When You Gotta Go, You Gotta Give

Tuesday, May 08, 2012

Hardly any of the innovative energy in the political world is put to work solving real problems. That's because politicians and their handlers are spending almost all of their time thinking up ways to raise campaign money. Sometimes it's creative, most often it's crass. You've heard of pay to play. Now it looks like it's pay to pee. Hey, if you can spare a hundred bucks for the big rally there'll be a porta-potty for you to use when nature calls!

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Why GOP's Rich-Poor Alliance Is Fragile

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

As duly noted, the Democrats find themselves impaled on the horns of a dilemma. They still see themselves as working-class champions, but they've lost the rural working poor who now faithfully vote Republican. If they do more than pay lip service to these workers' plight, they alienate their donors (who, truth be told, look an awful lot like Republican donors). But if they don't take concrete steps to once again become the party of the poor, it's darn hard to see how they cobble together a governing majority.

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Why Unions And Democrats Have Lost Ground

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Let me start by saying that joining a union in the workplace is a basic human right. That's not just my opinion, it is a statement of fact. That right is found in Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, approved by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948 with the United States voting yes.

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Biz PAC Fined For Excessive Contributions; Walker Returns Money

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

A political action committee was fined by the state for collecting $170,000 in excessive donations that were used to finance contributions to Governor Scott Walker’s recall campaign, the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign has learned.

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Falk Heads Outside Wisconsin For Campaign Cash

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Turns out Kathleen Falk, a Democrat who wants to face Republican Governor Scott Walker in a likely recall election, plans on hitting up special interests for campaign cash at a Chicago fundraiser Friday.

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Dems Go West For Recall Cash

Friday, March 16, 2012

The head of the state Democratic Party was in California Thursday raising money from wealthy special interests for Republican Governor Scott Walker's likely recall election.

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Walker Draws $200K Over Lunch In Palm Beach

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Republican Governor Scott Walker reportedly raised $200,000 over lunch Wednesday in Palm Beach, Florida where a mining baron who wanted to start a northern Wisconsin iron mine lives.

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"A Deal's A Deal". . . Until Donations Pour In

Monday, March 05, 2012

Fifteen wealthy contributors who support expanding the state’s school choice program gave $443,550 to Republican Governor Scott Walker and legislative Republicans between mid-October and mid-January when legislative action to curb the program’s expansion stalled, a Democracy Campaign review found.

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Rip Van Winkling Us To Death

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

In Washington Irving's 19th Century tale, a colonial villager of Dutch descent by the name of Rip Van Winkle wanders up into the mountains of New York with his dog and his gun and comes upon some men of odd appearance playing ninepins. He drinks some of their liquor and falls asleep. When he wakes up, his dog is nowhere to be seen, his gun is rusted, his joints are stiff and his clothes ragged, and his beard has grown a foot or more.

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Banks In Foreclosure Settlement Gave $45K+ To Candidates

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Employees and political action committees of four banks involved in a $25 billion settlement for mortgage foreclosure and service abuses contributed $45,674 to state candidates, including $5,765 to Republican Governor Scott Walker, according to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.

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Flattering Grover Norquist

Thursday, February 09, 2012

If imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery, the Democratic establishment must be quite fond of Grover Norquist's tactics. Norquist is best known for the rigid anti-tax pledge he's managed to get almost all Republican members of Congress to sign.

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Senator Was Against Disclosure Before She Was For It

Wednesday, February 01, 2012

Republican State Senator Mary Lazich demanded full and immediate disclosure of people who signed the recall petitions against the governor, but she isn't so keen about public disclosure and transparency when it comes to thousands of special interest campaign contributors to her campaign and other state officeholders.

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Senate Recall Targets Attract Big Donors

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Four Republican senators targeted for recall later this year collectively raised $260,434 in five weeks, thanks mostly to a small band of wealthy special interest donors, including Milwaukee’s chamber of commerce which gave three of them $10,000 each.

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The Man Behind The Mine

Friday, January 13, 2012

Wisconsin's legislature will soon decide whether to reopen part of the northwoods to iron ore mining. Much has been written and said about the proposed new mine in the Penokee-Gogebic Range, but not much attention has been paid to the man behind the project and the sprawling global conglomerate he is connected to.

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The Age Of Ethical Flexibility

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

People in politics have a funny idea of right and wrong. If my side does it, it's right. If the other side does it, it's wrong.

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Disclosure Isn't Enough

Thursday, January 05, 2012

This is going to sound funny coming from someone who spends nearly every waking hour tracking political money in Wisconsin and shining light on the legal bribery that is the trademark of today's politics.

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True Conservatives Should Demand Campaign Finance Reform

Monday, December 19, 2011

I can't be the only one who has noticed that those who most vigorously defend and promote the dominance of the One Percent's money in elections also claim to want smaller government.

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Blessing The 'Wink And Nod'

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Yesterday a federal appeals court struck down a decades-old Wisconsin law limiting what individuals can give in a year to political action committees to $10,000. Reinforcing the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the Citizens United case and extending the high court's money-is-speech doctrine, the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the longstanding $10,000 limit violated the free speech rights of interest groups that sponsor their own political ads.

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Playing Games With Clean Government Laws

Thursday, December 08, 2011

I was asked in recent weeks to write an assessment of Wisconsin's campaign finance disclosure laws and their enforcement for a six-state review being done by the Midwest Democracy Network. Here's what I had to say about the agency responsible for enforcing our state's election and campaign finance laws:

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Paying For The First Amendment

Friday, December 02, 2011

The Walker Administration's new Capitol access policy is designed to make people pay to peaceably assemble, petition their government and exercise free speech.

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What's A Recallable Offense?

Thursday, December 01, 2011

Without coming right out and saying so, Wisconsin State Journal columnist Chris Rickert's column in this morning's paper raises the question of whether restrictions should be placed on the constitutional right to recall public officials in Wisconsin.

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What One Person Can Do

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

In this age of political disillusionment, the greatest threat to the republic is not rampant corruption itself, but rather the widespread feelings of powerlessness in the face of that corruption.

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And We Wait

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Six weeks ago today the Democracy Campaign filed an open records request with the state Government Accountability Board seeking documentation of any enforcement action relating to the law requiring disclosure of the occupation and employer of campaign donors who give more than $100. We are still waiting for the information we seek.

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Justice David Prosser, R - Beyond Wisconsin

Friday, November 11, 2011

Three of every four dollars in individual contributions raised by Supreme Court Justice David Prosser's reelection campaign and another committee created to pay for his recount expenses came from donors outside the state - much of it from a scant seven contributors, a Wisconsin Democracy Campaign review found.

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