The Government Accountability Board decided Wednesday to consider regulating issue advertisements, which have come to the forefront of state politics during the current state Supreme Court race.
Special interest groups, which receive money from anonymous businesses and organizations that cannot legally donate to a candidate directly, fund issue advertisements.
Kevin Kennedy, the head of the Government Accountability Board, said the board is in preliminary stages of review.
“The goal is to make sure that the board is regulating all of the activity that the law permits it to regulate,” he said.
Kennedy said no decision could be retroactively applied to the current Supreme Court race, but could effect future elections.
According to Mike McCabe, director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, 93 percent of all television ads regarding the race between Judge Mike Gableman and incumbent Justice Louis Butler have been funded by special interests.
McCabe said the funding disparity leaves the candidates with no meaningful role in their own campaign.
“The candidates have no control over this campaign. They’re bystanders,” he said.
McCabe said campaigns are supposed to be a dialogue between the voters and the candidates and the special interest groups paying for the ads have changed the entire dynamic of the race.
“[This is] just a special interest monologue. A handful of groups are doing all the talking. That’s not democracy,” McCabe said.
Thomas Basting, chair of the Wisconsin Judicial Campaign Integrity Committee, said many steps could be taken to alleviate the problem.
The most drastic solution, according to Basting, would be to eliminate judicial elections altogether and have merit-based appointments.
However, Basting said changing the appointment process would require amending the state Constitution, which would take at least five years.
A more practical solution would be to require special interest groups to disclose their donors, Basting said.
“I think there are people who contribute to those groups, contribute sometimes because they can remain anonymous, and they don’t want anybody to know that they are pouring a lot of money into these groups,” she said.
