers call "forum shopping" – looking for a court that will give him the ruling he wants. His lawyers obviously have decided his best shot is before the state Supreme Court. So he's asking the state's highest court to take "original jurisdiction" over the case; in other words, pretend that Green never went to circuit court to challenge the Elections Board's order and the judge never ruled against Green. He's asking for a do-over, starting fresh with the Supreme Court.

It's already been reported in the media that at least five of the seven state Supreme Court justices have potential conflicts of interest in this case that could be serious enough to require them to recuse themselves. It was not reported that a sixth member of the court – Justice Patience Roggensack – received a $500 donation from Green for Congress on December 12, 2002.

Wisconsin's Kangaroo Court

When the Democracy Campaign raised questions about money Mark Green raised in Washington as a member of Congress and later transferred to his campaign for governor, we set out to expose illegal donations. We also ended up further exposing what's wrong with the state Elections Board. This whole episode has shown what a kangaroo court the Elections Board is.

We initially pointed out that Green was accumulating too much money from special interest political action committees (PACs) and then questioned whether federal PACs in Washington could legally contribute to a candidate for governor in Wisconsin. We found that a large number of PACs that had given Green close to a half million dollars could not make lawful donations to a state race. On those grounds, we challenged that portion of the nearly $1.3 million Green's congressional campaign committee donated to his state campaign for governor. The Elections Board ordered Green to get rid of nearly $468,000 in illegal donations.

Later, when it was revealed by state Justice Department attorneys in circuit court last week that federal law prohibits a federal committee like Green for Congress from donating more than $43,128 to a candidate for governor in Wisconsin, the Democracy Campaign filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission challenging the rest of the illegal funds.

How this all will ultimately play out, only time will tell. But what already is well established is that the Elections Board has thoroughly discredited itself.

Back in 2001, the Democracy Campaign objected to then-Congressman Tom Barrett's transfer of money he raised in Washington to the state campaign committee he used to finance his 2002 run for governor. The Elections Board permitted the transfer. We objected to Green's transfer on the same grounds and the Board chose to enforce the law.

Both transfers were plainly illegal. Barrett moved $346,545 in PAC money from his congressional account to his state campaign, including $267,300 from PACs that were not registered in Wisconsin and could not legally donate to a candidate for governor here. Barrett also proceeded to raise more PAC money in Wisconsin, bringing his total haul from special interest committees to $676,796 – well over the $485,190 cumulative limit in state law on PAC donations to candidates for governor.

The law is clear. It was illegal for Barrett to try to use all that money he raised in Washington for his campaign for governor in 2002, and it is illegal for Green to use $1.3 million in Washington money now. But the Elections Board has succeeded in removing the focus from the law and clouding the issue because of its habit of making decisions based on politics and not the law.

The Elections Board has been horribly inconsistent in how it has handled federal-to-state transfers and has done a generally miserable job of enforcing Wisconsin's campaign finance laws. This latest performance has provided a very vivid illustration of why the Board needs to be reformed.

Starting A Ruckus

At last Saturday's Fighting Bob Fest in Baraboo, organizers of the People's Legislature announced one of the next steps for this multi-partisan, grassroots reform movement – the formation of a "Ruckus Corps" of citizen volunteers who will create a little havoc in fighting government corruption and pressing for action on reform at the Capitol and in their own communities.

Training sessions will be organized for later this fall to prepare Ruckus Corps volunteers to engage in direct action, including acts of civil disobedience, at the Capitol and in the home districts of state lawmakers. The training also will aim to equip the corps with community organizing and reform advocacy skills.

Anyone interested in becoming part of the Ruckus Corps should call the Democracy Campaign at 608-255-4260 or toll-free at 888-455-4260, or drop us an e-mail at wisdc@wisdc.org and provide a mailing address, phone number and e-mail address.

All This For $28 Million

As we reported last Friday, the state Justice Department responded to concerns raised by the Democracy Campaign by ruling that the state Elections Board has to comply with a voter privacy law in Wisconsin's statutes. Registration numbers assigned to each voter need to be kept confidential as election officials compile voter lists under a new computerized registration system being developed for the state by the global outsourcing firm Accenture.

Now we're finding out how the Elections Board intends to do this. Despite sinking $28 million into the new statewide voter registration system, the Board's solution to the voter privacy issue we raised is decidedly low-tech.

Poll workers are now being instructed to cover voter registration numbers when allowing observers to view voter lists on Election Day or fulfilling open records requests for the lists. Recommended ways to protect voter privacy on the computer-generated lists include covering the numbers with a ruler, a piece of paper or remnants of file folders.

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.