Spirit in Action
Wisconsin Democracy Campaign - Mike McCabe
Mike McCabe works with Wisconsin Democracy Campaign to ensure that people are better represented than money. They track campaign contributions to all statewide offices, by amount and source, and help to insure that the law protects our democracy from monied interests.
- Broadcast on:
- 15 Feb 2009
- Audio Format:
- other
(upbeat guitar music) ♪ Let us sing this song for the healing of the world ♪ ♪ That we may hear as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world home ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ - Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helps me. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred fruit in your own life. ♪ Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world ♪ ♪ That we may dream as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world home ♪ - We're joined today for Spirit in Action by Mike McCabe of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. Some people think we've got all the democracy we need here in Wisconsin and that maybe we need to work more on exporting democracy to other nations. But Mike McCabe and the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign are very aware of the shortcomings and loopholes that subvert true access and control of our government by, of, and for the people. As the saying goes, follow the money. And that's one thing that the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign does very well. On their website, WISDC.org, you'll find a conveniently searchable database of all campaign donations for Wisconsin State candidates back into the early 1990s. Putting this kind of analytical tool in the hands of all citizens and keeping an eagle eye on the forces that tend to erode our people-oriented democracy are two functions that make the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign a powerful force to help protect the fundamental rights and powers of the people of Wisconsin. I'm pleased to welcome today's Spirit in Action guest, Mike McCabe, Biphone from Madison. Mike, thanks so much for joining me for Spirit in Action. All my pleasure. It's good being with you. And you were with us up here in Eau Claire, not too long ago. You're based in Madison, but you were up here just a couple of weeks ago for our peace inaugural ball. How did that event strike you? Oh, it was a wonderful event. You know, it was part celebration of a changing of the garden in Washington, but for me, it was an opportunity to talk about what we always need to do to move our society toward social justice and what we always need to do to be guardians of a real democracy. And so I think a lot of people were hopeful and inspired. And our left feeling is though, even in very dark times and difficult economic circumstances, that there's light at the end of the tunnel because of the results of the last election. But I just think that we always have to, as citizens, be really vigilant and tenacious guardians of social justice and democracy regardless of the moment and regardless of the circumstances facing us. Citizenship doesn't stop if you're never able to pause and stop being a citizen. And so it was just great being with people who care about the direction of our country, who want peace and who want social justice and who are willing to roll up their sleeves and work for it. And are those things all essential to the nature of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign that you work for? Well, I think central to our work is a social justice ethic. I don't think we would do what we do if not for a belief that tracking the money in politics and shining light in dark places at the Capitol and holding public officials accountable and serving as a watchdog. If we didn't believe that that served a larger purpose and helped promote social justice overall, I don't think we would do the work. But that sort of role is central to making sure that a democracy functions. If you don't have a vigilant press, if you don't have citizen groups that are aggressive and tenacious about protecting democratic institutions and the democratic process, the system will break down. Democracy is a living thing. It's a living organism. And like any living organism, if it's not cared for, it will die. It's no different than tending a garden. If you don't get out there and weed the garden, if you don't care for that, it's not going to amount to anything. And so we're clearly motivated by a concern for overall social justice. And the reason I do this work is because I'm convinced that the problem of money in politics and the extent to which our system has placed greater value on money than on people. I believe that that's behind the frustration that people feel on so many other issues. Our issue is the issue behind all issues. The reason that we're not getting health care reform, despite the fact that so many people want it, is the power of the insurance lobby in the health care industry, who profit from the current system that leaves so many people out in the cold, that leaves so many people without access to health care. And the reason why there's not action on global climate change, to the extent that so many people yearn for action, is that the polluters have such a stranglehold on the political system. I don't think it was any coincidence that Wall Street was never rained in and then was quickly bailed out once everything went sour. Because if you look at the three industries that are really at the center of the economic collapse and the financial meltdown in Wall Street, if you look at the finance industry and all the investment bankers, if you look at the insurance industry, AIG, and all those types, and if you look at the real estate industry, which of course is right at the center of all the foreclosures, they've made $2 billion in campaign contributions to candidates for federal office. And so there won't be social justice, and there won't be action on health care, and there won't be an aggressive way of addressing global climate change, and there won't be a real war on poverty, there won't so many things won't happen unless we do something about the condition of our democracy. So I see democracy reform as a gateway to greater social justice and action on so many other fronts. That's why we do the work that we do, is because we want to get to a place