Looks like the final weeks of the Legislature’s last floor period of 2015 will be dominated by bills that boost the Republicans’ hold on power and money—and open the door to more corruption in office.
Fast-tracked bills to gut the elections watchdog and John Doe law, and increase campaign contributions—including anonymous donations and donations from corporations—are taking up valuable time that could be spent on improving the state’s economic outlook, job creation and education.
Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca (D-Kenosha) was blunt in his assessment of the Republicans’ proposals. In a memo to reporters he wrote, “With these campaign finance changes being fast-tracked—without even allowing time for legislators, our legislative service agencies, members of the media or the public to fully comprehend and debate the changes—I believe this will lead to significant corruption in our state.”
What’s the rush? Well, next year is full of elections and the Republicans seem to be jamming through bills that would neuter the board overseeing elections and ethics, unleash even more campaign money, and prevent prosecutors from using John Doe proceedings to look into potential crimes committed by corrupt elected officials and their allied special interests.
“Taken together the changes being rushed through by the right-wing majority are a major step toward legalizing bribery,” said Robert Kraig, executive director of Citizen Action of Wisconsin. “If politicians can direct the expenditure of unlimited campaign cash spent by dark money groups, and there is no credible public watchdog to investigate corruption, then our public policy will serve those with the money to buy politicians rather than the needs and aspirations of average Wisconsinites.”
Even when Republicans try to do something right—like trying to make it easier to vote by allowing online voter registration—they get it wrong. One bipartisan bill rushing through the Legislature had bipartisan support but Democrats pulled out when a last-minute amendment ended the use of special registration deputies, the folks who go out into the community to help people register to vote. Republicans argued that potential voters could sign up online, assuming that everyone has easy access to a computer.
The bills are part of an undeniable trend to end good-government policies in Wisconsin, which once had a “squeaky-clean reputation,” according to Common Cause in Wisconsin Executive Director Jay Heck.
“In a very short time, Wisconsin has been transformed from an exceptional state, a model for the rest of the nation, to somewhere between Texas and Mississippi,” Heck said. “In some ways the fall has been steeper in this state than in any other state over the last few years. I think it’s a real tragedy.”
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Killing the GAB
Rumors have been swirling for ages that the Republicans wanted to kill the Government Accountability Board (GAB), the independent, nonpartisan elections and ethics watchdog that was created in 2007 on a near-unanimous vote in the Legislature. The GAB is led by retired judges—currently, five of the six have Republican backgrounds—and a staff of elections and ethics experts. GAB staffers do much of their work in secret, since those under investigation by the GAB were given the right to privacy by the legislators who created the board. Although the GAB is a nationally lauded model, it’s been the target of numerous attacks—most recently, by Republicans upset by the GAB’s role in the John Doe investigations into Gov. Scott Walker’s links to friendly special interest groups.
Despite the months of rumors, the actual bill putting a stake in the heart of the GAB didn’t surface until late in the day of Friday, Oct. 9, with public legislative hearings following on Tuesday, Oct. 13. While Republicans claimed that the public had enough time to review the bill and comment on it, Democratic members of the committee cried foul.
There’s a likely reason why the GOP didn’t want the public and good government groups to see the actual bill. The bill would chop up the GAB and return to the model in place during the caucus scandal of the early 2000s, when legislators had set up campaign shops in the Capitol—which did illegal campaign work that wasn’t uncovered by the official watchdog, but by a reporter and the local district attorney.
The proposed “reform” currently in the Legislature would create two six-member boards, one to oversee elections and the other to oversee ethics. Each board would consist of three members appointed by the two major political parties, virtually guaranteeing tied votes and no action. In essence, the new boards are designed to fail and they wouldn’t be able to enforce our ethics and elections laws, enabling corrupt candidates to break campaign finance laws without fear of investigation. Democratic critics of the bill called it “payback” for the GAB’s participation in investigating Walker.
In addition, the bill would take away GAB’s funding for investigations. If passed, the GAB could have up to $25,000 to investigate potential cases of corruption, but then staff would have to ask the Joint Finance Committee—made up of legislators—for more funds. So if you’re a member of the majority party that dominates the JFC—currently Republicans—you’d have no fear of being the target of a serious investigation.
Although Republicans seem to be united in gutting the GAB, only one group is lobbying on the bill’s behalf—the Koch brothers-funded Americans for Prosperity, which apparently was caught up in the John Doe investigation of Walker that got the GAB’s blessing.
Unleashing More Money in the Capitol
In addition to neutering the GAB, in another fast-tracked bill Republican legislators are trying to loosen campaign finance restrictions and allow money to flood the Capitol. Their proposal would double the current campaign finance limits to candidates but also allow unlimited sums—including unlimited donations from corporations—to be given to political committees controlled by Assembly and Senate leaders. This undoubtedly will return Wisconsin to the days of the caucus scandal by increasing the power, campaign chests and influence of top legislators.
The bill would codify into law the recent Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling that ended the John Doe investigation into Walker and his political allies. So candidates will be able to coordinate with special interest groups, which can take in unlimited, secret donations, as long as the ads in question don’t explicitly contain magic words such as “vote for” or “vote against.” That would render the state’s campaign finance limits meaningless, since donors could give unlimited sums to groups they know are working with a specific candidate.
The John Doe prosecutors say this is precisely what Walker and his allies—most prominently, the Wisconsin Club for Growth—did during the 2011 and 2012 recalls specifically to get around the state’s campaign finance regulations prohibiting such coordination. But the state’s highest court didn’t agree, saying that candidates do have the right to coordinate on so-called issue ads. (Four members of the conservative majority benefited from $10 million in spending by the outside groups that were at the heart of the investigation and the groups they control, but these justices refused to recuse themselves from the case and voted in their benefactors’ favor.) Wisconsin is an outlier in this and it’s likely that prosecutors will appeal the decision before the U.S. Supreme Court. If this bill is passed, the Republican-dominated Legislature will give its blessing to Walker’s activities and codify into law the Supreme Court’s highly contentious ruling.
But that’s not all. A catch-all, 167-item amendment was introduced late in the Assembly Campaign and Elections Committee debate last Thursday. Democrats again objected that they once again didn’t have time to study the amendment or its implications. Yet Republicans went ahead with their vote to support it. One highlight is no longer requiring donors who give more than $200 to identify their employers on campaign finance forms. State Rep. Joe Sanfelippo (R-West Allis) called that information “irrelevant.” But One Wisconsin Now countered that without that information, the public wouldn’t have known that the Ashley Furniture owners and the owner of BCI donated to the governor and got approval for tax credits and loans from Wisconsin Environmental Development Corp. (WEDC).
Bye Bye, John Doe
Yet another bill Republicans are rushing through is weakening the state’s John Doe law, which was used and brought down legislators in both parties during the caucus scandal, and used successfully to investigate Walker’s county aides but shut down during the investigation into Walker’s political activities during the recalls. Under the Republicans’ proposal, prosecutors couldn’t use a John Doe to investigate cases of political corruption. The bill was debated earlier this year, when Walker’s John Doe case was pending before the state Supreme Court. Back then, former Milwaukee County District Attorney E. Michael McCann—who prosecuted legislative leadership as part of the caucus scandal—testified against the bill, saying that John Doe proceedings are absolutely necessary for political corruption investigations. And that’s precisely why the Republican majority wants to get rid of them.
