Thursday, December 31, 2009

In the News - December 2009




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Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Wisconsin Right to Life's Assault on the "Impartial Justice" State Supreme Court Reform Law Will Not Go Unchallenged


Press Release
December 22, 2009


CONTACT:

Jay Heck – 608/256-2686



Wisconsin Right to Life's Assault on Impartial Justice Will Not Go Unchallenged

Late last Friday afternoon, Wisconsin Right to Life (WRTL) -- an organization that has long hated any and all campaign finance reform -- filed a lawsuit in Federal Court to block and strike down part of the Impartial Justice Act- the new law that provides full public financing to qualifying candidates for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, that was signed by Governor Jim Doyle on December 1st. The suit alleges that the matching funds provision of the law - under which candidates who abide by spending limits would be eligible to receive a capped amount of matching funds if outside groups (like WRTL) spend against them or for their opponent - "chills" the speech of outside groups (like WRTL).

We emphatically disagree with WRTL. The matching funds provision does nothing to prevent WRTL and other outside groups from spending and running their communications. It simply provides the target of their attacks with limited means to defend themselves so that the election is not completely dominated by the outside special interest groups (like WRTL). A similar provision was upheld by the courts in North Carolina, which also has a full public financing system (and matching funds) for state supreme court elections.

To read the press release issued by WRTL's Indiana-based lawyer go here: Wisconsin Right to Life files suit against 'Impartial Justice' bill and then - See the lawsuit

To read news accounts in the Associated Press and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which include Common Cause in Wisconsin's reaction to the WRTL lawsuit, see: Federal lawsuit filed over Wis. campaign law and Group sues over public financing of court candidates

Also today, failed 2009 Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Randy Koschnick, together with the Virginia-based Center for Competitive Politics, a right-wing, anti-reform group, filed a lawsuit against the Impartial Justice law on even broader grounds than WRTL. To find out more, see: Koschnick suit challenges constitutionality of Impartial Justice. To read the complaint, go here.

CC/WI is reviewing all the options available in defending this sweeping new campaign finance reform law against these vicious attacks. We are in touch with state and national legal experts and we will do all that we can to protect the integrity of Wisconsin's Impartial Justice Act -- the most significant and sweeping campaign finance reform to become law since 1977.

Stay tuned............................
* * *

As 2009 draws to an end, please consider making a contribution to support the work of Common Cause in Wisconsin. Your assistance, in any amount, would be welcome and needed. Please mail your check or credit card payment to the address below or call Jay Heck at 608/256-2686. To download a form to send with your donation, go here.

Thanks and Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

__________________________________________

Jay Heck, Executive Director
Common Cause in Wisconsin
152 W. Johnson St., Suite 212
Madison, WI 53703
608/256-2686

Want Good Government?
Join Common Cause in Wisconsin!
www.CommonCauseWisconsin.org

Stay informed - Follow CC/WI on Twitter!
twitter / CommonCauseWI

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Reform Event in Milwaukee on January 25, 2010



Common Cause
in Wisconsin
Public Forum - Milwaukee



What Ever Happened to Good Government in Wisconsin?

*** And How Should We Fix It? ***

Monday, January 25, 2010
6:30–8:00PM

Alumni Memorial Union, Room 227 – Marquette University
1442 West Wisconsin Ave, Milwaukee, WI

** Free and Open to the Public -- Light Refreshments will be Served **


Please come join in the discussion and learn more about:
  • Campaign finance reform and why it is needed - or not
  • Public Financing – welfare for politicians? Or is it needed to make politicians beholden to citizens, not special interest groups?
  • The disclosure and regulation of interest-group “phony issue ads” and other “outside” spending - is this necessary or would it stifle “free speech”?
  • The new “Impartial Justice” Law and the lawsuits against it
  • The need for redistricting reform in Wisconsin – why and how do we do it?
  • Implications of the January 21st, 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision on corporate and union money in politics
Panelists:

Political Science Professer John McAdams of Marquette University
Former Milwaukee County District Attorney E. Michael McCann
State Representative Jeff Stone (R-Greendale)
State Senator Jim Sullivan (D-Wauwatosa)
Executive Director Jay Heck of Common Cause in Wisconsin

Moderator:

Professor Barrett McCormick - Chair, Marquette Political Science Department

Presented by: Common Cause in Wisconsin
(Underwritten by The Joyce Foundation)

Co-Sponsors: Marquette Political Science Department, Marquette College Democrats, Marquette College Republicans, Marquette Democracy Matters, Marquette Pi Sigma Alpha, League of Women Voters of Milwaukee county, League of Women Voters Wisconsin Education Fund, The Coalition of Wisconsin Aging Groups, Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Americans



To see a larger map with nearby parking, go here.



For more information: call Sandra Miller at (608) 658-2109

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Nothing ventured



A W
isconsin Political Fix
not just another blog
December 22, 2009

By Bill Kraus

John Torinus and Tom Hefty have weighed in and given the state an 'F' on their economic test. They are tough graders, but it is hard to argue with their facts about lost jobs, low family incomes, shrinking wages.

So what will reverse these discouraging trends? I don’t hear anyone suggesting that the mainstays of the 20th century Wisconsin economy like paper, heavy machinery, and auto-related manufacturing are likely to return to their glory years.

The same article touts the cluster strategy that would build on still lively assets like GE’s medical equipment and Milwaukee’s hundred plus water related companies. They do not emphasize the prospects of the small, fledgling idea-driven companies being spawned by Wisconsin’s research universities and institutions in, mostly, Madison and Milwaukee but they have in the past.

Happily they do not dwell on the usual government suspects: taxes, fees, regulation, attitude. They lament instead the lack of a new economic strategy for the state and by the state.

They do view the dismal state of providing the kind of high-risk, venture capital that is mother’s milk these aforementioned start-ups and early second stage enterprises need with rightful alarm.

This, happily, is something that state government can do something about. Or can it?

The Democrats in the state Senate have put together a stimulus proposal that would put modest amounts of state money into the hands of entrepreneurs to nourish and encourage job creation.

Why not a full fledged venture capital program which would grow the state’s economy with a tiny percentage of the money (more than $70 billion at the moment) being invested by the state investment board on behalf of the thousands of people who have retired or will retire from their jobs in state and local government and education?