where people matter more than money in politics. Well, let's get to some of the specifics of what you do in the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. What exactly are you tabulating? Now, I know on your website, which is WISDC, that's wisconsindemocracycampaign.org. On that site, you have the numbers posted there. Who got money from what? What corporation, what individuals? How that money went in terms of people campaigning for office? How do you do that? Is that your only function? Or how do you then give that to the people in a way that's useful and that helps us make our democracy, more of a democracy? Well, tracking the money in state politics is central to our work. It's not the only thing that we do by any means, but it's sort of where we start. It's our starting point. We manage the only searchable database of campaign contributions to candidates for state office. It's the only place in Wisconsin where you can go online and you can see who's giving the whom. We give people the ability to follow the money. Before we created that database, which now has more than a half million records of contributions to state politicians in it, before we created that database, what a citizen had to do to try to follow the money in the past was go down to the state elections board office and paw through thousands of pages of paper reports. It was like looking for needles and haystacks. What we wanted to do is we wanted to put it into a computerized database and then put that out on the internet and let anybody go there free of charge and search for donations and see who's giving to their elected officials. We wanted to create a capacity to really be able to shine light on the money in state politics that wasn't there before. So that's where we start, is that devotion to shining light on the money game that is played in state politics. Then we go from there and we do research that connects the dots between all those donations that show up in that database and public policy decisions that are being made and we aim to show how public policy decisions are distorted by all those campaign contributions, how big campaign donors are being routinely rewarded. Just to give you a couple of examples, we looked at 5,100 Commerce Department grants and loans and tax subsidies. We did open records requests and then went over 5,100 Commerce Department economic development assistance packages. And what we found is that if you were a campaign contributor, you got eight times more assistance than if you were not a campaign contributor. Now that might be a coincidence, but it's a heck of a coincidence. But we also went out and we tallied up all of the tax breaks and all of the pork barrel spending projects and all of the sweetheart deals on state contracts. We looked at all of the ways that big campaign donors in Wisconsin are being rewarded. And those biggest campaign contributors had poured about $50 million into state campaigns in Wisconsin. What we found is that they got $5 billion back. So $50 million went in, but $5 billion in benefits came back to them. So they're getting $100 back for every dollar that they invest. You can't get a return on investment like that during the best bull market on Wall Street. So these donors-- and by the way, one of the things that I think people have to realize is that if you total up all of the campaign donors in our database, they amount to about 1% of the state population. And so 1% of the population is bankrolling these campaigns and they're getting all these favors. They're getting all these tax breaks and pork barrel spending projects steered their way. And that, of course, costs us all. There's just fundamental injustice in that, that ordinary citizens are paying. And they're not benefiting in the way that the most privileged in our society are benefiting. So our research has really aimed at exposing that. And then finally, from that research, we then take the next step in the area of reform advocacy. And we try to make changes that will make us a more authentic democracy, that will promote social and economic justice, that will make us a more just society and a healthier democracy. So we fight on multiple fronts for changes that will make our government cleaner and more open and more honest and more democratic. You know, that is sort of the sum total of our work. Well, once you've done that work, that analysis, you've totaled up the numbers you've seen, that these people who are giving these campaign donations are affecting it. What's the alternative? Just not accept donations? How can we make it so that the system is not being bought in the way that it so often is? I think one of the things that people have to come to terms with is that the public will always pay for political campaigns one way or the other. There's no escaping that. There is a cost to political campaigning. And the public will end up bearing that expense one way or the other. Right now, what we've got are donor-owned elections. And those donors make up about 1% of the population. And that surprises people when I say that. People say, you mean only 1% of the people give to political campaigns? And that's exactly what I'm saying. Most people don't donate to political campaigns. It's a very tiny minority that are active givers. When those people, particularly those who give large sums of money to political campaigns, when they make those donations, I don't think they're doing it out of the goodness of their heart. They're doing it to get a return on their investment. They want something from government. The biggest donors, one of the interesting things about the really big money donors, is that they're unlike small givers in one really fundamental way. They tend to give to both sides. Smaller donors usually pick a side. They either are Democrats or they're Republican. And they give for ideological reasons. The big donors hedge their bets. They're very agnostic when it comes to political giving. They don't really care whether it's a Republican or a Democrat. They just want money on the winner. And they want to have that financial investment in those who have the power to make decisions that can benefit them. And they're looking for something in return. Well, the public ends up paying for all of those rewards that those donors are given, whether it's a tax break, that ends up making all of the rest of us