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Senate rejects new campaign-finance reform bill

The State Senate voted 20-13 to strike down the bipartisan campaign-finance-reform bill Senate Bill 46 Wednesday.

The bill, proposed by Sens. Michael Ellis, R-Neenah, and Fred Risser, D-Madison, intended to reduce the influence of special-interest groups on state elections and create a level playing field in legislative races.

Ellis and Sen. Jon Erpenbach, D-Middleton, introduced a similar campaign-finance bill last session, and the legislators believed the bill could pass in the current session because several controversial provisions were removed.

“I am very disappointed — I thought [the bill] was a vehicle for improving campaign financing,” Risser said. “[The bill] didn’t solve all the problems of campaign financing, but it was a step in the right direction.”

Risser expressed his disappointment in the exclusion of several provisions present in the original bill, but believed the bill was still a “move in the right direction.”

One omitted provision would have required full disclosure in television issue advertisements; another would have provided full state funding of campaign finances.

Currently, a portion of candidates’ campaign funds come from special-interest groups that often spend money on issue ads, which do not require disclosure of fund location or sponsor identity.

Critics of issue ads say campaign ads are essentially designed to influence the election and, because they are unregulated and do not have open disclosure, the commercials could unfairly affect the outcome of an election.

According to Common Cause in Wisconsin Director Jay Heck, the bill aimed to neutralize the effect of these outside groups on elections.

The omission of the provision to provide full public campaign financing led both critics and proponents of the bill to believe it was a “compromised” bill.

According to Heck, the authors had to compromise the bill because it would have been “dead on arrival” in the state Assembly due to the Republican-controlled Legislature.

Assembly Republicans, many of whom are concerned with free-speech issues surrounding the proposed reform, were expected to vote against such a measure if it included the deleted provisions.

“[The bill] was designed to have a chance to get through the Assembly as well [as the Senate],” Heck said. “We don’t have the political configuration to pass the perfect bill.”

According to Risser, senators focused on the technicalities of the bill and made them look like major problems, but, in reality, the problem was the self-interest in the legislators’ votes.

There’s always a hesitancy to make a change that might level the playing field, Risser said.

Heck agreed, adding the bill was not perfect but would still improve the state’s political problem with campaign finance.

“The majority [of senators] voted to preserve their own self-interest rather than to advance reform in the interest of citizens in the state,” Heck said.

Lobbying by special-interest groups was also a factor in the bill’s rejection because the groups probably pressured legislators into voting against the legislation, Heck added.

Wisconsin Right to Life Executive Director Barbara Lyons, however, said the primary reason the organization strongly opposes the legislation is because it infringes on the rights of citizens.

The bill essentially infringes upon free-speech rights and restricts the free flow of political discourse during election time, she said.

“Our whole country is built [on special-interest groups] — people gather together to make change,” Lyons said. “That’s what our whole country is built upon — that’s democracy, and that’s what we think should be preserved.”