As it happens, I can tell you why not. This idea surfaced some 30 years ago and was immediately and vigorously opposed by the state employees’ union, the directors of local government organizations, and the state teachers union.

These risk-averse organizations preferred investments in the blue chips like, say, General Motors. So how well did that work out?

It would be foolish to pretend the safety firsters (if indeed there are any safe places) don’t have a point. Venture investing is a risky business, and the rules of venture investing make its operatives easy marks for the advocates of the more traditional AAA stocks and bonds, even though these are unhappily in some disrepute these days.

But this doesn’t make venture investing less risky or protect it from criticism.

This is why: Venture investing, not unlike baseball, is mostly about failure. Even the best of the best in baseball and in venture investing rarely bat .300. This is bad.

What is worse is that those venture investments that go bad do so quickly. So right out of the box, the most canny practitioners have to own up to and abandon--this is another unpleasant aspect of successful venture investing--the early losers.

To succeed, venture investors have to spread their money around. If they want to get three successes they have to make 10 investments, seven of which will either fail completely or simply mog along and produce little if any in the way of earnings and growth. Those that fail, what’s more, have to be jettisoned. Successful venture investors are ruthless about adhering to a “no good money after bad” strategy.

It is not hard to imagine what kind of public outcry will ensue from early failures and fast reinvestments with what is essentially public money because the public will have to replace those losses with more tax money if the three winners in this hypothetical example don’t come through.

Can any elected official stand up to this kind of criticism? These are the same people who caved in on indexing the gas tax when the talk-radio people raised the decibel level on that penny ante burden during the $4-a-gallon trauma.

If they can and will, however, the rewards are provably worth it. Those three winners and the one heroic success of those three represent the future, the next Wisconsin economy. No one knows what they will be. No one knew a century ago that a salesman and a hardware dealer in the Fox River Valley would have an idea that would become Kimberly-Clark, or that a man who built a dam in Wisconsin Rapids would find a way to use the excess power it created to make coated paper.

Wisconsin has the money. What Wisconsin needs is the will and the expertise and the guts to stand up to the inevitable criticism.

The alternative is another richly deserved 'F.'


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twitter / wmkraus

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Sunday, December 13, 2009

The future, should you choose to accept it



A W
isconsin Political Fix
not just another blog
December 13, 2009

By Bill Kraus

There was a well attended legislative hearing last week on a very large, very complicated, very important proposal. The name of the proposal is the Wisconsin C.O.R.E. Jobs Act. It deals with the next Wisconsin economy generally and what the state government could and should do to find and support what one witness called “the new normal.”

That description encapsulates the size and difficulty of what is being attempted. It dismisses the fantasy that says that, as this recession recedes, Wisconsin will return to normal.

That kind of normal in which our economy was driven by construction and automobiles is history. The new kind of normal is being visualized and invented in many mostly small ways by many people, but it is still not clear what it will look like or when it will arrive.

Part of the reason for the hearing was to get expert testimony and viewpoints from the smartest people in the room and state who are working their way through this maze.

The committees introducing C.O.R.E. are headed by Senator Julie Lassa and Representative Louis Molepske. This hearing gave the members of their committees a chance to express their views and recommendations on the concept generally and the specific ideas in it that a lot of people doing a lot of hard work have fashioned.

Those familiar with the committee-hearing process will not be surprised to learn that many legislators on these committees wandered from the subject at hand to criticize the current administration, deplore the sad state of the economy, or get a plug in for whatever is on the top of their personal agendas.

It did strike me that these side trips into ego-land indicated that a lot of legislators are still playing a hand in a game that is that is no longer being dealt. They didn’t seem to notice that there were no reporters in the room. Or that the audience for their wisdom was strictly limited, or, as another old journalistic hand once said, “If the press doesn’t cover it, it doesn’t exist.”

This is a small loss on the sideshows, but a grievous one for the future of C.O.R.E.

It would be amazing if the 14 main elements of C.O.R.E. repair the damage that has been done to our economy, but it seems to be a step in the direction of re-imagining and re-inventing our economy that is needed and of playing in particular to the enormous strengths of a 150 year investment in education and academic research.

Everyone in the hearing room who testified endorsed the effort.

Even the committee members who were critical mostly complained that it didn’t go far enough.

If all the gubernatorial wannabes don’t rush to Senator Lassa’s office for their transcript of the testimony and a personal copy of the paper prepared by David Ward’s NorthStar Economics company, they shouldn’t even go to the trouble of filing nomination papers.

This is the issue for 2010. This is the challenge for the century.

Or to steal from the less polite but more graphic way a long ago campaign advisor to a long ago president did in a previous millennium said it, “It’s about jobs, stupid.”


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Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Prosser's process



A W
isconsin Political Fix
not just another blog
December 9, 2009

By Bill Kraus

When Justice David Prosser signed the letter from a then-unanimous Supreme Court endorsing full public funding of Supreme Court campaigns, he must have assumed that the funding would be somewhat north of the $400,000 that made it into the recently enacted law.

Prosser now says this is not enough money to run a full-blown, TV ad-driven campaign in the mold of the three most recent contests for the Supreme Court, and that it does nothing to protect a candidate from interventions of “phony issue ads.”

He is right on both counts.

The issue-ad issue was intentionally postponed for another day for fear that an impending U.S. Supreme Court decision could kill the whole bill if it was included.

The money complaint, however, is somewhat disingenuous. It is a minor miracle that the Legislature came up with even that kind of money in these desperate fiscal times.

This is a work in progress, this idea of fully funding campaigns with public money, and as, if, and when the state’s revenue streams get better more money may be available.

For the nonce, however, these are the cards that have been dealt and Justice Prosser, who is up for re-election in 2011, is, as he says, the guinea pig for the whole concept of bringing campaign spending down to earth.

This “guinea pig” campaign can develop in one of several ways.

Prosser may run unopposed, which is not unusual for a sitting Supreme Court Justice, recent campaigns to the contrary notwithstanding. A free ride is less likely now that impartial justice is in effect, because the money barrier for challengers is less daunting.