pay higher taxes, whether it's a pork roll spending that enriches them and costs us money, whether it's a contract that ought to be put out to competitive bids. But instead, the state routinely does no bid contracting, which costs us money because competitive bidding would drive down expenses. But no bid contracts are routinely given to big campaign donors. So again, we all pay for that. That's the price we pay for donor-owned elections. The price tag we put on it when we looked at all this money that goes in and all the favors that go out was about $5 billion a year. That's about $1,300 for each and every taxpayer in the state. The alternative would be voter-owned elections, where all of us would bear a small part of the expense for political campaigns so that we would have publicly financed elections. Candidates would be free of the money chase. They would get public grants to be able to communicate with voters, get a message out around election time. A public financing system for state elections in Wisconsin would cost between $10 and $12 million a year. Well, compared to the $5 billion that we pay to keep all these big campaign donors happy, it would be a bargain. We're talking about a few dollars. $3 to $4 per taxpayer per year would get us publicly financed elections. To me, that's a far better deal than the price that we're paying for the current system, where there are all these rewards to the big money donors. So I think that's the fundamental choice. The public will always pay one way or another, but we can either have donor-owned elections, where 1% of the population pays and then is richly rewarded, or we can have voter-owned elections, where 100% of us pay. And we have a chance at having government that is serving the public interest and that is focused on the common good. To me, that's what gets us toward in the direction of social and economic justice, if we have elected officials who are free of those special interests influences and are free to focus on what serves the public interest and what ultimately advances the common good. Even though I'm in line with you on a number of issues very clearly, I'm still wondering if public financing is going to do what we want it to do. I normally check off thing on my tax return saying, yes, I want to contribute to the public funding for elections. But wouldn't that kind of a financing system simply mean that the people with the best name recognition will win, in kind of the same way that it worked with Schwarzenegger in California, that the best-known name or the incumbent will always win, because the other people can't outspend them to get their names to be better known in the same way. Aren't there some possible disadvantages of public financing that way? There will always be incumbent advantage, regardless of the system. Because once somebody is in office, they're in the public eye, they're in public view, because they're serving as an elected official. They're taking actions. If they take actions that are popular with the public, they'll reap rewards from that. There always will be incumbent advantages. But I think the biggest incumbent advantage scheme imaginable is the current system. Unless you commit some crime or publicly humiliate yourself, it's next to impossible to knock off an incumbent. Well, over 95% of them are returned to office. And one of the reasons is that they have such a grotesque financial advantage. I've been around the state capital in one capacity or another since the early 1980s. Well, back in the early 1980s, Wisconsin had a system of partial public financing that actually served our state really well for about 10 years. The system has broken down. That old system remains on the books, but it no longer functions. The system's busted. But when it was working, what you saw were candidates running under spending limits, and they were taking public financing. There were far fewer uncontested races. In more recent years, we've had an epidemic of uncontested races. And I think one of the reasons is that so many citizens have been priced out of the political marketplace. Back in the early 1980s, you could run for the state assembly in a competitive race, in a hotly contested campaign for $8,000 or $10,000. That was a lot of money to spend in an assembly campaign. For Senate $25,000 or $30,000 was a fortune to spend back in the early 1980s on a state senate campaign. We've now had assembly races that have cost over $1 million. We've had senate races that have cost over $3 million. The last campaign for governor statewide, the total price tag was $32 million. You can run with the support of friends and neighbors and people you know if you're running in an $8,000 race or a $20,000 race for state legislature. But when it's $2 million or $3 million, how many people have friends and neighbors and people they work with, people they know, who can supply them with that kind of cash? In this current system that is privately financed, heavily reliant on big special interest donors, ordinary people are priced out of the marketplace. And only those who are either independently wealthy or willing to take out a second mortgage on their soul can afford to compete. And those people who have access to those huge sums of money from big special interest groups have such a commanding financial advantage that they're unbeatable. Well, one of the things that public financing has done in places where it's been put in place, full public financing in Vermont and in Arizona. I mean, there's two states that are vastly different. One's west, one's obviously on the east coast. One's kind of a liberal state. The other's a very conservative state. But they've both gone to systems of full public financing. And what they saw was that there was a big drop in the number of uncontested races. More people running for office, more competition. Voters had more choices. There were actually more incumbents being beaten. And I think the most encouraging thing is that there were more women running. There were more racial minorities running. There were people who had been priced out of the political marketplace were able to come back in and compete because they all were given resources to be able to communicate with voters. It doesn't erase incumbent advantages. But I think the biggest incumbent protection scheme imaginable is the current system where you have to