By John Buchel, State Writer
Debate over whether the state should sell the governor’s mansion to help alleviate Wisconsin’s budget crisis took another turn Sunday when the Appleton Post-Crescent reported that lobbyists are the largest contributors to a group who furnishes, decorates and maintains the governor’s mansion.
In a review of public records, the Post-Crescent found the Wisconsin Executive Residence Foundation received contributions of more than $34,000 from lobbyists, groups licensed to lobby, or groups that employ registered lobbyists.
The Wisconsin Executive Residence Foundation is a private, nonprofit organization formed in 1966 to support the governor’s mansion. Money the foundation raises through private donations is spent at the discretion of the governor and his wife.
Reportedly, the foundation has bought new furniture, exercise equipment and decorations for the governor’s mansion.
“There are some very wealthy special-interest groups that have a very high degree of private access to the mansion. This is a public building that belongs to people of Wisconsin,” said Mike McCabe, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a nonprofit government watchdog group.
McCabe said that under state ethics laws lobbyists cannot give anything of value to elected officials.
“Lobbyists shouldn’t even bring elected officials a cup of coffee under state laws,” McCabe said.
The Post-Crescent report details donations to the foundation as high as $20,000 by the Phillip Morris Corporation in 1999.
Wisconsin’s first governor’s mansion was a limestone Victorian on East Gilman Street, which was sold to the University of Wisconsin. UW turned the mansion into the Knapp House, a residence for its Knapp scholars.
The state bought the current governor’s mansion in the Maple Bluff neighborhood in 1949 for $49,500.
Since then it has been the home of 17 governors.
Last week, Sen. Robert Wirch, D-Pleasant Prairie, sent a letter to governor-elect Jim Doyle asking the governor’s mansion to be sold as a symbolic gesture in light of the state’s budget crisis.
The governor’s mansion has been estimated to be worth $1.3 million.
McCabe said the money reaped from the sale of the mansion would not even put a dent in a state budget deficit estimated as high as $3 billion.
“The building belongs to the state, and it’s up to the people of Wisconsin,” said the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign’s McCabe. “Perhaps there should be an advisory referendum to find out how voters feel before anything is decided. Then if the voters decide that it’s unbecoming for the governor to live in a mansion, they could insist that the mansion be sold.”
McCabe said he understood Wirch’s motivation.
“There are symbolic issues at hand. If legislators are eliminating state jobs because of budget cuts, but at the same time giving themselves pay raises then that smacks of hypocrisy,” McCabe said.
Jim Doyle’s mother Rep. Ruth Doyle, D-Madison, had urged then-Gov. Oscar Rennebohn not to sell the mansion on East Gilman in 1949.
Calls to the offices of Wirch, McCallum and Doyle were not returned Monday.