If a challenger appears and opts to take the public grant and Prosser does as well, both will have to run low media, high shoe leather campaigns consisting of face-to-face campaigning across the state to generate word of mouth support from thought leaders, lawyers, judges, and the like; visiting all the lives-at-five TV shows and other news outlets, up, or down, to and including the state’s weekly newspapers.

As an incumbent who has been on a statewide ballot and has had 10 years to make the kinds of appearances and contacts that are the essence of shoe leather politics, Prosser would have a major advantage, if indeed he has used his incumbency energetically.

If a challenger appears and opts out of the public grant which Prosser takes, the grant to Prosser will be increased to offset the challenger’s spending and the campaign will probably escalate to the media model created by Herb Kohl and emulated in whole or in part by everyone since he penetrated and blew away the dollar ceiling that tacitly but effectively restrained fund raising and spending in Wisconsin campaigns for anything and everything.

If Prosser and the challenger do take the public grant an independent campaign could be mounted by a third-party organization. WEAC comes to mind. Whichever candidate is the victim of the third-party’s attacks would get a compensating grant to offset WEAC’s spending.

If Prosser and the challenger do take the public grant they could come under attack in “phony” issue ads run by a third party of any description. WMC comes to mind. There is no provision in the impartial justice act to offset this kind of “free speech” spending by anyone.

The best and only recourse to this kind of activity is an enemies strategy which asks, “Who are these people, and why are they saying these awful things about me?”

It is possible that the Legislature will pass either SB43 or AB63, which would reveal the names of the people who put up the money for these issue ads in hopes that this will deter this kind of spending, but will surely expose the source of the money for it. This, in turn, will answer at least the first part of the enemies strategy question.

I know, I know, there is a sixth option. Prosser can take a pass on this first tiny, timid, tentative route that the Legislature has offered and opt for the status quo ante with its fundraising from unseemly sources, media-driven-deceptive advertising which has diminished the stature of the judiciary and its practitioners and made recusal a household world.

Impartial justice is what is offered. If we get more civil political campaigns and more restrained spending then so much the better. Justice Prosser will determine whether what the Legislature has wrought is worthy of the name. One can only hope.


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twitter / wmkraus

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Thursday, December 3, 2009

"Impartial Justice" is Law - Disclosure and Regulation of Phony Issue Ads on Deck


Press Release
December 3, 2009


CONTACT:

Jay Heck – 608/256-2686



IMPARTIAL JUSTICE REFORM IS LAW
PHONY ISSUE AD REFORM IS ON DECK

On Tuesday, December 1st, Governor Jim Doyle signed into law the "Impartial Justice" legislation, that will provide full public financing to qualified candidates for the Wisconsin Supreme Court who agree to abide by a spending limit of $400,000 (for the primary and general elections).

This is the most sweeping and significant campaign finance reform in Wisconsin since public financing was first established in 1977. We now join North Carolina and New Mexico as the only states to have enacted into law full public financing for state supreme court elections.

For more on this momentous event, read the front-page article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Doyle signs high court election bill and in the The Badger Herald: Doyle signs bill for public financing of judicial races. Both articles contain commentary from Common Cause in Wisconsin (CC/WI).

See also this editorial in The Capital Times: Reformers win a fight to clean up court races about the role of reform organizations and others in the battle for Impartial Justice.

To listen to a recent CC/WI analysis of Impartial Justice on Wisconsin Public Radio, go here.

As we have said repeatedly, passage and enactment into law of the "Impartial Justice" measure is not enough to clean up Wisconsin Supreme Court elections. The 2007 and 2008 Supreme Court elections were dominated by nasty, undisclosed, unregulated campaign communications masquerading as issue advocacy. The donors to these phony issue ads must be disclosed and the money used to pay for them must come from a regulated source. That said, the criticism from some that the Impartial Justice law doesn't address the phony issue ads is unjustified. Separate legislation to require the disclosure of the donors and regulation of the funding for sham issue advocacy in all Wisconsin elections (not just those for the state supreme court) will be considered after the United States Supreme Court renders a decision later this month (perhaps as early as next week) in a critical, landmark case: Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission which will provide guidance about what Wisconsin can and cannot do with regard to these phony issue ads - ads that have been a cancer on our statewide and legislative elections since 1996 and which dominated the 2007 and 2008 Wisconsin Supreme Court elections. It would have made no sense to tie the phony issue ad measure to the Impartial Justice bill because we do not know yet how the U.S. Supreme Court will decide on this matter.

Pending in the Wisconsin Legislature is Senate Bill 43, a bipartisan proposal requiring disclosure of the donors and regulation of the money utilized by outside special interest groups that run widely-disseminated campaign communications masquerading as issue advocacy during the period of 60 days or less prior to an election. This electioneering disclosure and regulation legislation mirrors new rules approved by the state Government Accountability Board in November of 2008. An identical Assembly version of the legislation is Assembly Bill 63. Both measures are ready to be considered by the full Assembly and State Senate. Common Cause in Wisconsin (CC/WI), the first state reform organization to recognize the critical importance of this reform, proposed a version of this measure back in 1997 -- and has been leading the effort to get it enacted into law ever since. Depending on what the U.S. Supreme Court does this month, there will still be plenty of time to pass and enact into law Senate Bill 43/Assembly Bill 63 in January and in time to be in effect for the 2010 legislative and statewide elections.

Wisconsin has hit a home run with the enactment into law of the Impartial Justice legislation. But to win the ball game, we need to shine light on the donors and regulate the money behind the plethora of campaign communications that masquerade as issue advocacy. There are enough votes to pass the Senate Bill 43/Assembly Bill 63 in the Wisconsin Legislature and Governor Doyle has promised to sign the measure. We just need to find out what the U.S. Supreme Court will do before we can act.

Stay tuned...................

__________________________________________

Jay Heck, Executive Director
Common Cause in Wisconsin
152 W. Johnson St., Suite 212
Madison, WI 53703
608/256-2686

Want Good Government?
Join Common Cause in Wisconsin!
www.CommonCauseWisconsin.org

Stay informed - Follow CC/WI on Twitter!
twitter / CommonCauseWI

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Monday, November 30, 2009

Anarchy in the GOP



A W
isconsin Political Fix
not just another blog
November 30, 2009

By Bill Kraus

Before the behavioral huns overran the party, the biggest thorn in the side of the big-tent moderates who used to run the Republican Party were the “true” conservatives.

