October 24, 2002 New York Times
By MICHAEL FELDMAN
Michael Feldman is host of "Whad' Ya Know?" on Public Radio International.
MADISON, Wis.
People in Wisconsin have tended to think that our geography mirrors our politics: to the right of Minnesota, above Illinois (or so we thought).
A mere 25 years ago, the political system was so clean that it was possible for scandal to erupt from a legislator's $7.62 personal call on his state phone card to intercede in his daughter's pot bust, which he defended by saying "the will of the people is for legislators to maintain their family ties."
Today, whether it is the will of the people for legislators to rake in cash in the capitol will be tested by the indictments of the elected leaders of both parties on a grand total of 44 counts, most of them felonies.
The joke has not been lost on us here, where the Progressive Party sprang to life when young Bob La Follette refused a bribe to influence his brother-in-law, a circuit court judge, and whose "Wisconsin Rules" Russ Feingold took with him to Washington, vowing that his Senate staffers would not accept so much as a lobbyist-influenced cup of coffee. These days we find ourselves in a political tumult that has even driven deer and chronic wasting disease off the front page.
On the verge of the November elections, Chuck Chvala, a Democrat and the Senate
majority leader, and Scott Jensen, a Republican and speaker of the Assembly,
were among those charged with extortion, misconduct in office, filing false
reports, making illegal contributions, misusing public position for private
gain and using state employees from the legislature's political caucuses as
party workers. They are also accused of creating phony independent political
fronts to launder their illegal funds for use in campaigns - kind of like the
Qaeda honey scheme.
Most of the mischief grew out of the legislature's political caucuses. The
caucuses - one for each party in each house - were created to raise professionalism
in state legislatures by providing a pool of policy staffers to help legislators
with research and support. The plan's good-government bona fides could not have
been finer: the system was based on a 1965 Ford Foundation idea for reorganizing
state government, and where better to do it than the state Louis Brandeis called
the "laboratory of
reform." In time, however, the caucuses became a laboratory for something
else, as party leaders began to use them for
electoral support, advocacy and campaign planning.
Admittedly, much has changed since the Ford people showed up. There is, of course, a lot of pressure to raise piles of money. The megabucks success of Tommy Thompson - our former governor, your secretary of Health and Human Services - raised the bar for Wisconsin politicians. Mr. Thompson's "Governor's Club" of corporate donors was a key to his success. The group included, but was not limited to, the legendary Four Horsemen of the Wisconsin Apocalypse - the Farm Bureau, the Builders Association, the Realtors Association and Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce.
These organizations have remained generous. Wisconsin Republicans still hold a 20-to-1 advantage over the Democrats in soft money compared to a 3-to-2 ratio nationally; when the soft money goes, they will have a similar advantage in whatever takes its place - chits, bullion, pork bellies - in a post-reform world.
Mr. Chvala, who lost in a landslide to Mr. Thompson in the 1994 governor's
race, may have thought he could make up the
difference single-handedly. But where the spirit is willing it is also bipartisan:
according to a lobbyist who spoke to
the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on the condition of anonymity, the only difference
between Mr. Jensen, 42, and
Mr. Chvala, 47, was that "Jensen was not his own bag man." Mr. Chvala,
a little guy but a former wrestler (you know
the type) finally ran into trouble when, according to the criminal complaint
filed against him, he tried to shake down the Wisconsin Wholesale Beer Distributors,
who tend to run big.
Also running big is denial: caucus workers on both sides who spent virtually all their time getting out the vote often claimed they didn't know that what they were doing during their work day was illegal. Candidates who benefited from their efforts expressed shock, even claiming they weren't aware where the campaign support they were getting was coming from.
Meanwhile, back at the rotunda, the need to know was on a need-to-know basis.
The former Republican Caucus director
testified in a hearing that the party obscured its mischief through a hierarchy
of meetings: regular meetings, secret leadership meetings and super-secret leadership
meetings. Lobbyists got used to seeing "State of Wisconsin" on their
caller ID. A developer from Illinois, told by Mr. Chvala that a couple of $500
checks to candidates of his choice would ensure his bill would successfully
navigate the shoals of the Senate, complied. The developer regarded the request
as "a typical Chicago aldermanic tactic," according to a report in
the Wisconsin State Journal of Madison.
It's hard to predict how all of this will play out in next month's elections.
But the wave of statehouse indictments, hard on the heels of a sex scandal involving
the mayor of Milwaukee, the uproar over lavish golden parachutes Milwaukee County
supervisors awarded themselves before retiring and Brett Favre's twisted knee,
have made for difficult times for the laboratory of reform. The people of Wisconsin
have only tainted elections and the diseased deer season to look forward to
this fall - and the lingering
question, in both cases: what to do with the carcasses?
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/24/opinion/24FELD.html?ex=1036480038&ei=1&en=95b8a3f697e82248