have either the pipeline of special interest cash coming in or you've got to have a personal fortune. - I think the campaign that most people have some sense about was the most recent presidential campaign, in which case Barack Obama brought in a lot more money than his opposition and was able to do that. He chose not to go with the public campaign financing limits because it was to his benefit. Now, there's some supposition that if he had stayed to the lower limits, maybe he wouldn't have won that one. Did that affect your thinking or the thinking of people concerned with public finance at all? I assume there's a lot of people who were disappointed that Obama chose not to use that public financing system. - Well, the public financing system is broken at the federal level. There was a time when this public financing system for presidential campaigns was functional. It has grown dysfunctional. So what Obama would have had to do is choose to participate in a broken system. And I think that the alternative should be reforms like those that have now been proposed by Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Susan Collins, a Republican senator from Maine, they've put forward a reform bill that would revive the presidential public financing system. It's something that Barack Obama endorsed during his campaign and he also was a co-sponsor of it as a US senator in the past. Those changes could be made. It would resuscitate, revive that old public financing system for presidential campaigns and make it a viable option. The option that Obama had was to either privately finance his campaign or opt for participation in a broken system. That's not a very good choice. Having said that, the other thing I'll say is that Barack Obama represents a phenomenon that is exceedingly rare in American politics and quite possibly unprecedented. He was able to attract millions of very small donations. I can't name another candidate who has been able to do that. And I think it's frankly unlikely, particularly as you go down to the state and local level of politics. It's very unlikely that you'll have a figure charismatic enough and well-known enough to be able to attract that huge volume of small donations. What Obama's been able to do is put himself in a position where he's taken money from the investment bankers and the big contributors and special interests. But he is in a unique position. A position that perhaps is unique in American politics. He's in a position of being able to tell all those donors, if you don't like the way I'm governing, you can keep your money. I don't need you. I can get elected and I can get reelected without your financial support. You want to support me? Fine, I'll take your money, but I don't need it. Because I can go out there and get millions of donations of 50 and 75 and a hundred dollars. And I can raise the kind of money I need to compete without the big special interest cash. I can't really put my finger on another politician on the national level who would mount a campaign for president who would be able to do that. I certainly, when you get down to the state or local level, I don't know of anybody who could have an internet website that would attract these huge masses of people who would be willing to give 50 or a hundred dollars. It really is a unique phenomenon. And I don't think we should build our hopes for campaign finance reform on that single individual phenomenon. We have to have a system that will work for candidates who are much less charismatic than Barack Obama. And it will work for candidates, good people, who simply aren't as well known and don't have the capacity to do what Obama has done. That's what brings me back to the idea of recreating healthy, functioning public financing systems so that candidates who maybe are running for state assembly or much more humble offices than president of the United States that aren't in the public eye nearly to the extent that Barack Obama is. But it would give them the resources to reach out to voters without having to be so beholden to the special interests that have a stranglehold on our state capital and frankly a stranglehold on our nation's capital as well. - You mentioned Senator Feingold and his role in promoting alternative legislation. I think on a personal level, he's also tried to live that out. Is he a Wisconsin equivalent perhaps of Barack Obama who is able to accept donations that aren't tainted by the corporation control that so many other candidates end up being controlled by? - You know, Senator Feingold is similar in some ways, but what Russ Feingold has been willing to do that also is virtually unique among US senators and national candidates and that is very unlike what Barack Obama did is that he has been willing to run as an incumbent US senator and be outspent by his challengers because he has placed limitations on his fundraising. He's insisted on setting a standard for how he goes about raising money that is a higher standard than most politicians will set for themselves. And what that ended up doing was putting him at a financial disadvantage. He was outspent in his first run for re-election and he won by a very narrow margin. Now Barack Obama didn't take that kind of risk. He raised much more than John McCain did. Feingold took a risk and said that he thought that people would respect the standard that he set, the way that he practices politics and that they would return him to office even if his practices led him to be outspent. His first run for re-election he ran against the candidate with substantial resources and substantial personal wealth and Feingold really had neither, but he won. And so I would say he's closer to probably the model of Bill Proxmire, who was a legendary Wisconsin politician, probably closer to the Proxmire model than the Obama model. He's been very successful politically and frankly I wonder why more people don't emulate Russ Feingold. Why more people aren't willing to take the calculated risks that he takes? Because there's no more successful vote-getter in the state of Wisconsin. You look at Russ Feingold when he's run for election in this state, he significantly out-pulled John Kerry. He's out-pulled Jim Doyle. He's won more votes than anybody. And he has people on both sides who respect his independence and are willing to consistently return him to office, even though he