Just before 11 p.m. during the state Senate’s marathon session of Nov. 6, Sen. Van Wanggaard (R-Racine) laid out his reasoning for ending the longstanding rule that significant donors to state political candidates identify their primary employer. The public, he argued, is out-of-control and cannot be trusted.
“I went through Act 10,” said Wanggaard, referring to state Republicans’ neutering of public employee unions in 2011. “I had my home, my residence, picketed.” He referred to “neighbors being intimidated by 150 people out in front of my house.” He said his critics should confront him in Madison, not “come and terrorize my neighborhood.”
The employer-disclosure rule, which the Senate passed as part of a larger overhaul of the state’s campaign finance law, has nothing to do with these alleged events. It is used by groups including Wisconsin Democracy Campaign to track patterns, like how donors affiliated with payday lenders helped defeat tighter regulations by pumping $75,000 into the coffers of both Democrats and Republicans in 2009. It also proved useful in nabbing a railroad magnate who illegally used his employees to funnel above-the-limit donations to candidates, according to the Government Accountability Board, which another GOP bill that passed during the same session dismantles.
Ending this disclosure rule was not part of the original campaign finance bill. It was added as an amendment on the day it passed the Assembly by Speaker Robin Vos, the Republicans’ chief crusader against open and transparent government. (It was Vos who orchestrated this summer’s failed attempt to gut the state’s open records law and who is apparently still seeking to exempt the Legislature from its reach.)
Senate Republicans, after a closed-door meeting, had indicated they intended to preserve the employer-disclosure rule for donors who give $200 or more. But, reported the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, some senators “balked at that idea and convinced their Republican caucus to end the requirement after all.”
And with the Assembly’s ratification on Monday of the Senate version of the bill, they are a gubernatorial stroke of the pen away from doing just that.
Whether Wanggaard’s colleagues found his argument persuasive or even relevant is difficult to assess. But there is reason to question its accuracy.
The main protest in front of Wanggaard’s house was on Feb. 14, 2011. The Journal Times of Racine put the crowd at “about 45 people,” not 150. The protest organizers, Steve Urso of the Racine teachers union and Joe Kiriaki of the Kenosha teachers union, both formerly, deny there was any bad behavior. Kiriaki calls it “one of the most peaceful pickets I’ve even been at.” And Urso says he never even saw any neighbors, much less any being terrorized.
“I don’t know what he’s talking about,” grouses Urso, a former Dane County sheriff’s detective. Urso is angered because Wanggaard, as a fellow former cop, “knows damn well the importance of accurate and complete information.”
Wanggaard, in an interview, says he wasn’t present at the protest and isn’t sure of the numbers. But he insists his neighbors and their children cowered in their homes as protesters were “screaming at the house” — or so he was told. He says discrepancies are to be expected when “you’re under fire and when you have individuals who are out of control and acting reckless.”
Reports generated by the Racine Police Department do not bear this out. The one from Feb. 14 says Urso and Kiriaki “were very cooperative and courteous” and left peacefully. Urso says he hadn’t known that a Racine ordinance prohibits picketing residential homes and afterward advised his members not to return.
When a different group of protesters appeared outside Wanggaard’s home on Feb. 18, police handled the matter in five minutes flat, without incident. On March 20, they responded to a call about seven protesters “yelling and screaming.” But the police report says the group dispersed peacefully and “at no point did anyone become loud, disruptive or disrespectful in any way.”
During the Nov. 6 Senate session, Republicans argued that businesses should not be subject to threats and intimidation over campaign donations by their employees — though their examples dealt mainly with other things, like the protesters wreaking havoc outside Wanggaard’s home.
Democrats countered by quoting conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia: “There are laws against threats and intimidation; and harsh criticism, short of unlawful action, is a price our people have traditionally been willing to pay for self-governance. Requiring people to stand up in public for their political acts fosters civic courage, without which democracy is doomed.”
Sen. Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee) said he personally had received threats during the Act 10 protests. But he cautioned against using this as a justification for secrecy, saying “We should know who is trying to influence and impact our government at every level.”
But now that will be harder to do in Wisconsin, because some lawmakers are still seeking to settle the score over attacks made against them, real or imagined.
Bill Lueders is associate editor of The Progressive and president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, which opposes eliminating the employer-disclosure rule.
