 And welcome back to the Donahue Group. We're delighted that you're joining us again for a half an hour of good discussion, interesting ideas, and maybe a joke or two along the way. My name is Mary Lynn Donahue, after which this great show is named. I'd like to introduce our other panelists before we introduce a special guest for the show. Cal is gonna have those honors, but Cal Potter is former state Senator Cal Potter and also a retired assistant superintendent for library services from the Department of Public Instruction. Tom Pineski, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Wisconsin-Cheboygan. Ken Risto has a very long title. He is the assessment and something specialist for social studies for the Cheboygan Area School District. Yeah, we show you get a little closer. And someday I'm gonna get it. Cal, with that, I'm gonna turn it over to you and ask that you introduce our special guest today. Well, we're very pleased to have with us today, Jay Hecht. Jay is the executive director of Common Cause in Wisconsin. Common Cause is a 4,000 member organization and it's affiliated with National Common Cause. And I won't say any more about the organization because Jay will give us a little background on what his organization is and what they do. But I do have a little bio that he did provide to me. I've known Jay for many years. He having been, as I will mention shortly, in the legislative arena in Wisconsin prior to some of his other jobs that he's had. And during that period of time, I got to know Jay and I could probably give you much of the bio, but I wanna do justice to his fame and his background. And so I took the bio that he emailed me and I'm going to just give you a little capsule of the background on our guest. Jay has been with Common Cause since 1996 so he's been at the helm of that organization for about 10 years. And prior to that he served for three years with the Wisconsin Association of Independent Colleges and University as their media person, government affairs person. Prior to that, as I mentioned, he was involved with the state legislature working for one of the Senate caucuses as a media person. And he also worked for Senator Joel Stroll. And that period of time is what I did, as I mentioned, got to know Jay. But prior to coming to Wisconsin, he also had political experience by working for a congressman, Cosmeyer, in Pennsylvania. And prior to that, he worked in the campaign of John Anderson for president. So he has had, bringing to his Common Cause background, both federal and state political involvement. And I think that is really giving him insights that have voted very well in the successful tenure he's had at Common Cause. He's a native of Cleveland, Ohio, a 1970 graduate with honors from Miami University. He's married with two children and resides in the fine city of Madison, Wisconsin. And with that I present to you Jay Heck. Thank you, Cal. That's a very nice introduction. It's great to be with you. And I look forward to a lively discussion. I have been with Common Cause for 10 years, it's true. Some would say I'm unemployable. I mean, alienated enough legislators and other people in government. But Common Cause is a nonpartisan citizens organization founded in the early, late 1960s, 1970, by John Gardner, who was an official in the Johnson administration, a token Republican, but really formed the first public interest group in Washington because at that time, there wasn't much representation of sort of regular people on some issues. And Gardner thought, you know, regular citizens ought to have a voice. And roughly when about the time he became founded Common Cause, the Watergate scandal broke out. And Common Cause evolved into an organization that was concerned then and still is concerned about primarily ethics, how legislators and members of Congress behave when they're in office, how they're elected to office. We don't take positions on a lot of public policy issues, you know, taxes or abortion or any others. We're concerned really about process issues and really the behavior of folks once they're in office and how they get elected to office. And in Wisconsin, we've been around for I guess since 1974 and, you know, still pretty strong today. We've got 4,000 members in this state, members in the Sheboygan and Manitowoc area, quite a few, and including several of our board people, which are from this area. And, you know, I've been privileged to serve for the last 10 years in this organization. And, you know, thank you for inviting me at a time when some of our issues, corruption in government, on the state and national level have probably never been higher, maybe since Watergate. It is an interesting time. My goodness, I don't know if Governor Doyle is happy that he's in Iraq or wishes that he were back home. But the atmosphere in Madison seems to reflect the national atmosphere respect for our legislators. Never called that anymore, just politicians really, aren't they? We don't talk about legislators. We talk about politicians. Really has never been lower. Well, maybe it has, but at least not in recent memory. Governor Doyle recently introduced some election financing reforms, some considered a half measure, some consider it too much. Would you just review for us what the governor did to the best of your memory and what your thoughts are? Sure, well, you know, just to put this in the context of where we are, you know, within the last month, the scandal in Washington has broken out. The Abramoff scandal is Jack Abramoff, a lobbyist. The former, now former majority leader of the US Congress, Republican Tom DeLay, has stepped down partially because of this. And then in Wisconsin, we're