Isthmus Peels Back The WMC Onion

In a front page story not yet available online, Isthmus the Madison weekly newspaper offers this query:

Bad for Business? WMC is winning elections, but hurting the state's image.

As the sunlight pours in, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC) begins to wilt. When the story becomes available on line, I will post again and link, but here are some observations from WMC's chief lobbyist, Jim Buchen (That would be James for the rest of you.):

"'I think it's kind of laughable in the sense that you have Paul Soglin and Dave Zweifel trying to define what's in the best interest of the business community...Buchen dismisses these critics as people who want "higher taxes..."

The funny thing is that when I was in office as mayor of Madison, our per capita spending was below the average of the major Wisconsin cities.  We accomplished that despite the fact that WMC was successful in shifting taxes from businesses in a manner that drove up residential property taxes.

When WMC spends its millions on 'issue ads,' the source of the money is never disclosed. Rumor has it that as Wisconsin corporations shy away from opening their wallets, the money is coming in directly from national chains such as Wal-mart, Home Depot, and multi-nationals or lobbying organization that are their fronts:

Soglin believes much of the money comes from shadowy national groups seeking to remake the nation's courts along right-wing lines.

Asked where WMC, gets the money it uses to run these ads, Buchen declines to be specific, "it comes from business," he says, "That's all I'm going to say."

Buchen does not claim that even half of the money comes from Wisconsin.

Wisconsin businesses may or may not be putting money into these issue ads.

WMC has the right to run the ads.

We have every right to out the companies that approve the airing of these ads and their contents. The board of directors of WMC are responsible.

We are going to make sure that every Wisconsin consumer knows if thier health care provider, their food provider, or anyone else that enjoys their shopping dollar is paying to go after Justice Louis Butler, Governor Jim Doyle, Chief Justice Shirley Abrahmson, or Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk when she ran for Attorney General.

Kathleen Falk will be serving Johnsonville Brats at the Brat Fest this Memorial day weekend. We just want her and her friends to know that she is far more generous to Johnsonville than they were to her.

 

Comments

[Unknown]

Shadowy issue ads are the scourge of politics right now, but I hope you will agree with me that WMC and the right are not the only guilty parties. Groups on the left have hands that are just as dirty. This is definately a bi-partisan problem.

[Jess Wundrun]

Name some of those groups on the left, and name what they did then, please. Use specifics.

I'm mostly interested in you backing up the "hands are just as dirty" line meaning you are going to show us how a party on the left affected the Butler/Gableman race to an equal degree that the WMC did.

[Paul]

Jess nailed it. When you examine WEAC or similar ads, there is nothing about Gableman that is false.

The attack ads on Butler did the following: gave the impression that things he did as a defense lawyer, he did as a judge; called an issue that the US Supreme Court sees as a serious constituional matter 'a technicality;' and that his actions freed a rapist (which never happerned).

Those are three examples just for starters.

What was said about Gableman that was so abusive? --that he was bought by special interests like WMC?

[Marquette 2L]

Paul, it's obvious to any reasonable person that the ads against Gableman were misleading.

Gov. McCallum had the discretion to select whomever he wanted for the Burnett County judicial position. He wasn't bound by the recommendation of the independant panel; he didn't have to pick a local judge; missing a deadline was not important. Insinuating that Gableman bought this position is clearly, to use your words, "abusive."

Another ad also said (District Attorney) Gableman reduced charges against sex offenders 70% of the time, and that and as a judge sentenced child sex offenders to an average of 25 years less than the maximum. The ad highlighted two child sex offender cases heard by Gableman. In one, Gableman gave a man one year in jail for attacking a young girl. The defendant whom Gableman sentenced to a year in jail got a stiffer sentence than the one the prosecutor recommended.

Another ad talked about Gableman's court ranking near the bottom because "it takes so long to try felons". Such a statement is meaningless without knowing what kind of resources his court had in comparison to other courts.

I don't condone the ads against Butler. I thought they were awful and dishonest. The fact that the ads against Gableman were misleading does not justify them. But if we only condemn dishonesty on one side of the political spectrum we are not going to convince or convert reasonable people in the middle or on the other side.

[Jess Wundrun]

Hey, unknown and Marquette 2L: sorry, don't remember those ads. Please come back and present WHO sponsored those ads and tell us when they were aired.

As of yet, there is no "there" there. Just waiting.

My original request goes unanswered

[Marquette 2L]

Jess,

The ad that insinuated that Gableman purchased his judicial position was paid for by the Greater Wisconsin Committee, an organization that spent over $300k on ads praising Gov. Doyle during his campaign. Like WMC, GWC does not disclose its list of donors (many speculate that trial lawyers are a substantial source of its funding, but I have not seen any evidence to support this). GWC also paid for the ads that said Gableman's court took too long to try felons

The ads that talked about Gableman being soft on crime were paid for by the Greater Wisconsin Committee as well as WEAC (the state's largest teachers' union).

If your point is that the anti-Gableman ads were not as dishonest or did not impact on the campaign to the degree that the anti-Butler ads did, I don't dispute that. If your point is that the ads run against Gableman were not misleading and not funded by left-leaning special interest groups, I don't think that is a reasonable position in light of the evidence.

(Regarding when the ads aired, I saw all of the mentioned ads dozens of times during the campaign. This could be a function of the fact that I'm a poor law student without cable TV. Doing a simple google search will confirm what I've said).

[Charlie]

Jess, I supported Butler but I have to admit I saw all those ads that Marquette 2L described. He (or she) is not making things up or spinning the facts. But WMC ads definitely dominated the airwaves; there weren't many Butler ads (no matter who paid for them).

[Jess Wundrun]

I didn't mean to imply that the ads didn't exist, but simply not recalling them I don't know and the first post didn't say who sponsored them nor what was spent.

Again, the question was to back up the line that "hands are just as dirty". Thus far that comment has not been proved and I simply don't believe that it can be. So Marquette and I are in agreement as to this paragraph:
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If your point is that the anti-Gableman ads were not as dishonest or did not impact on the campaign to the degree that the anti-Butler ads did, I don't dispute that. If your point is that the ads run against Gableman were not misleading and not funded by left-leaning special interest groups, I don't think that is a reasonable position in light of the evidence.

[Charlie]

Thanks for clarifying your comments, Jess. I agree WMC's hands are dirtier than those of the groups who ran Butler ads.

[Ron Legro]

The bottom line is that the last two Wisconsin Supreme Court races have taken the bloom off any notion that politics in this state are somehow more thoughtful than in other states. The New York Times has now noticed. In a May 25 feature article, the Times reporting shames Wisconsin and the US in general. The story notes the Gableman victory and the methods his supporters used. The story goes on to show how the French could teach us yet some more about democracy -- both its virtues and its limits. The French, you see, use the equivalent of a "no child left behind" testing system to thoroughly vet its judges.

I know this will make neocon heads explode, but given our large and complex society, our justice system is necessarily going to be large and complex, too. A 30-second, law-and-order campaign ad doesn't in any way, shape or measure equate to a judge or justice who has any clue what he'll be doing. And, almost by definition, that in turn guarantees activist judges who'll be making it up as they go along.

Anyway, go see for yourself:

http://tinyurl.com/3elxrn