Republican legislators in Wisconsin have proposed changes in the state's campaign finance laws. Plans include raising the amount of money individuals could give candidates, doing away with the requirement that donors disclose where they work and allowing campaigns to work directly with third party funders.
State Senate leaders postponed a vote Tuesday on the matter, while they work to get more GOP votes. During the lull, WUWM’s Claire Mosely hit the streets of downtown Milwaukee to ask people how much they know about campaign finance laws, and it turned out, she could not find anyone familiar with the issue. Yet people on both sides of the aisle say voters should be paying attention.
Rick Esenberg is president of Wisconsin Institute of Law and Liberty, a conservative public interest law firm based in Milwaukee. He says the changes are designed to bring Wisconsin law into compliance with recent court rulings that upheld the free speech rights of individuals and groups of people. According to Esenberg, people need to know their rights.
“When you look at the law, it’s hard for you to know to what it applies and what it doesn’t apply. And so what the legislature here is doing is trying to fix that problem so that a citizen can look at the law and have some idea of what his or her obligations are," Esenberg says.
As for the current law forcing political donors to disclose where they work, Esenberg says the requirement can have a chilling effect on people because of the threat of their names being made public and potential boycotts following.
While Esenberg wants people to learn of the protections the proposed legislation would offer them, Matt Rothschild hopes voters notice that they are being edged out of the picture. Rothschild is executive director of the left-learning Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.
“It’s going to reduce us regular citizens of Wisconsin essentially into mere spectators and blindfolded spectators at that because we’re not even going to know who’s throwing their money around to influence legislation in Madison if this thing goes through. It’s going to be a playground for multi, multi-millionaires,” Rothschild says.
Under the legislation circulating in Madison, campaigns would be able to coordinate with third party groups, as long as they don't run any ads explicitly telling people to vote for or against a candidate, and another provision would double the amount of money donors could give candidates. Individuals could donate up to $20,000 to politicians running for statewide office.
Rothschild says he hopes the delayed vote in the Senate gives people a chance to read the legislation and reach out to their lawmakers.