actually still in the midst of what many have considered, and I would agree, the biggest and most serious political scandal in Wisconsin's history, the legislative caucus scandal, which claimed the leadership mantle of five legislators. One is still serving in the legislature, but the leadership's all been down. In the last eight weeks, we've had either four consecutive convictions or sentencing of former legislators. The great thing about the scandal in Wisconsin is it's bipartisan. And that's what you want in the sense if you're gonna have a scandal because that way it can't be polarized or it can't be pointed to as being, that's the Republicans, that's the Democrats. Both were complicit in these scandals. They all involved campaign finance abuses. And now within that context, Governor Doyle is under investigation for campaign finance practices in two and possibly three separate instances. Situations involving either contractors with the state of Wisconsin or possibly votes changing, all related to campaign financing. So that's the general context. And of course in an atmosphere like this, people scurry for political cover. They scurry to try to find, to become reformers and to sort of embrace reform. And so that's what you're seeing now. The governor about a few weeks ago put out a reform package, modest reform package, and then both of his Republican opponents for the governor, Congressman Mark Green of Green Bay. And Milwaukee County executive Scott Walker have also put out reform packages. All of them are, there's some good reforms in all of the packages. None of them really get to the problem in Wisconsin, which is really the corruption of public policy and the fact that there's so much special interest money now, awash in the system that to run for governor we've estimated it's gonna cost between 35 and $40 million, all told, spending by all the groups. That in contrast to 20 years ago when Tommy Thompson defeated Tony Earl, less than $3 million was spent and that election was about issues. It wasn't about money. And now money, more and more dictates who gets elected and what public policy decisions are made. And to actually answer your question, which I'm sure you were wondering when I was gonna do. Doyle actually put forward a package of reforms that included some things like and we've long advocated eliminating fundraising during the consideration of the state budget process, which is about a seven or eighth month period. Currently that legislators and the governor use the budget as an auction tool. They are able to hold fundraisers during the budget, special interest groups pony up and trying to get favorable treatment in the budget. So that's a good reform. There's several others not being able to use either campaign money or state taxpayer money for criminal defense if you've been charged with the crime, that's a very good thing. He's even suggested there should be complete public financing for Supreme Court races. But the problem with the governor's proposal is that it doesn't address the problem. The corruption's not in the Supreme Court. The money is in running for governor. He has to raise or feels he has to raise 10 to 15 million dollars. So there's all of that money. And then the legislature, that's where the corruption was. That's what the caucus scandal was all about. It was the tremendous amounts of money to run for state office. So his proposals don't address where the real problem is. Scott Walker and Mark Green are suddenly now reformers as well. Their proposals are also fall short. Some modest things like no contributions from people doing business with the state while a contract's under consideration. That makes sense. Mark Green has suggested that no one should accept money from the tribal gaming interests while compacts are being negotiated of modest reform. But a little disingenuous because in Wisconsin, Republicans are not likely to get any gaming money from the tribal interests. They only give the Democrats. It's not exactly a reform that's going to affect a lot of people. So that's why I say that these reform proposals, everybody suddenly has become a reformer. But the real problem of the scandal and the money in politics isn't being addressed. That's really being addressed on a more sudden level by the leading reformer in the legislature, who is Senator Michael Ellis, Republican of Nina, the former Republican majority leader. He really is the John McCain of Wisconsin, the person who's really leading the fight for comprehensive reform. And we're working very closely with him primarily to get reform enacted. And who would have thought Mike Ellis? Does that surprise you as a former legislator? No, because Mike was a majority leader for many years. And I think he has great empathy for the role of a majority leader in an ever-increasing, expensive campaign arena. He knows that money is there. He has to be raised. And he knows that corrupts the system. So he knows from whence he speaks. And I think it was distasteful to him. And eventually, he bowed out of the role. But I think he just takes as many years of experience and says, I've seen the evolution of money. I saw it in my time. I mean, I started my first campaign was $3,000. And when I left, I was still one of the pikers. My last campaign, the competitive one, was $44,000 in 1990. And my opponent, I think, spent around $100,000. But that was just before the thing just became totally obscene as far as amounts are concerned. And so anybody who's had any longevity under their belt knows that what has happened in most recent years has just gotten totally out of hand. So what has Ellis actually proposed and what are the chances? Well, one