doesn't play the money game the same way that typical politicians in Washington do. He's embraced a different model than Obama with some similarities, but he's been highly successful in this state and I think he'll go down in history as one of the most significant political figures in Wisconsin. I'm fascinated that more people don't emulate him. The thing that Feingold has going for him is that I can't tell you how many Republicans I've talked to. They'll say I'm a Republican, I hate liberals, but I vote for Russ Feingold because I respect his independence and I really think that when issues come before him he's able to think about what makes the most sense and what's best for the whole state and he's not thinking about which special interest group he needs to reward. Whereas most politicians, I think the average citizen assumes that they're bought and that they're just going to look out for their big campaign donors. Well, that loss of public confidence, that loss of trust that comes along with playing the political game that way, that's a big price to pay. Most politicians are despised. I think Russ Feingold's a notable exception. People really seem to respect him and it has everything to do with the way he practices politics. You said there again, a lot of people assume that our politicians are bought. You gave us an example earlier where you thought that the policy was skewed towards those people who give large contributions. Can you give other examples that really document? Does this selling of the soul of the politicians truly happen? I could give dozens and dozens of examples, large and small, where money flows in and political favors flow out and the politicians say that it's all a coincidence. Well, after you see dozens and dozens of coincidences, it doesn't seem like a coincidence anymore. Unmistakable pattern emerges. But let me just give you a couple of examples. People can agree or disagree with the bill and its aims, but to me, the influence, the special interest influence is unmistakable. One recent example was something called the Video Competition Act that was billed as a way to lower cable TV rates, create more competition in cable television. The problem was that the bill was written by AT&T. AT&T lobbyists wrote the legislation, not legislators. The industry wrote it, and AT&T specifically wrote it. They wrote it in a way that stripped away all kinds of consumer protections that did away with support that the cable TV industry, rather, has had to provide the community access television stations. That bill, that so-called Video Competition Act, will put public access or community access television at great risk. I think you'll see community access television stations around the state disappear in the next few years in many communities. And you'll see it suffer in many more. That bill, I don't think, will reduce cable television rates a penny. I think you'll continue to see cable TV rates go up. I don't think it'll create significant competition in cable television in most markets, in most communities, because there was nothing in the bill that really creates that competition. I think all it really did was reduce consumer protection and put community access television on the endangered species list. To me, it was difficult to watch that legislation sailing through the legislature and not notice all of the contributions from AT&T and charter and the big players in the cable industry. To give you just one more example, every poll I've seen shows broad public support between 2/3 and 3/4 of citizens in the state, depending on which poll you'll look at, support a ban on smoking in public places. And yet, a smoking ban bill keeps getting derailed in the legislature. Over and over again, it's been tried. And over and over again, it gets torpedoed. Well, I can't help but see all of the money that's coming from the tavern league and from the tobacco industry. You see a debate in poll after poll. There's a clear indication that the public wants this, that it's good for public health and the people that you're never going to get 100% support for anything. There's people who disagree with that sharply. And I respect those differences. But again, the vast majority of people in the state want a ban on smoking in public places. And yet, their own elected representatives refuse to give it to them. And then I see all the tavern league money come in. I see all the tobacco industry money come in. And it's very difficult for me to look at that and think that it's all a coincidence. Now, the politicians will always say that their decisions aren't influenced one I/O at it by their campaign contributions. And yet, you repeatedly see these elected officials fighting with their campaign donors. Sometimes, they're actually acting in direct contradiction with what the general public wants, as with the smoking ban. When I look at all of that, what I see is that the politicians seem to be more afraid of their cash constituents than they are of their voting constituents. And the politicians seem to be siding with their cash constituents more regularly than they're siding with their voting constituents. To me, what that says is we've got a system where money matters more than people right now. And we need to flip that. We need a system where people matter more than money. That's at the root of what the democracy campaign is fighting for. You strip away all of the technicalities and all of the details. And when you get right down to the core, what we're fighting for is the creation of a system where people matter more than money. In case you just tuned in, I'm speaking with Mike McCabe of Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. He's joining us from Madison. My name is Mark Helpsmeat, and this is Spirit in Action. You can always check these programs out via my website, which is northernspiritradio.org. And please leave us comments when you visit. Mike McCabe is my guest, and Wisconsin Democracy Campaign is working to promote democracy. What a novel thing to do in this country. I was wondering, Mike, are there other nations who do it right, who somehow get past the government being bought by the highest bidder? I think, as Americans, we tend to think that we're the focal point of democracy in the world, and we like to think that we have the strongest and most successful democracy on Earth. One of the