Or to put it another way, even if the people who run what remains of the party and the more powerful and numerous hired guns who are running the entrepreneurial conservatives’ campaigns are struck by lightning and realize that abortion, gay rights, and gun rights are not partisan issues, the activists have to cope with the anti-tax/regulation/government anarchists.

They don’t call themselves that, of course, since the name brings to mind the Fabians, Karl Marx, and other anti-government European radicals. They call themselves libertarians or, if that’s too political, simply Adam Smith free marketers even though Adam Smith would probably excommunicate them.

They are to some extent the heirs of the perpetrators of the Boston Tea Party group run amok. They are consistently anti-tax. Their other basic premise is that no government body can run anything, or run anything well. The other side of this coin is that the free market private sector can run everything and run everything efficiently. An idea they hold to for dear life unaware that that it has been somewhat tarnished by missteps in several areas and places recently.

They are playing a leading role in the current health care debate as they did in the same debate in the late 1940s. They won then by stopping Harry Truman’s “socialization” proposal modeled on what Clement Attlee’s Laborites enacted in Great Britain.

My own experience with their single-mindedness dates to 1966. The Republican anarchists whose center seemed to be the Milwaukee area’s North Shore Republican Club wanted the Party Convention to condemn the party’s activist governor Warren Knowles because he raised taxes to keep the state operating after his 13,000-vote victory in 1964.

The party activists who then and now want a government that doesn’t dominate but does work rejected this idea, and the anarchists who really wanted the government to go away.

The Democrats, I am told, have their own internecine ideological battles on issues that someone from that party will have to explain to me. I think it is between their moderates and the all-government-all-the-time gang.

Political fortunes rise and fall for a lot of reasons, but one adage persisits: Partisans want issues that inflame. Most of the rest of the people want a government that works.

This is something for those who seek electoral success to keep in mind.


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Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Governor Doyle to sign Impartial Justice Bill on December 1st - Happy Thanksgiving!


Press Release
November 25, 2009


CONTACT:

Jay Heck – 608/256-2686



GOVERNOR DOYLE TO SIGN IMPARTIAL JUSTICE SUPREME COURT PUBLIC FINANCING MEASURE INTO LAW ON DECEMBER 1ST


Common Cause in Wisconsin (CC/WI) has learned that Governor Jim Doyle will sign into law the Impartial Justice Bill - Assembly Bill 65/Senate Bill 40 - on Tuesday, December 1st. The Bill passed in both chambers of the Wisconsin Legislature with bipartisan support on November 5th and will provide full public financing for qualifying candidates for the Wisconsin Supreme Court who voluntarily agree to abide by a spending limit of $400,000.

That is something to give thanks for tomorrow!

The Governor's support and signing of the bill was never in doubt. However, certain technical corrections had to be made by the Governor's office in consultation with the legislative sponsors to ensure that the Impartial Justice legislation, as passed, does what it is supposed to do.

CC/WI monitored this process and is satisfied that it has been accomplished.

The Impartial Justice bill is the most significant, sweeping campaign finance reform to be passed and enacted into law in Wisconsin since 1977— when public financing was first established in the state.

Special thanks go to the legislation's authors: Senator Pat Kreitlow (D-Chippewa Falls) and Representatives Gordon Hintz (D-Oshkosh) and Steve Hilgenberg (D-Dodgeville), as well as to Representative. Mark Pocan (D-Madison) and Senator Mark Miller (D-Madison) who steered it through the Joint Committee on Finance and secured the funding mechanism. Thanks go out to all of the other members of the State Senate and the Assembly who voted for the Impartial Justice measure. Special thanks also go to Senators Sheila Harsdorf (R-River Falls) and Dale Schultz (R-Richland Center) and State Representative Dean Kaufert (R-Neenah) for bucking their party leadership and voting for this significant campaign finance reform measure. They were brave and right to do so. Thanks too to Governor Doyle who has supported this particular reform since the beginning of his tenure in office in 2003 and who will sign the measure into law on Tuesday, December 1st.

Most of all, thanks to all of the wonderful CC/WI members and other pro-reform citizens who contacted their legislators and, over time, made this reform become a reality!

Already, an out-of-state anti-reform organization funded by entities who support the corrupt status quo are planning to sue to stop the Impartial Justice bill from being implemented.

Fine, Bring it on.

To hear CC/WI's take on this Virginia-based challenge to reform in Wisconsin go here.

To all you many Wisconsinites who care about honest, accountable government and politics, savor this victory. You made it happen.

Happy Thanksgiving!

__________________________________________

Jay Heck, Executive Director
Common Cause in Wisconsin
152 W. Johnson St., Suite 212
Madison, WI 53703
608/256-2686

Want Good Government?
Join Common Cause in Wisconsin!
www.CommonCauseWisconsin.org

Stay informed - Follow CC/WI on Twitter!
twitter / CommonCauseWI

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Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Get a job



A W
isconsin Political Fix
not just another blog
November 24, 2009

By Bill Kraus

There is an open seat in the race for governor of Wisconsin. The Democrats have arm wrestled the mayor of Milwaukee into running for a job he really doesn’t want over the dead bodies of most of the people in Milwaukee who want him to continue in the job he has. The principal reason for wanting him to stay, incidentally, is because there is no one in the wings in Milwaukee who they consider a worthy replacement.

The Republicans are offering up a County Executive of a dysfunctional county and a former member of Congress who lost a long ago (in political terms) race for the U.S. Senate. The other candidates who have expressed an interest in running are unknowns who are being discouraged from doing so by the Republican powers who are also quietly trying to get Mark Neumann to drop his candidacy.

The Journal Sentinel has already decided it’s a two-candidate race, discounting rumblings about Tommy Thompson from D.C. and Elroy.

The stated reason that there is this remarkable paucity of candidates is that it will cost at least $12 million to win this election. This is certainly not an inconsequential barrier even if it’s only half true.

The less obvious reason for the empty pipelines is that the unintended consequences of the Watergate reforms neutered the political parties.

Before 1975 the political parties not only recruited, groomed, promoted, and slated full-fledged candidates for the top offices, they filled the slates down to county coroner to back up these selections.

