Campaign finance reform will be delayed in Wisconsin upon Sen. Mike Ellis’s (R-Neenah) announcement Thursday that killed legislation calling for changes in the way Wisconsin campaigns are financed.

The announcement comes only days after a controversial compromise seemed to position the legislation, named Senate Bill 12, for possible consideration in this session of the Senate, which ends March 11. Instead, efforts at reform will now wait until the 2005-07 session.

“At this time, we feel killing the bill is the best thing to do,” said Jay Heck, executive director of the State Governing Board of Common Cause In Wisconsin, which backed the compromise. “Speaker [John] Gard was against it, [Senate Majority leader Mary] Panzer was not going to schedule it and Gov. Doyle just isn’t interested in campaign finance reform.”

For many proponents of campaign finance, the most controversial part of Ellis’s bill was the absence of a stipulation requiring disclosure and regulation of soft money contributions used in influencing elections. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year such contributions must be disclosed in federal elections and several states, such as Illinois, have since required full disclosure in state elections.

While the original Senate Bill 12 required full disclosure of all special interest donors, the revised version did not include the provision due to fears the Republican-led Legislature would not consider the bill if it remained.

The change led to the withdrawal of support by both Sen. Jon Erpenbach (D-Middleton), who co-sponsored the original bill along with Ellis, and the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a key advocate of the original bill.

“All you need to know about the new version is that the wealthiest special interests love it,” said Mike McCabe, executive director of the WDC, adding $4 million of soft money went undisclosed in the 2002 state elections. “They were scared to death of the original. The new bill allows huge dollars to fly under the radar, which isn’t right, because voters have a right to know who’s putting money where.”

The way campaigns are financed has come under increased scrutiny in Wisconsin in the wake of scandals of 2002 involving several legislators, most notably former Senate Majority leader Chuck Chvala and former Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen.

The lawmakers were charged with illegal campaign fundraising, including the use of paid staffers to work on reelection campaigns and misconduct in office.

“The original bill was a direct response to those scandals,” McCabe said, adding the new version did nothing to prevent such occurrences in the future.

Although Common Cause had also fought for full disclosure, the group felt the bill, which included a ban on fundraising at budget time and the creation of a Public Integrity Endowment to provide additional public funding for candidates, was acceptable without that provision.

For now, Common Cause looks to continuing the fight for reform next legislative session.

“It was naíve to think we could get this scheduled in the last week of the session in an election year,” Heck said. “In the fall, the first trials from the scandals will begin, and then I think we’ll have an atmosphere conductive to getting reform legislation scheduled.”