Green tries to raise cash quickly [WI governor's race - election board rewrites the rules]

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ^ | Aug. 31, 2006 | STEVEN WALTERS

[sbMKE]

Green tries to raise cash quickly
Campaign says it will fight order to return $450,000
By STEVEN WALTERS
swalters@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Aug. 31, 2006

Madison - Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Green on Thursday launched a 72-hour blitz to raise $450,000 and prepared to go to court to fight an Elections Board order that his campaign divest itself of that amount and more.

Green and his campaign manager, Mark Graul, who issued the emergency e-mail appeal for cash, pondered how to rebound from Wednesday's Elections Board order to divest $467,844 in campaign donations from political action committees not registered in Wisconsin.

Neither Green nor Graul was available for comment Thursday.

The $467,000 was given by special-interest groups to the federal campaign fund of Green, a member of the U.S. House from Green Bay. The board said Green's use of the money would violate a rule that said only donations from groups registered in Wisconsin can donate to campaigns for governor.

Meanwhile, Green campaign lawyer Don Millis said the campaign is planning a court fight to try to overturn the Elections Board order. If the matter ends up in court, it might not be resolved until after the Nov. 7 election, said Elections Board Executive Director Kevin Kennedy.

"We anticipate that we're going to have to go to court to protect our rights," said Millis, a former Elections Board chairman.

Green would win in court, said Mike Wittenwyler, a Madison lawyer who specializes in election and campaign-finance law.

Since the late 1970s, the Elections Board has allowed federal candidates to transfer money to their state accounts - something Green legally did before the board adopted a rule limiting the practice, Wittenwyler said. Green moved $1.3 million from his federal to his state account in January 2005, after being re-elected to the House in the fall of 2004.

The board's new decision "basically rewrites the law," Wittenwyler said. "This is just a double standard."

Others said the controversial vote showed why the partisan Elections Board should be abolished. Its makeup has repeatedly shifted, depending on which party is in power in the Capitol. Both parties have been helped - and hurt - by past decisions.

The board now has four Democrats, three Republicans, a Libertarian Party designee and an attorney appointed by the chief justice of the state Supreme Court.

On Wednesday, the four members appointed by Democratic Party leaders and the Libertarian Party appointee voted to sanction the Green campaign; two Republican board members sided with Green. One Republican-appointed board member could not vote because of a conflict of interest, and the Supreme Court's designee was absent. Reform measure dies

Green and Doyle backed a bill in the Legislature that would have merged the Elections and Ethics boards and given a new, non-partisan entity more power to investigate elected officials. The Senate passed the measure, but it stalled late in this past session in the Republican-controlled Assembly.

The Elections Board action is one more example why that new board is needed, said Jay Heck, executive director of the non-partisan group Common Cause in Wisconsin.

There needs to be "some measure of consistency" in how elections and campaign-finance laws are enforced - instead of the current system in which the party in power punishes the other party, Heck said.

Although passed by the Republican majority in the Senate, the reform bill had the support of only 10 of 59 Republicans in the Assembly, said Rep. Steve Freese (R-Dodgeville), chairman of the Assembly Campaigns and Elections Committee.

Freese said many Assembly Republicans were afraid a new board would target legislators.

The matter came up shortly after former Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen (R-Town of Brookfield) was convicted by a jury of ordering legislative caucus aides to campaign at taxpayers' expense. Four other former legislators, two Democrats and two Republicans, earlier had been convicted as the result of the caucus investigation.

Assembly Speaker John Gard (R-Peshtigo), who is running for Green's seat in Congress, said he did not support the creation of a new board.

"It still would have the potential to be a partisan board," Gard said.

Freese said he repeatedly tried to reach a compromise to pass the measure, but talks failed. Green lobbied legislators from northeast Wisconsin to vote for it, Freese noted.

"Mark (Green) and I would talk about it," Gard said. "We didn't agree on all parts of it, though." 'Are you as mad as I am?'

In its new appeal for cash, the Green campaign accused Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle and his aides of manipulating Wednesday's Elections Board votes.

"Like any fighter, Mark will not be deterred by Jim Doyle's latest attempts to bend the rules," the new Green campaign emergency appeal said, adding: "Instead, he will get even by working even harder to send Jim Doyle and his corruption plagued administration packing. Are you as mad as I am at this illegal act by Jim Doyle? Want to help Mark get even? I hope you'll help us raise $450,000 for Mark in the next 72 hours using our secure Web site."

Anson Kaye, spokesman for the Doyle campaign, accused Green's campaign of exhibiting a "special kind of arrogance" by trying to raise money "off of violating Wisconsin's campaign finance laws."

"That's exactly what you would expect from a Washington politician like Congressman Green," Kaye said. "That may work in Washington, but it won't fly here in Wisconsin." From the Sept. 1, 2006 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

[sbMKE]

In a State filled with corrupt Democrat politicians, Governor Jim Doyle again asserts himself, through cronies, as the crookedest of the sad lot.

[ClaireSolt]

Why would we expect any different? They like tio change the rules in the middle of the game. Apparently, we won't even consider it as in mounting a viable
R candidate in Conn.