interesting things is that America stands alone in the world among the major democracies where the only major democracy on Earth that doesn't have some system of free airtime for political candidates. And again, I would point to the influence of the broadcast industry. The National Association of Broadcasters is one of the most powerful lobbying forces in Washington. And I don't think it's any coincidence that America is the only major democracy on Earth that doesn't require broadcasters to provide airtime for candidates to communicate with voters around election time. In most of the European democracies, and many of the democracies around the world, campaigns are much shorter than they are here. Ours can be years-long, certainly month-long. And in many countries, campaigns are weeks-long, and candidates have the ability to go on TV without having to go out and raise a bunch of special interest money and communicate with voters. America stands alone in denying that to candidates. We require people to go and take out a second mortgage, and there's a whole to get all the money to pay for that airtime. To me, that's an area where the rest of the world, at least the rest of the major democracies in the world, are doing it better. I don't think there's any question that we could learn some things from some of the other countries. And that's not to say that other countries don't struggle with the power of privilege and the power of money in their systems. There will always be forces of corruption that will seek to gain a foothold in any system. I don't think any of us should be so naive as to think that we can wave a magic wand and end political corruption for all time and do away with the influence of money in politics. But I do think that there are some things that we can do to balance the scales and help empower ordinary citizens and help move us more in the direction of a system where people matter more than money. You know, and I think Wisconsin is actually an example of a state that has had a reputation for a clean and open and honest government. For years, we stood in stark contrast with states like Illinois or Louisiana or New Jersey that had reputations for having very corrupt political cultures. We had a reputation for having a very pristine political culture. I think, sadly, in recent years, in very recent years, Wisconsin has become much, much more like Illinois. We've evolved our political culture has changed in the last 10, 15, 20 years. But the fact that we used to rightly be able to lay claim to this reputation for clean and open and honest government, what that says to me is that it is possible to improve a political culture and to make a political system more open, more honest, and more accountable to ordinary people. It is possible to design systems that enhance social and economic justice. And none of us should be so cynical, especially if you live in Wisconsin where we have such a rich history, none of us should be so cynical as to ever fall into the trap of thinking that politics has been corrupt and always will be corrupt. That's a destiny that we can control. People in Wisconsin who came before us did a far better job than people in some of these other states that I mentioned, the Illinois and the Louisiana's and the New Jersey's, in fashioning a system that was more open and more accountable and cleaner. We ought to remember that history and use it as inspiration to continue to work to make Wisconsin a special place. We don't even need to make history. We just need to relive our history and revive our history here in Wisconsin. - You know, Mike, I think I grew up with that same kind of ideology and the strong Wisconsin values that you're speaking about. I'm going to confess to you here a piece of poetry that I wrote back about 1973 or four. I was in college and I was in forensics competition. And the topic I grew was a question about public financing if we needed it. So again, we're talking about 35 years ago or so that I did this at that point, Richard Nixon was president. And I was concerned by the fact that it would be a rich few people who could buy the election rather than the liberal many, as I interpreted it. Here's my little piece of poetry and feel free to applaud if you feel led. - If I had a dollar for every white collar who'd stand up and holler for Nixon, it'd be more than a penny from the liberal many conclusion our finance needs fixing. (laughing) - Oh, I wish I had the ability to make poetry like that. That's very nice. - I wanted to talk about another current event and see if this is related at all. Certainly everybody has heard about Governor Blagojevic down in Illinois, being removed from office essentially because he's using his position to pander for money for riches for himself. If you don't get it directly, cleanly in campaigns, does that mean that they're just gonna get it indirectly? So part of public financing and I figure has to plug the other ways in which corruption can happen in the system. Corruption in terms of making contributions simply to get benefits from the guy you elect is one form of it, but doesn't this tie in with corruption in every other form? - Well, yeah, but you know, the interesting thing is that Governor Blagojevic was operating in a political culture that is akin to the Wild West. He was Governor of Illinois and in Illinois, there are no campaign contribution limits. Wisconsin has a long history of limiting campaign contributions. Legally, you can give as much as you want any thumb to an Illinois politician and it can come from any source. It can come from a corporate treasury and corporate treasury contributions are banned in Wisconsin. You can't give money out of the general treasury of a corporation here in this state. You can give any amount in Illinois and I think that speaks to the power of laws and rules in shaping the political culture. Laws and rules are a reflection of a political culture and in Illinois, the political culture has been anything goes. So I don't know that it should be that much of a surprise that in such an environment, somebody like Rod Blagojevic just sort of ran wild and he not only was raising obscene sums of money from special interests, but he was even then taking it a step farther and feeling like he somehow had the right to sell his office and maybe sell other offices like the U.S. Senate seat to the