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Friday, March 29, 2024
Recall rally

 

The high price of division

Long after the signs were removed, the Capitol lawn was reseeded, and the thousands of protestors departed, the ever-present partisan division and immense rise in lobbyist fundraising born during the spring protests continue to define Wisconsin politics today.

Gov. Scott Walker’s collective bargaining limits that inspired massive labor protests at the Capitol also gave both political action committees and labor unions the motivation to spend big to support the ideology that fits their interests.

But some state senators say that even before Walker’s divisive budget, money from left and right wing groups created a legislature where lawmakers are so ideologically separated they view each other as detrimental to Wisconsin’s progress.

Among Walker’s supporters is Americans for Prosperity, the conservative think tank created by David and Charles Koch, founders of Kansas-based Koch Industries. They began contributing to Wisconsin Republicans in 2005 and spent $400,000 on advertisements supporting Walker’s policies during the Capitol protests. They contribute to Republican politicians that support free-market policies in more than 30 states.

While labor unions have historically contributed to Democrats, 25 labor unions together, including Wisconsin State AFL-CIO and Wisconsin Education Association Council, spent more than $7 million from January to June 2011. That was $5 million more than the first six months of 2009 when the previous budget was introduced. Wisconsin Unions contributed most significantly.  

Mike McCabe, director of Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a nonpartisan group that tracks money in state politics, said the amount of money groups gave to candidates was “unprecedented,” and has not been witnessed here.

“[The amount of influence outside donors have is] something we haven’t seen in politics,” McCabe said.  “It has to do with the fact that Wisconsin has been thrust on the nation’s stage, becoming a pawn on a much larger national chess board.”

Political action committees contributed $4.3 million mostly in negative campaign advertisements in the April Supreme Court race between incumbent Justice David Prosser, who Walker supporters favored, and unknown Asst. Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg, who union supporters favored. It became a referendum on Walker’s controversial collective bargaining law and was the first major election after the budget protests.

Prosser was narrowly re-elected, preserving the four to three conservative majority in the Supreme Court.

 The effect of the race “was mostly the shock factor of [it], how close the votes were and everything that followed,” said Hannah Somers, Associated Students of Madison legislative affairs chair.

“Everything” included summer recall elections for six Republican and three Democratic senators. Two Republican senators lost their seats while all Democrats survived, resulting in a narrow 17-16 Republican majority in the Senate, one of the most evenly-divided in the nation.

Moderate State Sen. Tim Cullen, D-Janesville said the large amount of money in campaigns today tends to produce “further to the left Democrats” and “further to the right Republicans” in the legislature.

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“You can’t overestimate the money,” Cullen said. “It changed everything.”

State Sen. Jim Holperin, D-Conover, one of the senators who faced a recall election, noted growing separations within his own northern Wisconsin district.

“The voters were very split which is something I’ve found not only that time but ever since,” Holperin said.  

The one-seat difference in the state senate established a power struggle. Moderate state Sen. Dale Schultz, R-Richland Center, the one Republican senator who opposed collective bargaining limits, often had the deciding vote.

While Republicans and Democrats on the Senate might be nearly even in numbers, many are so ideologically extreme that compromise is a lost cause.

State Sen. Fred Risser, D-Madison, the longest serving state legislator in American history, said the state is more polarized than it has ever been.

“You have an extreme right wing here and extreme left here. One of them is going to win,” Risser said. “You have a legislature made up of extremes.”

And outside donors broke fundraising records during summer recall campaigns.

Candidates, political committees and special interest groups together spent $44 million in the recall elections, more than doubling the previous spending record for legislative election candidates.

“It was just off the charts … [$44 million] is a conservative number. [It was] probably more than that, [but] that’s what we can actually trace,” McCabe said.

$34.5 million of that came from special interest groups. That was five times more than the previous record of $7 million for outside spending for all 115 legislative races in 2008.

McCabe said before 2011, he was shocked when candidates would receive 10 percent of their funding from out of the state, and that the rise in fundraising reduced candidates to “spectators in their own race.”

Out-of-state money will continue to play a role in campaigns as Walker could face a recall election.

Americans for Prosperity spent $700,000 earlier in February on an advertisement to support Walker’s policies in preparation for a probable recall election. The four most significant contributions to Walker’s campaign, each more than $250,000, came from Missouri and Texas.

“State elections are really supposed to be about the people of Wisconsin,” McCabe said. “It’s pretty hard for people to decide when out-of-state interference is deciding for them.”

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