When a friend of mine who was a Republican county chairman told the state chairman that he didn’t think he would be able to find a candidate to run for the Assembly, a race anyone of that persuasion would surely lose in that county, he was told, “Either find a candidate or be the candidate.” He found a candidate; so did county chairs of both parties all over the state.

This kind of activity filled the wannabe pipelines with seasoned, accomplished political leaders who would have been elbowing each other aside to run for governor in an open-seat year.

The most important problem is neither of the above, although both of the above have contributed to it.

It is careerism.

I encountered an early form of this phenomenon in the late 1970s when I discovered that many of the state legislators from Milwaukee ran for those jobs not because they were ambitious for higher office, but because they were stepping stones to what they hoped would be successful campaigns for seats on the Milwaukee City Council or the Milwaukee County Board. They were looking for lifetime careers.

At that time most legislators from other places were still hoping to rise to higher office, and indeed that Legislature produced candidates galore and several members of Congress, a U.S. Senator, a covey of governors and lieutenant governors, and even a couple of Supreme Court Justices.

No longer.

The incumbents in the state Legislature are, for the most part, in it for the job. They are settling in and careering out in what they hope will be safe seats; seats which they will not put at risk by proposing changes or ideas which endanger their chances for a long string of re-election victories.

Every once in awhile a Mike Ellis makes noises about running for governor, and a Jon Erpenbach tosses a hat towards a ring or two, but these spasms quickly pass.

The result is what used to be kind of a potentials pipeline is clogged by people who are not regarded as being upwardly mobile by either the voters or by themselves.

Is the U.S. Congress any better or any different? The lines of challengers for the redistricting-protected incumbents don’t seem to be very long. Anybody up for a run against Russ or Herb?

To paraphrase a Peter, Paul and Mary hit: Where did all the wannabes go?


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Sunday, November 15, 2009

The healthcare dance



A W
isconsin Political Fix
not just another blog
November 15, 2009

By Bill Kraus

Two great political adages are at play in the prolonged, complicated, contentious attempt to put together a new health care system for this country.

The first is that no one should have to witness sausage or legislation being made.

The second is that when major, complicated legislation is in the making (which you shouldn’t have to witness) the important thing is to get Mathilda on the dance floor.

Turf wars are what the health care bill is about, and it is a virtual golf course.

For openers, health care spending is 17 percent of our gross national product. This means that people and companies who are in the health care business are getting paid that 17 percent. That is the status quo that is being protected by insurance companies that do the paperwork, doctors and their helpers who do the mostly fee-for-service healing, hospitals that house the ailing, drug and device manufacturers that provide the stuff of which medical miracles are composed, administrators and managers who orchestrate this melange, and a collection of bystanders and outsiders whose interests are improved or threatened by the health care system and practices.

My own views on this collection of sausage makers:

1.) Insurers don’t belong at the table.
2.) Fee-for-service incentives rarely if ever lead to less of either.
3.) Physical facilities need to be kept full.
4.) Drug companies produce and promote the things they invent and sell; the cost of the former is irreducible; the cost of the latter is arguable.

The outsiders are too numerous to list but a small sample is that the ideologues led by groups as diverse as the Catholic Bishops, the anti-immigrationists, and the free marketeers are weighing in on medical practice policy in ways and with demands that mostly make change almost impossible.

With the lobbying costs running in the neighborhood of $4 million a day (an amount that is added to the “cost” of health care) and with the job protecting legislators being threatened or seduced by money and votes, it is impossible to produce anything approaching an ideal sausage out of the box.

Which gets us to Mathilda.

If anything is to happen, it is going to have to be imperfect, even a half measure.

The judgment that will have to be made is whether what does come out of the box is better than the status quo ante.

It is hard to believe that it will not improve on a health care system that costs twice as much as what is available in every other first-world nation and that delivers results that are no better than average and in many categories very much worse.

So let’s take what we can get, and, over time, improve on and expand the inevitably flawed sausage that is being assembled.

We couldn’t do worse. We can get a small or even a significant step in the direction of lower costs and better results, and once on that path we can do better and better and better. We will probably never get the kind of perfection the purists insist on. As for me, I’ll settle for, at long last, getting Mathilda on the dance floor.


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twitter / wmkraus

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Sunday, November 8, 2009

A bird in the hand



A W
isconsin Political Fix
not just another blog
November 8, 2009

By Bill Kraus


The Impartial Justice legislation that was passed in the closing hours of the recent fall legislation session is the first attempt in 30+ years to clean up and contain campaign spending.

It has the virtue of being attacked from both sides. Those who like the status quo think it goes too far. The all-or-nothing reformers don’t think it goes far enough.

The latter group contend that the spending limits and public funding award are not big enough to run a statewide campaign. It is inarguable that they aren’t big enough for the kind of full-blown, TV-based campaign to which we have recently been subjected. But if both candidates conform to the limits, it is enough to run the more traditional word-of-mouth, face-to-face judicial contest and spare us all a repeat of the recent atrocities.

The more serious criticism of the bill is that it doesn't deal with the issue ads that have recently become prominent in Supreme Court elections.

The authors of the bill took a pass on putting an issue ad disincentive into it to accompany the millionaire and parallel campaign disincentives that were included is the U.S. Supreme Court. The court is pondering a decision which could make issue ad inhibition unconstitutional.

If they rule the way they seem to be leaning, the whole Impartial Justice bill would be voided. This is not a risk the reformers are willing to take after decades of no action.

They point out that if the Supreme Court surprises us there is a full disclosure bill in the wings which could be enacted quickly to expose and discourage the people who are paying for issue ads.

The other thing that makes this shortcoming less threatening is that WMC, one of the issue-ad wielders in recent years has already backed away from participation in supreme court races. And WEAC has said they would if WMC would. That does leave the semi-anonymous organizations with secret funders and apple pie and motherhood names free to perpetrate their mischief.

Any campaigner worth his or her salt would love to be attacked by these kinds of organizations. It gives the “victimized” candidate the opportunity to ask, “Who are these people and why are they saying these nasty things about me?” and to suggest that something unseemly is being bought here.

The side effect of over-the-top issue ads is the opportunity they present to make a low-profile beauty contest into an issue campaign with the campaign itself and its questionable interlopers being the issue.

