Former state Senate Majority Leader Chuck Chvala was found guilty of two felonies today and is headed to jail. Under the plea agreement presented to Dane County Judge David Flanagan this morning, Chvala pleaded guilty to misconduct in office and arranging illegal campaign contributions.
Politicians love polls. Most of them won't move a muscle unless a trusted pollster tells them it's safe. But here's a poll the State Capitol crowd won't know what to do with. A citizen survey released today by the self-described "free market think tank" Wisconsin Policy Research Institute found that only 6% of Wisconsin residents believe their elected officials represent the interests of their constituents on important issues.
We issued a report yesterday on Governor Jim Doyle's fundraising during the first half of 2005 that showed he received more than $200,000 in campaign donations from out-of-state donors from January to June. Among the contributions was nearly $6,000 from SBC Communications executives in Texas. The donations were made shortly before the telecommunications giant got a $116 million state contract to design a new video and data network for the state and University of Wisconsin System.
Republican Senator Dave Zien and Representative Scott Suder want Democratic Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager to stop picking on the special interests who give them a lot of money.
Papermaking giant Georgia-Pacific announced plans October 4 to lay off hundreds of its Green Bay plant employees almost a year to the day after it was handed a forgivable $500,000 state loan by Governor Jim Doyle to help retrain the plant’s employees.
Brian Burke, once the powerful co-chairman of the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee and odds-on favorite to be elected state attorney general, is now a convicted felon and is headed to jail. He is about to lose his freedom and probably his law license, but not his lobbying credentials. According to the state Ethics Board, which seemingly has never seen ethical corner-cutting it could not tolerate, Burke can remain a licensed lobbyist. Apparently, the Ethics Board is OK with him calling clients and lawmakers from a prison cell.
The Operating Engineers Local 139 political action committee is paving new ground. The once-staunch contributor to Democratic candidates for the Legislature and statewide office gave $4,000 of its $18,276 in campaign contributions to two GOP leadership committees – the Republican Assembly Campaign Committee and the Committee to Elect a Republican Senate – during the first six months of 2005.
Former Senator Brian Burke, once the odds-on favorite to be elected state attorney general, will be convicted tomorrow of crimes related to the Capitol corruption scandal under a plea agreement he has reached with prosecutors.
Public outrage over Wisconsin's disastrous agreement with Accenture LLP to develop the state's voter registration system already had forced changes to the contract protecting voter privacy and enabling state officials to inspect the computer source code the company writes to program the computers used for voter registration. Now it looks like public scrutiny is saving state taxpayers millions.
If anyone is still wondering why the state Assembly is called the "lower house" of the Legislature, look no further than what one reporter called the "bizarre turn of events" when the GOP-led body apparently voted to override Governor Jim Doyle's veto of higher payments to nursing homes serving patients in the state's Medicaid program.