of the things, and again, I will answer your question. One of the things I just wanted to say is that things have really evolved since when Cal Potter was in the legislature. And I came to Wisconsin in 1988 with the impression that this was a state of good clean government. It was the model for the rest of the nation. I'd come from Washington, DC, where I was involved in policymaking, but also in raising money from congressional campaigns. I said, I'm going to come to this state. It'll be good. It'll be clean. And I quickly saw in the late 1980s, I don't think it was commensurate with me coming here. I hope not. But I think really when Governor Thompson became governor, that's sort of when things started to evolve. Because even though it took very little money for him to be elected in 1986, he saw that his governor, a lot of money, could flow to the governorship. And so he increasingly began to raise a lot of money. That, in turn, provoked the teachers union. We act to decide to get into this big money game. And they started doing what are called outside independent expenditures on behalf of Democratic candidates. Then a few years after that, Wisconsin manufacturers and commerce, the state's business groups said, well, if we act doing that, we're going to have to do something to help the Republicans. And pretty soon, by the mid-1990s, you had this explosion in terms of money being spent. But then you also had coming to the leadership of the legislature, two individuals who were both very ambitious, very partisan, and very determined to have their way. And that would have been Chuck Quala, who became the majority leader in the state senate, the Democrat, and Scott Jensen, who became the assembly speaker. Both of these people were really, I think, in my view, in pursuit of power at almost any cost. And it really came at the cost of Wisconsin's good reputation. And so Senator Ellis, who was the Republican leader during most of the 1990s during that period, did step down from the leadership of the Republican majority. And they were the minority by then because of this distaste for raising money. But really, because he also was elected as Cal was at a period when Wisconsin politics was very different. And so his reform, basically, it's very radical, actually, think about it. What he would like to do is supply some public financing to candidates, which would replace the special interest money, which now flows through the system, and in return for some of that. And it's not 100% public financing. It's about 35% of a spending limit. You would agree to spending limits. And so for a state senate race, for instance, instead of the $4 million races that we've seen evolve, it was about $2 million in 2002 with Jim Baumgart and Joe Leibem, about $150,000 is the limit for each candidate. And the gubernatorials, the governor, would be limited to $4 million. Again, we're talking about Jim Doyle raising and spending $10 to $15 million in 2006. His Republican opponent probably close to that amount, whether it's Walker or Green. So spending limits, some public financing, eliminating slush funds called legislative campaign committees, which allow legislative leaders to collect special interest money and then dole out money to people that they want to win. And that strips the independence of the legislature, puts all the power in the hands of the leaders, gets rid of fundraising during the consideration of the budget, and some other reforms, which are very critical if we're gonna try to recapture, or at least in some part recapture, the Wisconsin, at least, that we used to be, which is one where issues mattered more than big money. Where do you see the compromise? You've got the governor who's up for reelection. He's got two Republican opponents. You've got Mike Ellis, who's a Republican. How can common cause bring the parties together at such a late date, really, with the election in November? Well, that's the key. Of course, it's an election year, and rarely an election year does anything ever, something to ever happen. I mean, already they've already begun raising the money for the election, and they're only until April. And so, you know, but this window of opportunity where suddenly people have tuned into this issue, I mean, usually campaign finance reform and ethics reform, people sort of, their eyes glaze over when you talk about it because they really don't think there's much they can do, and it's not the issue that drives them anyway. You know, we're concerned about the environment, and education, and taxes. But more and more people finally are understanding that it's the money behind those issues, which often means those issues don't get resolved. And so, you know, the compromise, and it's a bipartisan compromise, Senator Ellis, Senator Fred Risser, a Madison Democrat, and others have put forward, which was defeated earlier this year in the state Senate. That's the vehicle by which we think is we could possibly get reform accomplished. And look, it's not the complete reform that Common Cause, and a lot of people think we need to have. It doesn't have all the public financing, all the disclosure. But keep in mind, there's a Republican majority in the legislature. The Republicans traditionally have been not all that interested in seeing public financing for elections. Ellis and a few others, like Senator Rob Coles, and there's others who take a different view. But so there would be some public financing, not all, some disclosure of outside spending, not all, a compromise that we could get in place and then build on in the future. And of course, this is a political game because what you'll have are some Democrats who are