And, finally, the Impartial Justice proposal, if it works as hoped, can be a good example for the partisans who are addicted to the egregious campaign system which they hate and believe they can't live without.

If public funding and spending limits work here, they can work anywhere.


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Thursday, November 5, 2009

"Impartial Justice" Supreme Court Reform Measure Passes Full Legislature and Now Goes to Governor Doyle - Who Says He Will Sign it Into Law!


Press Release
November 5, 2009


CONTACT:

Jay Heck – 608/256-2686



"IMPARTIAL JUSTICE" REFORM LEGISLATION PASSES FULL LEGISLATURE
Now Goes to Governor - Who Says He Will Sign It into Law!

The "Impartial Justice" State Supreme Court campaign finance reform measure Assembly Bill 65/Senate Bill 40 passed Thursday evening in the Wisconsin Assembly on a 51-42 vote after passing earlier today on a bipartisan 19-13 vote in the State Senate - on the last day of the Fall legislative session.

The legislation -- the most significant and sweeping campaign finance reform measure since the late 1970's in Wisconsin -- now goes to Governor Jim Doyle who has said he will sign it into law.

Wisconsin will soon join North Carolina and New Mexico in putting into effect a "clean" money system of full public financing for candidates for the State Supreme Court who agree to abide by sensible spending limits which in Wisconsin will be $100,000 for the primary election and $300,000 for the general election. High court candidates who abide by the limits will be eligible to receive additional publicly- financed grants if their opponent exceeds the spending limits and if outside special interest groups spend above a certain threshold against them or in favor of their opponent.

After the the last three high spending, expensive and nasty elections for the State Supreme Court in Wisconsin in 2007, 2008 and to a lesser degree - 2009, this measure was much needed to begin to restore public confidence in the once revered Wisconsin Supreme Court.

As we have said repeatedly, passage and enactment into law of the "Impartial Justice" measure is not enough to clean up Wisconsin Supreme Court elections. The 2007 and 2008 Supreme Court elections were dominated by nasty, undisclosed. unregulated campaign communications masquerading as issue advocacy. The donors to these phony issue ads must be disclosed and the money used to pay for them must come from a regulated source. Only then will elections for Wisconsin's highest court return to some level of sanity and civility.

Pending is Senate Bill 43, a bipartisan proposal requiring disclosure of the donors and regulation of the money utilized by outside special interest groups that run widely-disseminated campaign communications masquerading as issue advocacy during the period of 60 days or less prior to an election. This electioneering disclosure and regulation legislation mirrors new rules approved by the state Government Accountability Board in November of 2008. An identical Assembly version of the legislation is Assembly Bill 63. Both measures are ready to be considered by the full Assembly and State Senate. Common Cause in Wisconsin (CC/WI), the first state reform organization to recognize the critical importance of this reform, proposed a version of this measure back in 1997 -- and has been leading the effort to get it enacted into law ever since.

If we ever hope to have a State Supreme Court truly free from the influence of campaign contributions and outside special interest spending, we must see to it that this measure is passed and enacted into law.

During the week of November 16th, the United States Supreme Court is expected to render a decision in a landmark case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that will provide clearer guidance about what the Wisconsin Legislature can and cannot do in requiring the disclosure and regulation of phony issue ads.

But in the meantime, today's votes in the State Senate and the Assembly in favor of "Impartial Justice" is an important first step toward cleaning up Wisconsin's Supreme Court elections and ensuring that our elected justices are beholden only to the people and not to campaign contributors and outside special interest groups..

Today's votes in the State Senate and the Assembly in favor of "Impartial Justice" are an important first step toward that goal.

__________________________________________

Jay Heck, Executive Director
Common Cause in Wisconsin
152 W. Johnson St., Suite 212
Madison, WI 53703
608/512-9363

Want Good Government?
Join Common Cause in Wisconsin!
www.CommonCauseWisconsin.org

Stay informed - Follow CC/WI on Twitter!
twitter / CommonCauseWI

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Tuesday, November 3, 2009

"Impartial Justice": State Supreme Court Public Financing Legislation Now Ready for Vote in full Legislature This Week!


Press Release
November 3, 2009


CONTACT:

Jay Heck – 608/256-2686



"IMPARTIAL JUSTICE" STATE SUPREME COURT PUBLIC FINANCING BILL PASSES FINANCE COMMITTEE

VOTE BY FINAL LEGISLATURE EXPECTED THURDAY - URGE YOUR LEGISLATORS TO VOTE FOR REFORM!

The Fall legislative floor session is scheduled to end this week. This session will be the last opportunity this year for the Wisconsin Assembly and State Senate to vote on a major campaign finance reform measure -- which is now waiting to be scheduled by the legislative leadership and ought to be passed and signed into law before Thanksgiving.

Today, the Legislature's Joint Committee on Finance voted 11 to 4 to pass the so-called "Impartial Justice" legislation: Assembly Bill 65 and Senate Bill 40 -- identical measures that would provide full public financing for qualifying candidates for the Wisconsin Supreme Court who voluntarily agree to abide by a spending limit of $400,000. It is now ready and available for scheduling by the legislative leadership for votes in the full Assembly and State Senate - where it ought to pass and then go Governor Jim Doyle, who has said Monday that he will sign it into law.

In the Joint Committee on Finance today, those voting for the Impartial Justice legislation were: State Senators Mark Miller (D-Monona), Dave Hansen (D-Green Bay), Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee), John Lehman (D-Racine), Julie Lassa (D-Stevens Point) and State Representatives: Mark Pocan (D-Madison), Pedro Colon (D-Milwaukee), Cory Mason (D-Racine), Jennifer Shilling (D-LaCrosse), Gary Sherman (D-Port Wing) and Tamara Grigsby (D-Milwaukee). Strong supporter of "Impartial Justice," State Senator Judy Robson (D-Beloit), was not present for the vote.

Opposing "Impartial Justice" were: State Senators Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) and Luther Olsen (R-Ripon) and State Representatives Robin Vos (R-Racine) and Phil Montgomery (R-Ashwaubenon).

The legislation ought to receive a final vote this Thursday!

