A letter released last Friday by a legislative aide for state Sen. Dan Kapanke, R-La Crosse, provided further insight into the finding of a Democratic campaign strategy memo near a copy machine in the Capitol building six months ago.

Further review of the issue since the election has shown that Democrats committed no illegal acts.

According to the statement, the aide, John O'Brien, attempted to find the owner of the binder and noticed the document referred to the "Wisconsin State Senate Democratic Committee." O'Brien "flipped through the document" and, in his judgment, thought there "might be some illegal coordination taking place between the SSDC and independent advocacy groups."

Without informing Kapanke of his discovery, the aide said he made a single copy of the document and turned it over to John Murray, chief of staff for Republican majority leader Sen. Dale Schultz, R-Richland Center.

The Republican Party later brought allegations of this "illegal coordination" with outside funding groups against the Democrats during the election. The charge has since been proven to be without merit.

The binder's owner, Sen. Mark Miller, D-Monona, said in an October statement that he mistakenly brought the wrong binder to work and accidentally left it in the copy room.

According to Jay Heck, the executive director of Common Cause in Wisconsin — a non-partisan political watchdog group — Miller is not at fault.

A new angle instead points to the ethics of O'Brien's decision to make a copy of the document.

"If in fact [O'Brien] did use a state copy machine, that would be in violation of the law," Heck said.

According to David Canon, a University of Wisconsin political science professor, noted that state employees "definitely cannot use state facilities and state resources for campaign purposes," a category under which O'Brien's actions may fall.

According to Heck, O'Brien probably did what he thought was best, only accidentally violating a law in the process.

"He saw the document, got it to a Republican committee, but in doing so, violated the law by using the state copier," Heck said.

If O'Brien would have taken the document to a Kinko's, Heck added, nothing illegal would have taken place throughout the entire event.

The episode of the mystery binder, Heck said, "is really not a huge deal," but it "demonstrates the very thin line between independent state business … and campaign work."