Big Money Blog

If You Add Up All The Special Interests, Do They Equal The Public Interest?

Friday, August 05, 2005

More than a half-million people in Wisconsin have no health insurance and hundreds of thousands more are a pink slip away from being unable to take their kids to the doctor. State school funding policies are such a disaster that one school district recently declared bankruptcy and voted to shut down. Every lake in Wisconsin is contaminated with mercury and there have been repeated air quality alerts this summer.

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Breaking The Code

Thursday, July 28, 2005

If anyone wonders why the Democracy Campaign and other critics of Wisconsin's contract with Accenture to develop a computerized statewide voter registration list made such a big deal about the underlying computer source code remaining the private property of the company under the original agreement, take a look at this. (You need RealPlayer to view it. If you don't have it, go here.) The video clip features sworn testimony computer programmer Clinton Curtis gave at a congressional hearing. Curtis describes how easy it is to alter vote totals and fix election results, and says it can be done without a trace . . . unless you can inspect the source code.

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Doyle Budget Super Sizes Big Business

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Governor Doyle's 2005-07 state budget increases the amount of multi-million dollar grants, cheap loans and tax breaks the state can give to big business and wealthy contributors, the Democracy Campaign has found.

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Progressive Or Porkressive?

Thursday, July 21, 2005

A life-long Republican businessman from Sturgeon Bay says he thinks Democratic Governor Jim Doyle's administration is good for Wisconsin. What he didn't say is that his company will probably be the beneficiary of $8 million worth of state business grants courtesy of Doyle's 2005-07 state budget.

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Disappearing Act

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Wisconsin Right to Life is the latest special interest group to go below the radar with its efforts to influence state elections. In 2002, the anti-abortion lobbying group ranked 13th among interest groups in so-called "independent expenditures," disclosing campaign spending in 69 Assembly races and 12 Senate races. In 2000, WRL was the 7th highest spender in legislative races, reporting campaign spending for or against candidates in 64 Assembly districts and eight Senate districts.

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Spinning Incompetence

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

In response to the splitting headache that the Accenture voter-list deal has become, the state Elections Board recently did what any embattled government agency would do: It hired a spin doctor.

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And Here We Thought Every Day Is Paul La Schiazza Day

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

The Appleton Post-Crescent recently sifted through more than 1,000 proclamations issued by Governor Jim Doyle since he took office in 2003. Most are silly but perfectly harmless and a few are downright hilarious, but one in particular caught our attention. Doyle proclaimed June 4, 2004 Paul La Schiazza Day. On May 10, 2004 La Schiazza made a $1,000 contribution to Doyle's re-election campaign. La Schiazza is president of telecommunications giant SBC Wisconsin.

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No Trespassing! Property of Special Interests

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Republican Representative Frank Lasee of Bellevue recently railed about a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that allows local governments to take someone’s property and give it to developers or corporations that will use it to generate more taxes. “Government can take it for no better reason than somebody with deeper pockets wants it,” Lasee said.

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Justice Delayed

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

It took 418 days for Michael Jackson to be indicted, tried and acquitted of child molestation charges, 275 days passed between Martha Stewart's indictment and her conviction for obstruction of justice and insider trading, and it took 473 days for murder charges filed against O.J. Simpson to be dismissed.

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Pulp Protection

Friday, June 24, 2005

Wisconsin's paper industry is buying up some good insider influence in the Legislature and providing a safety net for four former legislative leaders turned contract lobbyists.

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  • Fascism

    A guide for study and resistance

  • Big Money Bulletin

    This page serves as an archive for past Big Money Bulletins, the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign’s bimonthly newsletter for members.

  • Influence Peddlers

    in our feature, “Influence Peddler of the Month,” the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign takes you behind the scenes and calls out the players.