If you have not done so already (and even if you have), please contact both your State Representative and your State Senator today or tomorrow - at the latest - and strongly urge them to vote for the Impartial Justice Bill to reform Wisconsin's disgraceful State Supreme Court elections!

To contact both your State Representative and your State Senator go here.
If you are not sure who your State Representative and your State Senator are, go here.
* * *

Last week in Pewaukee, CC/WI sponsored a "reform forum" at the Waukesha County Technical College entitled "How Do We Clean Up Our Disgraceful Supreme Court Elections?" Wisconsin Supreme Court Justices Ann Walsh Bradley and N. Patrick Crooks, and former Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Margaret Farrow joined CC/WI executive director Jay Heck in a discussion about how to reform the current method of electing Supreme Court justices in Wisconsin. More than thirty citizens turned out on a cold and rainy evening to be part of the discussion. For more on the forum, go here. To see a video of the forum and what Justices Bradley and Crooks had to say about the urgent need for public financing for State Supreme Court elections, go here.


_______________________________________

Jay Heck, Executive Director
Common Cause in Wisconsin
152 W. Johnson St., Suite 212
Madison, WI 53703
608/256-2686

Want Good Government?

Join Common Cause in Wisconsin!
www.CommonCauseWisconsin.org

Stay informed - Follow CC/WI on Twitter!
twitter / CommonCauseWI

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Sunday, November 1, 2009

CC/WI In the News - November 2009


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Death by wedgie



A W
isconsin Political Fix
not just another blog
November 1, 2009

By Bill Kraus

The Republican death spiral started with the unintended consequences of the Watergate reforms. The party went from the main slater and funder of the campaigns of Republican candidates to a sideshow. The money got loose from what Ody Fish described as “the kinder mistress” and campaigns became entrepreneurial. The new sources of money came with strings and went directly to the more beholden candidates and the professionals who ran their campaigns.

The game of keeping the party centrist and fighting off the anarchists and one-issue people who were always there but were kept on the margin by the moderate, mostly business people, who were in charge, was no longer worth the candle.

The spin accelerated when the professionals who replaced the moderate, volunteer, amateurs (in quotes) introduced a segmentation-marketing strategy: the wedges.

They started with the anarchists who had always been there, had always had an insatiable appetite for reducing the size and power of the public sector, and had been barking up a tree that had long ago grown to Sequoia size in this country.

The professionals added the one-issue zealots to this base and partisanized the goals of repealing Roe v Wade, protecting a religious rite, and putting AK47 weapons in every closet.

These objectives wholly contradicted the anarchists’ view of the world and should have been anathema to them. But they accepted these strange bedfellows as co-conspirators for reasons to which I am not privy.

What was soon evident is that this new coalition was composed of people who dominate instead of assimilating. The moderates who didn’t leave of their own volition because of their distaste for this distortion of the party’s agenda were pushed out because they didn’t conform. True believers do this.

This coalition, which is more notable for its volubility than its volume, starting losing elections.

But they persist. As recently as last week the unholy combination got rid of a moderate who was running for an open congressional seat because she would split the Republican vote in this once-safe district and cost the coalition’s troglodytic candidate a special election.

Will this radical revisionist lose this safe seat?

Will that register on the wedgers if he does?


Follow Bill Kraus on:
twitter / wmkraus

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Thursday, October 29, 2009

State Supreme Court Reform Measure to Move on Monday - Action Now is Urgent!


Press Release
October 29, 2009


CONTACT:

Jay Heck – 608/256-2686



STATE SUPREME COURT "IMPARTIAL JUSTICE" REFORM BILL TO MOVE ON MONDAY

Public Financing Measure More Critical Than Ever After Wisconsin High Court Adopts New Recusal Policy and U.S Supreme Court Stands Poised to Roll Back Restrictions on Outside Corporate and Union Campaign Money

The Fall legislative floor session is scheduled to end next week on November 5th. This session will be the last opportunity this year for the Wisconsin Assembly and State Senate to vote on two major campaign finance reform measures -- which are waiting to be scheduled and ought to be passed and signed into law before Thanksgiving.

Pending is the so-called "Impartial Justice" legislation: Assembly Bill 65 and Senate Bill 40 -- identical measures that would provide full public financing for qualifying candidates for the Wisconsin Supreme Court who voluntarily agree to abide by a spending limit of $400,000. These measures have already cleared the Assembly and State Senate Committees with jurisdiction over campaign finance reform.

This legislation is headed for the Legislature's Joint Committee on Finance for consideration this Monday, November 2nd, where a final determination about the funding mechanism for the measure will be made. It should then be sent to the full Assembly and the State Senate for a vote.

The other measure pending is Senate Bill 43, a bipartisan proposal requiring disclosure of the donors and regulation of the money utilized by outside special interest groups that run widely-disseminated campaign communications masquerading as issue advocacy during the period of 60 days or less prior to an election. This electioneering disclosure and regulation legislation mirrors new rules approved by the state Government Accountability Board in November of 2008. An identical Assembly version of the legislation is Assembly Bill 63. Both measures are ready to be considered by the full Assembly and State Senate. Common Cause in Wisconsin (CC/WI), the first state reform organization to recognize the critical importance of this reform, proposed a version of this measure back in 1997 -- and has been leading the effort to get it enacted into law ever since.

The Capital Times agrees with CC/WI that the Legislature needs to act now on both of these reform measures. To read their October 28th editorial, go here.

There is no word on when the Phony Issue Ad Disclosure and Regulation measure will be considered by the full Wisconsin Legislature. Next week the United States Supreme Court may hand down a widely-anticipated decision on a case called Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, which may tear down a hundred years of precedent with regard to the ability of Congress and state legislatures to limit corporate and union money in elections. For more on the case, go here. If the nation's highest court decides to destroy existing safeguards against unlimited corporate influence in elections, then Senate Bill 43/Assembly Bill 63 may be untenable in Wisconsin. But the Impartial Justice measure would not be undermined by the expected decision, and indeed, its enactment into law will be even more important.

And that fact was made very clear yesterday when the Wisconsin Supreme Court voted 4 to 3 to adopt a change to Wisconsin's Judicial Code of Ethics written by Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and the Wisconsin Realtors Association that says endorsements, campaign contributions and independently run ads in themselves are not enough to force a judge off of a case. For more about this troubling development, go here.