highest bidder. I think that what any state needs to do is have rules and laws in place that reflect a political culture that is healthier and more ambitious than what you see in Illinois. We should aspire to something more than a political process that is simply pay to play more than just legalized extortion and bribery. Illinois really doesn't have any rules and Wisconsin has a very rich tradition of campaign finance regulations that I think have served our state pretty well. Unfortunately, many of those laws have fallen into disrepair and in the last 20 years, they've been shot full of loopholes. My generation, we've not been very good stewards of the democratic process. We inherited a system known from coast to coast for clean and open and honest government and we've really allowed the system to descend into a cesspool and now Wisconsin's racked with some of the kinds of scandals that Illinois used to be known for. And now even our courts are facing threats to the independence of our judges. So we haven't been very good stewards. I have a nine year old son. We owe it to his generation and his children's generation to head our state back in a more positive direction so that we can hand to them something that is at least as good and at least as honorable is that which we inherited. - What kind of loopholes are we talking about that have been introduced here in Wisconsin that took us from prime A double A rated democracy to a compromise democracy? - The breakdown of our public financing system, they stopped adjusting the spending limits for inflation in 1986. They never adjusted the dollar checkoff that funded the system. It was one dollar back in the late 1970s when they created the system. It's still a dollar today. So the system hasn't kept pace with inflation. It hasn't kept pace with changing realities. Predictably, the whole thing fell apart. It broke down and nobody in a competitive race is taking public financing and agreeing to the spending limits that come along with it. And so what you've got is just campaign arms races. But if I had to point to a single loophole and there are many infirmities that have begun to plague our campaign finance laws, they've broken down in a number of areas. But if I had to point to the biggest, it would be the phony issue ad loophole. What our laws say, unfortunately, this interpretation was made by the old state elections board, what the law says is that if you engage in an activity for a political purpose, then you are subject to all the laws, all the campaign finance disclosure requirements, all the campaign contribution limits, if you engage in an activity for a political purpose, if you try to influence an election. But the old state elections board wrote a rule that defined that political purpose. What it said is that you have to have words like vote for or vote against or elect or defeat in your advertising for it to have a political purpose. What they did when they wrote that rule is they introduced a loophole into the system. Now the old elections board has now been abolished because it was a panel of people appointed by the governor and the four legislative leaders and the two major political parties. It was a jury of the politicians' pals. And I think by design they worked with the politicians to poke loopholes in our laws. But when they wrote that rule, what the interest groups started doing is running these ads and just avoiding the use of words like vote for or vote against, elect or defeat. But if you watch those ads, it's unmistakable that they want to influence the outcome of the election. It's unmistakable that they're trying to get one candidate elected or another candidate defeated. But they don't use those magic words. And so therefore, under the rules, they don't have to disclose anything. They don't have to obey campaign contribution limits. That loophole is the loophole that has devoured our campaign finance laws. All those campaign contribution limits that are on the books aren't worth the paper they're written on because if you can't give, an individual can't give more than $500 to an assembly candidate. They can't give more than $1,000 to a state-centered candidate. But if you want to give more, you can just give it to some phony front group that runs ads on behalf of the candidate you like or against the candidate that you dislike. And you can give any amount. You can give a million or 10 million if you want. What that's done is it's rendered once effective campaign contribution limits effectively meaningless. The old elections board was recently abolished by an ethics reform bill that we got passed. And a new politically independent agency called the government accountability board was put in its place. And that's surprisingly because we created a board that was not simply appointed directly by the governor and the legislative leaders in the major political parties. It's now a panel of six retired judges who have to be nonpartisan in their politically independent of those politicians. And not surprisingly, they just passed rules in November to close that loophole and to require full disclosure of special interest to electioneering and restore meaning to those campaign contribution limitations. That now is being reviewed by the legislature. And I like our chances. I think we're going to get this thing approved. That would be a huge reform that would begin to put us back on the path, back toward meaningful campaign contribution limits and reviving the political culture that Wisconsin was once known for. So we're beginning to head back in the right direction. And I have to say that that's not the only reform we're going to get. I think right now we're in a position where we have the best chance we've had in more than 30 years of getting major reforms. I think the chances are great that we'll get the impartial justice bill passed, which reforms state Supreme Court elections. I think we'll get this electioneering disclosure approved. And so I think we're now at a point where we do have the best opportunity we've had in more than 30 years to get significant reforms passed in Wisconsin. I want to remind people that I'm speaking with Mike McCabe of Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. And the website for his organization is WISDC. That's Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, WISDC.org. I'm looking at that