Our elected officials just keep lying to us about campaign finance reform—while raising wheelbarrows of cash for the next election.
Fool me once
By
Jay Heck
The August 2003 issue of Common Cause in Wisconsin’s newsletter carried this headline: “Reform Legislation Front and Center This Fall.”
It’s a lie, and we’re sorry.
Of course, we were duped, too. We were all led to believe that reform would be the top priority of the Legislature and the governor during the current floor session. But not only is reform not front and center this fall, it is virtually off the radar screen.
A year ago, the legislative caucus scandal investigation reached its dramatic climax when Wisconsin’s top legislative leaders were charged with a combined 41 felonies (and a misdemeanor for good measure) for crimes relating to illegal campaign fundraising, including extortion and misconduct in office. It was the most serious and widespread political scandal in Wisconsin's 155-year history. A year later, none have yet been brought to trial as some of the accused utilize their ill-gotten campaign cash to pay high-priced lawyers to delay the legal process.
In the wake of the Watergate scandal almost 30 years ago, Congress passed and President Ford signed into law sweeping campaign finance reforms. The states followed suit, and Wisconsin was the first state to enact public financing for state elections, an ethics code, and an open meetings law. Now all these reforms are full of loopholes so big you could drive a fleet of Stoughton Trailers through them.
In the wake of the legislative caucus scandal, the Wisconsin Legislature and Governor Jim Doyle have...done nothing.
Doyle ran and may have won the Democratic nomination for governor last year by calling for an end to the heavy-handed, scandal-tainted legislative leadership of Chuck Chvala and Scott Jensen. Doyle vowed to restore integrity to Wisconsin government and promised a "new day" in our politics by cutting the umbilical cord now linking public policymaking and campaign contributions. New Senate majority leader Mary Panzer said reform was needed; even the new Assembly speaker John Gard--who has long opposed reform--said things had to change.
A year after the charges against Chvala, Jensen, Brian Burke, Steve Foti and Bonnie Ladwig were filed things have changed. They have gotten even worse.
Doyle, Panzer and Gard all agreed to delay consideration of reform until after the 2003 budget was completed rather than make it the first order of business this year. Why? They did not say this, but it was to utilize the budget process to shake down the special interest groups and campaign contributors.
Campaign fundraising during the budget process was up--way up over 2001, 1999 and all other previous budget-writing years. Doyle socked away more than half a million dollars in his first six months in office while the budget was being crafted. John Gard pulled in nearly $100,000 and worked feverishly, shaping the budget by day and attending fundraisers for his own campaign fund and for his G.O.P. minions by night and on the weekends.
On a Friday in May, Gard shepherded an overly generous road construction budget appropriation through the Joint Finance Committee, and the following Monday he was rewarded for his "leadership" at a road builder's fundraising event in Janesville. There is some debate as to whether Gard represents his district in Peshtigo or the district where he lives in Sun Prairie, but either way, he is not from Janesville. During the very same week, Gard was collecting campaign cash at the Racine Country Club. But there was absolutely no quid pro quo, the speaker indignantly insisted.
The budget was finished in July, clearing the way for reform this fall. Right? But hold the phone. Instead of cleaning up corruption in state government, our lawmakers (and some of the alleged lawbreakers still in office, pending their trials) heard a more important calling. Wisconsinites are apparently very confused about how to define marriage. This widespread confusion needed to be addressed immediately, before reform.
Also dwarfing citizen concerns about reform, the sagging economy, the continuing exodus of good jobs from Wisconsin, tax equity and the ongoing war in Iraq has been the overwhelming anxiety Wisconsinites have about not being able to carry a concealed, loaded revolver.
What about reform? It apparently just is not that urgent after all. Besides, the 2004 election season has already begun.
The fight to achieve campaign finance reform, said Watergate special prosecutor and former Common Cause chair Archie Cox, is a long, hard and often bitter process that is definitely not for the feint of heart. Like the battle for civil rights and equal rights for women (neither which has been completely won), the battle for campaign finance reform can take years, and even decades.
In 2002, the first reform in 28 years was finally enacted for federal elections when the McCain-Feingold legislation went into effect. It took Russ Feingold and John McCain seven long years to get their legislation--which was vastly scaled back from their original measure--signed into law by a reluctant President Bush. The final result essentially eliminates loopholes in federal law first enacted in 1906 and 1947.
Sometimes “reform” is simply holding on to reforms achieved in the past. But the fact that Congress passed any reform at all was in and of itself remarkable, accomplished against very long odds.
In Wisconsin, it has been a mere 26 years since our state campaign finance laws were last changed to any meaningful degree. In 1977, Wisconsin had the cleanest elections and the most honest and untainted public policymaking process in the nation. Today, our politics are conducted in a special interest cesspool, and public policy is made behind closed doors with a campaign cash register. Even the Chicago Tribune has taken notice of the ongoing mess here.
So when will reform be “front and center” in Wisconsin? A) When the trials of Burke, Chvala, Jensen and company finally begin and public attention is focused on the fundraising scandal again? B) When the Cubs and Red Sox face off in the World Series? C) When Hell freezes over?
I honestly do not know. But reform will come sooner rather than later if enough citizens demand that Gard, Panzer and Doyle give us back our state government. If we don’t, then they won’t.
November 2, 2003
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Jay Heck lives in Madison and is executive director of Common Cause in Wisconsin.