In adopting this change, the Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected a proposal made by the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin that would have required recusal of a judge who received a campaign contribution of $1,000 or more - either directly or that was spent by an outside group in support of the judge or against the judge's opponent. CC/WI supported the League's position on this matter.

But no matter what the U.S. Supreme Court decides in the Citizens United case and despite the Wisconsin Supreme Court's decision on recusal, it is critical that Wisconsin citizens tell their legislators to support both the Impartial Justice legislation and the Issue Ad Disclosure and Regulation legislation. They need to hear that voters and not wealthy special interest groups should be in charge of elections and the public policy-making process that follows.

To contact both your State Representative and your State Senator go here.
If you are not sure who your State Representative and your State Senator are, go here

This past Monday evening in Pewaukee, CC/WI sponsored a "reform forum" at the Waukesha County Technical College entitled "How do we..... Sandra fill in the correct title?" Wisconsin Supreme Court Justices Ann Walsh Bradley and N. Patrick Crooks and former Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Margaret Farrow joined CC/WI executive director Jay Heck in a discussion about how to reform the current method of electing Supreme Court justices in Wisconsin. More than thirty citizens turned out on a cold and rainy evening to be part of the discussion. For more on the forum, go here

_______________________________________

Jay Heck, Executive Director
Common Cause in Wisconsin
152 W. Johnson St., Suite 212
Madison, WI 53703
608/256-2686

Want Good Government?

Join Common Cause in Wisconsin!
www.CommonCauseWisconsin.org


Stay informed - Follow CC/WI on Twitter!
twitter / CommonCauseWI

Read More...


Monday, October 26, 2009

Wisconsin Supreme Court Justices Bradley and Crooks; Former Lt. Governor Farrow to Speak on Reform - This Evening in Pewaukee


Press Release
October 26, 2009


CONTACT:

Jay Heck – 608/256-2686



JUSTICES BRADLEY AND CROOKS, AND FORMER LT. GOVERNOR FARROW
TO SPEAK ABOUT REFORMING SUPREME COURT ELECTIONS TONIGHT


PUBLIC FORUM AT WAUKESHA COUNTY TECHNICAL COLLEGE IS
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC


Common Cause in Wisconsin is sponsoring a "reform forum" this evening to help educate the public about State Supreme Court election reform. This event is free and open to the public. Here are the details:

“How Do We Clean Up Our Disgraceful
Supreme Court Elections?"


Monday, October 26, 2009
6:30–8:00PM

Richard T. Anderson Education Center
Waukesha County Technical College
800 Main Street - Pewaukee, WI
(EXIT 293 off Interstate 94, toward PEWAUKEE/WAUKESHA CO TECH COLLEGE)

** Free and Open to the Public -- Light Refreshments will be Served **


Please come join in the discussion and learn more about:

  • State Supreme Court election reform — and why it is needed
  • How public financing of State Supreme Court elections ensures impartial justice
  • Why the disclosure and regulation of interest-group “phony issue ads” and other “outside” spending is vital
  • Elections vs. Merit Selection of State Supreme Court Justices
Panelists:

State Supreme Court Justice Ann Walsh Bradley
State Supreme Court Justice N. Patrick Crooks
Former Lieutenant Governor Margaret Farrow
Executive Director Jay Heck of Common Cause in Wisconsin

Moderator: Vivien De Back – RN PhD FAAN, CC/WI Governing Board Member

Presented by: Common Cause in Wisconsin
(Underwritten by The Joyce Foundation)

Co-Sponsors: League of Women Voters Wisconsin Education Fund, Wisconsin Nurses Association, The Coalition of Wisconsin Aging Groups, Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Americans

For more information: call Sandra Miller at (608) 658-2109

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Sunday, October 25, 2009

Partial for nonpartisanship



A W
isconsin Political Fix
not just another blog
October 25, 2009

By Bill Kraus

In my positions of more or less importance in over 30 political campaigns of more or less importance I have learned many things. One of the most important is that judicial campaigns are and should be different from campaigns for partisan offices.

Both campaigns are about the candidates, their character and their credentials.

Partisan campaigns are also about positions and promises and proposals as well.

Judicial campaigns are not and should not be.

The only issue in judicial campaigns should be solely about the candidates’ ability to at the very least aspire to dispassion, disinterest, open-mindedness on the people and the questions that are in the courtroom.

The answer I want to hear from a judicial candidate who is asked how he or she would rule on any matter brought before the court is, “I don’t know, and I won’t know until I see the facts and read the law.”

I know the press hates this. The special interests hate it even more.

Too bad.

Another major difference between these campaigns is that the judicial candidates are elected in “nonpartisan” elections and strive to be perceived as having achieved that state or a close approximation.

If not all, certainly a great majority of candidates for judicial office come with a political history. Those who have been appointed were picked by a partisan politician for political reasons. Even those who run for open seats bring, with rare exceptions, some political baggage with them. Some bring steamer trunks.

Nonpartisanship is elusive but bipartisanship or departisanizating is possible.

Historically judicial candidates have asked partisans from both parties to serve in their campaigns as antidotes to accusations of partisanship. Former Democratic governor Pat Lucey and former Republican Governor Lee Dreyfus served as campaign co-chairs for a long series of worthy Supreme Court candidates who expected nothing more from them than the de-toxification that their presence implied. The desirable side effect of putting these names on the campaign letterheads is that it affected the candidates behavior and the kinds of campaigns they ran.

This remedy disappeared for a couple of recent Supreme Court campaigns. It can and should be reapplied. It works.

The need for money to run for office is a bone in the throat of candidates’ attempts to establish that they will be even-handed, fair, and not beholden to those who fund their increasingly expensive campaigns.

Most judicial campaign contributions come from lawyers. A bad idea. Lately, money from interest groups or activists with an issue or an agenda has been flowing into judicial elections. An even worse idea.

There is a way to fund these campaigns without giving the impression that the candidates are in the pockets of someone who practices before them or who wants a specific ruling on an issue that might be adjudicated.

It’s called public money. It’s what the Impartial Justice Bill is all about.

It is a small price to pay for an unfettered, unbiased, independent judiciary.



Follow Bill Kraus on:
twitter / wmkraus

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