By Kari Bellingham, Deputy News Editor
As voters head to the polls today to decide on the DeJope casino referendum, they will do so under the influence of the highest-spending campaign in Dane County history.
The Ho-Chunk Nation garnered $1,344,000 to convince voters to support a proposed transformation of the DeJope Bingo Hall into a casino. This easily breaks Dane County’s previous campaign-spending record of $236,518 by Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk in 1997.
“Big money has found its way into local politics,” said Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause in Wisconsin, a non-partisan watchdog group.
According to Heck, the Ho-Chunk Nation has outspent opponent No Dane Casino more than 22 to 1 in the days leading up to Wisconsin’s Feb. 17 primary. Common Cause in Wisconsin is concerned not with the outcome of the vote, but with how the large amount of campaign money will influence voters.
“We don’t take sides on the casino issue,” Heck said. “Our concern is how the money spent on the process can affect the outcome.”
According to Lisa Pugh, spokeswoman for the Coalition for the Fair Indian Gaming and Revenue Sharing Agreements, the Ho-Chunk Nation spent the majority of their $1.3 million budget on advertising. She said the Ho-Chunk felt they had to spend more money on their campaign in order to overcome a negative public perception and scare tactics launched by opponents.
“The Ho-Chunk felt from the beginning they had a lot of negative to overcome and they needed to put the facts out there,” Pugh said.
Rebecca Weise, a Ho-Chunk member and director of the Ho-Chunk Department of Justice, agreed. She said opponents of the casino have published “galling” lies and launched negative campaigns against the casino.
“There’s no other way to counteract their message than to get information out there. And getting information out there costs money,” Weise said.
However, opponents of the casino said the Ho-Chunk Nation is simply using money to buy votes.
“This is such a high-end campaign that it’s unbelievable,” said David Relles, spokesman for No Dane Casino. Relles added that the Ho-Chunk’s well-funded campaign raises issues about the power of money in campaigns and its influence over voters.
“I’m sure there are people out there who have no idea how much has been spent who have been influenced by all of [the Ho-Chunk’s] ads,” Relles said.
In contrast, Relles said No Dane Casino had less than $60,000 to spend on its campaign. Most of that budget was spent on advertising as well, which mostly included radio and billboard advertisements. Relles said the group had planned to run one TV advertisement costing $91.27, but the TV station did not receive the payment in time, so the commercial can only be viewed on the No Dane Casino website.
Heck said advertisements like those that both groups have been sponsoring are often how voters get information about an issue. He said the large amount of money poured into advertising for this campaign has undoubtedly affected the views of potential voters.
“Most voters get a good deal of their political information from ads, and this is bound to affect how people are thinking,” Heck said.
Despite the heavy campaigning in recent months, both groups said they think the vote will be close.
“It will come down to the wire to see if our ads have been effective on voters,” Pugh said, adding that she has not seen any reliable numbers concerning which way the vote will go.
Relles agreed that the vote will be close, saying he could not predict which way it will go.
“I wish I could predict. I’m trying to stay positive. We have a tremendous amount of momentum,” Relles said.
Student groups on campus also emphasize how important the student vote is on the referendum.
University of Wisconsin senior Joe Shumow is leading Students Against Casino Expansion, and he said his group has worked hard to reach UW students by handing out leaflets and campaigning near the dorms. However, he said he is not sure how effective the advertising and campaign tactics have been.
“We’ll find out tomorrow,” Shumow said.
Steven Singh, co-coordinator for the Students Coalition for the Fair Indian Gaming and Revenue Sharing Agreements, said his organization has focused on talking to students one-on-one and disseminating posters and flyers encouraging students to vote for the referendum. However, he said the most important thing is that students get out and vote.
Heck agrees.
“Whether you’re for the casino or against it, you need to get out and vote,” Heck said.