site right now. And I wanted to ask you, Mike, about something I noted on that. There's a number of coalition partners, coalition organizations who support your campaign. This is spirit and action. And so I was looking through that, and I'm saying which groups are spiritual, religious, are carrying the same kind of concerns that perhaps I like to raise as part of my spirit and action programs. I look at your site, and I see Church Women United in Wisconsin. I see the Lutheran Office for Public Policy in Wisconsin. I see the Social Concerns Commission, the Wisconsin Conference of the United Church of Christ. Why are these religious people concerned about this? How does the mission of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign fit with the kind of needs that religious spiritual leaders in this country, in this state, are advocating? You know, I think faith communities, and particularly the kinds of groups that you mentioned, have an interest in promoting social and economic justice. It's central to their faith. It's central to their understanding of their religion. And it's those who are affiliated with Christian religions. To them, this is consistent with the teachings of Jesus. And we'll stand with anybody who stands for reform and who stands for moving our society toward greater social and economic justice and who stands for creating a system where people matter more than money. Environmental organizations stand with us, and organizations representing senior citizens, and representing college students, and representing faith communities. I think what they all have in common is none of them have big political action committees. None of them make huge contributions to candidates. They don't have money. They don't have the ability to influence the political process. And what they've found is that on their issues, they're running into brick wall after brick wall, because they're not able to get movement on bills that would help the poor, because the poor don't make campaign contributions. They're not able to get movement on policies that would make college tuition more affordable, because college students don't make campaign contributions. They're not able to get health care reform, because uninsured people don't make campaign contributions. They're not able to get movement on so many fronts, because the people who would benefit the most aren't big campaign donors. And the big campaign donors don't want public policy moved in that direction. And so regardless of whether they're coming to us because of a religious motivation, or because of an environmental ethic, or because of concern about health care or anything else, I think what they've got in common is a desire to have public policies that promote the common good. And certainly within most faith communities, their lives and their actions are very animated by a notion of the common good. They see the common good thwarted by this pay-to-play political culture, by the corrupt way that politics has practiced these days. And so I think all of them maybe have somewhat different motivations for coming and standing with us, but there is a very important common thread that runs through all of them. - That makes sense to me that analysis, and I haven't thought it myself, and so I'm glad you provided it for me. I've been wondering if your organization, Wisconsin has certainly been a leader in social justice and progressive actions throughout the past century. I'm wondering if other states are doing the same thing that the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign is doing here in Wisconsin, or are we again leading the nation in how they should be organizing for their rights? - There are organizations like the Democracy Campaign and other places. There's a wonderful organization in Illinois fighting for this kind of thing, the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform. There's a Michigan Campaign Finance Network that's doing very similar work. An outfit in Minnesota, take action Minnesota. Sadly though, in the majority of states, particularly through the South, but also commonly in the West, there really aren't organizations like the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, so we tend to be relatively rare. We're not alone, like I said, and I just named a few of them, there are organizations like the Democracy Campaign operating elsewhere, but we're the exception rather than the rule. In most states, there aren't these kind of citizen watchdog groups. In most states, there aren't people who are able to monitor all the money going into state politics. In most places, there aren't these active organized citizen advocacy groups that are pushing democracy reform. I hope that what we provide here in Wisconsin ultimately will be appreciated because it's something that isn't found everywhere. You know, it is relatively rare. But fortunately, if we can do it here, another state will realize, hey, that's a good idea, maybe we'll do it, and the nation will follow us with Wisconsin leads. Well, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to be here with me today, Mike. I want to recommend everyone go to your website again. That's W-I-S-D-C.org. And you can see who's receiving contributions from whom within Wisconsin. And so you can tell whose votes are in danger of being bought. Thank you for keeping up the good work to make Wisconsin a better democracy and a shining light for our nation. All right, thank you for having me, Mark. It's been a pleasure talking with you. That was today's Spirit and Action guest, Mike McCabe, joining us by phone from Madison. You can contact him via their website, w-i-s-d-c-dot-o-r-g. If you perhaps want to invite an old-fashioned Wisconsin-style populist to come speak to your community. The theme music for this program is "Turning of the World," performed by Sarah Thompson. This Spirit and Action program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio. You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website, northernspiritradio.org. Thank you for listening. I am your host, Mark Helpsmeet, and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is Spirit and Action. (gentle music) ♪ With every voice ♪ ♪ With every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ With every voice ♪ ♪ With every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ ♪ I'm healing ♪