Contending last Wednesday's decision by the State Elections Board, gubernatorial candidate U.S. Rep. Mark Green, R-Wis., announced Saturday he will go to court in an effort to hold on to his disputed $467,844 in political action committee money.
Green came under fire after the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign alerted the State Elections Board of money Green transferred from his federal account he raised as a congressional candidate to his state account he is using in his gubernatorial campaign. The WDC alleged Green raised about a half-million dollars from PACs not registered in the state of Wisconsin, which, the group said, goes against state law.
"We were informed today that we won't get an order [from the SEB] to return the money until [Wednesday] at the earliest," Green's attorney, Don Millis, said. "No one can go to court until the order is issued."
Millis added that they will have 10 days to comply with the order from the time they receive it and that the board can only enforce the order if they go to court and try to enforce it.
Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle has attested Green should divest himself of the money.
"He has been ordered by the SEB to return the illegal money," Anne Lupardus, deputy news secretary for Doyle's campaign, said. "He knew he was wrong."
Green's campaign declined whether the $450,000 state limit on PAC money earned over a four-year term was met, but said no illegal transaction was made, as the law was not passed until after the money transfer. A number of nonpartisan watchdog groups disagree, contesting the law has been active for years.
"The policy is correct; I don't think one candidate should be able to use more PAC money than another," said Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause in Wisconsin. "The problem is that the SEB is partisan, and Democrats hold the majority because we have a Democratic governor who appointed Democrats."
Heck added that inconsistencies in the enforcement of laws by the State Elections Board have carried through for years, citing the uncontested money transfer former democratic U.S. Rep. Tom Barrett, D-Wis., made in his campaign for governor in 2002.
Yet University of Wisconsin political science professor Charles Franklin said the result of controversial issues of campaign financing could depend on political spin.
"It's really up in the air which candidate may find a more convincing story," he said. "This puts Green in a harder position to push a campaign finance story, but I certainly see ways to spin that the money is clean and untainted and the rule was in suspension, and that it just came down to a technicality."
Heck said the remedy to preventing the same controversy is not spin, but merging the State Elections and Ethics Boards into one, nonpartisan commission. The proposal, Senate Bill 1, is supported by both Doyle and Green, despite them both being accused of breaking ethics and elections rules.
"The Elections Board is unregulated and full of loopholes, and that creates a great deal of scandal," Heck said. "We need to pass SB 1. It's something that would go a long way to reform elections."
