Approval of the state budget must take priority over measures such as campaign-finance reform, state legislative leaders said yesterday.
At the Common Cause in Wisconsin’s winter State Governing Board meeting, leaders of the legislative and executive branches of state government met to discuss meaningful campaign-finance reform.
Barbara Lawton, lieutenant governor and policy advisor to Gov. Jim Doyle, spoke, followed by Rep. Stephen Freese, R-Dodgeville, who represented Assembly Speaker Rep. John Gard, R-Peshtigo, and Senate Majority Leader Mary Panzer, R-West Bend.
Specifically, the speakers discussed Senate Bill 12, presented by Sens. Michael Ellis, R-Neenah, and Jon Erpenbach, D-Middleton. Senate Bill 12 would provide public grants to fund 45 percent of campaigns for candidates who agree to abide by spending limits.
The bill is currently under review by the Senate Committee on Education, Ethics and Elections, which is chaired by Ellis.
Jay Heck, executive director of CCWI, said those in favor of reform hope that the new regulations would be approved by the Legislature by next fall.
“The closer you get to the fall, the harder it becomes to pass campaign reform because in the fall you already have candidates who are gathering campaign funds for the next election,” Heck said.
Heck said the bill would also be affected by the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court ruling on a federal law presented by Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, and Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin, which will decide whether or not public financing for legislative campaigns is constitutional.
Even if the Supreme Court rules in favor of public financing of campaigns, Senate Bill 12 will have to undergo major changes to be agreed upon by the Republican-held Assembly and Senate and Doyle.
“The Erpenbach-Ellis bill as it is written today cannot pass,” Panzer said. “What I think is wrong is the degree of public spending.”
Panzer said the Senate would not approve the Erpenbach-Ellis measure because “the money simply isn’t there” for such a high level of public funding for candidates. Panzer did say she felt reform was necessary.
“What has been perverse in this state has been the flow of soft money,” Panzer said. “It has corrupted politics in the last four to five years. I’ve been afraid to say it couldn’t get worse because every time we used to say that, it would.”
Panzer said the Legislature would be tied up through the spring and into the summer but that “the Senate is taking up campaign-finance reform in the fall.”
Freese said the Assembly Republicans’ idea of what campaign-finance reform should look like differed from the Erpenbach-Ellis bill and that their main concern was that the reform was too sweeping.
“There are a bunch of Republicans in the Senate who have views different from the assembly Republicans,” Heck said. “It’s all about compromise.”
Senate finance committee chair Sen. Alberta Darling, R-Menomonee Falls, said that compromise was necessary for the reform.
“I think most people are looking for a package that can pass,” Darling said.
Heck said the recent negotiations between Doyle and Native American tribes who have gaming compacts with the state might logically push the legislators into action. Republicans were outraged last week over Doyle’s arrangement of compacts with tribes who contributed large sums of money to his campaign without the approval of the Legislature.
Panzer said the emergency session of Legislature late last week to pass a bill to prevent the governor from being the sole negotiator in compacts was not a partisan move.
“I talked to Tommy Thompson over the weekend, and I told him that if he had tried to sign a contract by himself, I would have gone after him just as hard,” Panzer said.
Heck said ultimately campaign-finance reform would help budget problems, because it would allow legislators to make budget cuts without fear of offending the special interests that funded their campaigns.