A Republican-backed state Senate campaign finance bill that would increase the minimum level for reporting campaign donations moved into committee Thursday for a discussion about its viability.
State Sen. Glenn Grothman, R-West Bend, authored the bill, which would change the current rule that all campaign donations exceeding $100 require a report of the donor’s name, occupation and the address of the place where he or she works. Grothman’s bill would raise the necessary level to in excess of $500 and would require people donating between $100 and $200 to only report their occupations and not their employers.
In his testimony before the state Senate Committee on Elections and Urban Affairs, Grothman said he proposed the “common sense” bill after seeing the backlash small businesses received after supporting a candidate who was not popular with protesters.
“I felt really bad that if someone was contributing $125, their boss’s business could be boycotted,” Grothman said. “I don’t think we’ve ever seen that much hatred and that much mean-spiritedness in Wisconsin before.”
State Sen. Mary Lazich, R-New Berlin, who chairs the committee, said it was a “good bill” that would stop protesters from “muzzling” potential donors by “stifling their speech.”
Mike McCabe, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, testified against the bill, saying it was an “extreme attack” on the public’s right to know about campaign spending and represented a “fear of democracy.”
The bill must pass through a committee’s executive session before moving on to the state Senate.
