It’s been a terrible autumn for Wisconsin’s clean government. Republican legislators went wild gutting our campaign finance regulations, neutering the ethics and elections watchdog and preventing prosecutors from using John Doe investigations to look into potential criminal behavior of elected officials. All of these measures open the door to corruption.
But legislators can begin cleaning up government right now and the first step they can take is to tighten restrictions on lobbying. Currently, former public officials must wait one year before they can lobby on behalf of a special interest group. Legislators and some of their staffers, interestingly enough, are exempt from this state law. This loophole is practically encouraging legislators to vote on behalf of companies or special interest groups so that they can immediately get a high-paying, perks-laden job when they leave office. A February report by WisconsinEye’s Steven Walters found that 20 ex-legislators are currently registered as lobbyists, including former Republican Assembly speakers Jeff Fitzgerald, John Gard and Scott Jensen.
But the bipartisan Revolving Door bill, authored by state Rep. Dana Wachs (D-Eau Claire) and state Sen. Duey Stroebel (R-Saukville) would close that loophole and include legislators in that 12-month cooling-down period. The bill currently has 18 Democratic and 11 Republican sponsors, indicating that many fair-minded legislators want to restore some aspect of Wisconsin’s clean government history after this disastrous autumn.
A previous version of the bill didn’t get a hearing but we urge Republican legislative leaders to allow the Revolving Door bill to be heard in committee then taken up for a vote. Since three of the last Republican Assembly speakers are now highly paid lobbyists, we are not optimistic that Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, who led the way in destroying our clean government provisions over the past year, will have a change of heart and do the honest thing. So we the voters must become more vigilant and determined to ensure that our legislators are working for Wisconsin’s voters, not Wisconsin’s special interests. This is not a Democratic or Republican issue; it is an honest government issue. Other than the private special interest groups and the legislators who benefit from these special interests, who can oppose clean, honest government?