saying, well, this reform isn't good enough. And so they'll take the high ground and say, well, we must have full public financing. We must have full disclosure. But knowing full well that that kind of reform would not pass through the legislature because it's controlled by the Republicans. It's the gamesmanship and the governor's guilty of that too. I mean, he's also said he's not in favor of some of the reforms that we put forward because he says, quote unquote, they don't do enough. Knowing full well that the more complete reform that he says he wants, although some question whether he does or not, he knows they wouldn't be passed by the Republican legislature. So there's all of that. Can we do it? Look, the odds are always against reform and particularly in an election year. I'm not naive enough to think that this is gonna happen or it's gonna be easy. But if there was ever a time in Wisconsin, it would be now when all of this stuff is happening. The two and three separate investigations involved with the governor's own financing. The trial of the former speaker, Republican speaker of the assembly, Scott Jensen, which is going to be happening in February. I mean, so both parties are scurrying for political cover. And if that's the reason why reform gets enacted, so be it. If it's for their self-interest and self-preservation, fine. I mean, that's, we'll take it. That's often what it takes to get these people moving. But that's kind of where we are right now. Just, this is a little off topic. Is Jensen gonna go to trial? Well, I note that the trial is scheduled for two, two and a half weeks in February. Sure. And bad timing for the Republicans? Well, you know, I mean, the way the schedule worked was that former Senator Burke, who is a Democrat from Milwaukee and Kuala were scheduled in October. And so they've already, they agreed to a plea deal. All of these folks have said continually, we're innocent, we're gonna take, have our day in court, we're gonna prove it. And then as they approach the trial date, well, then they enter into a plea negotiation. And as I say, four for four. I mean, Burke, Kuala, Fodey and Ladwick all have pleaded to a deal. The common thread through all of this is felony misconduct in office. Now, Scott Jensen has said recently that he's going to go to trial. He feels perhaps he could be exonerated. We'll see. I mean, actually on the one hand, a trial I think would be extremely beneficial to the citizens of Wisconsin. We would air all this stuff out. People would have a sense of really what happened and how government was really, I think, compromised by the actions of both legislative leaders. But my guess is that as we approach the trial they'll be a plea agreement. I just happen to think that's it. And again, the key about this, about the scandal and about even what's happening now, it's bipartisan. This really isn't about one party or the other. And the thing is too that with someone like Scott Jensen, he's still in the legislature. The others are out. If he is found, even in a plea deal of a felony, he'll have to resign from office. And so that'll be one reason why Republicans, I think, will be looking for some political cover on this. It's interesting how that has all played out. I had seen a national poll. And I'm not sure I can find it right off the bat. But again, the extraordinary number of Americans who feel that their legislators are not working for them. And it really is a pox on both your houses that 15% think the Democrats are more likely to be crooks. 11% think the Republicans are going to be more likely to be crooks. And Tom, I don't know why that isn't reversed, but the- Good PR. They probably spend some money on some ads. That's right. That's right. They raise more money and have more keep in their houses. Jefferson. If you use to it next week, it'll be reversed. And the week after, it'll be reversed. They just back and forth. But everyone else in this poll, so quickly, my math professor, about 70% of the remaining people polled felt that it doesn't make any difference. Yeah. There's great sense of it. Democrats and Republicans are just as likely to be corrupt. And so the- I'm even there. I don't know if it makes any difference, you know? Well, you know, they- They work at it and work at it. But is it going to make a difference? Is it going to make a difference? Yeah. I mean, maybe it's important to work at it. It doesn't make any difference in it. Well, I've always said that it appears that Doyle just learned real well from Tommy Thompson. Is that true? I mean, I- Well, you know, let me just say this. And Cal would know this as well. But you know, one of the things, and all the time that Doyle was Attorney General and Thompson right next door, it's in the east wing of the Capitol, the offices are literally right next door, Tommy Thompson was governor. They were not good friends. I mean, they were- there was great antipathy. And I always view this as kind of a- like a teenage boy struggle with a lot of testosterone. You know, Thompson raised $8 million, so Jim Doyle's going to one up him and raise $10 million. I mean, I think that's part of the equation in my own view. And I think it's one of the reasons why Doyle, who ran as a reformer in 2002, that's now a secondary consideration reform because of this need to outdo Tommy Thompson. And of course, all you have to do is mention the name Jim Doyle to Tommy Thompson. Suddenly, you know, Tommy loses his cool and turns red in the face. So there's this real sort of personal animosity. But you know, with regard to this polls, the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, which is a conservative think tank, they did a poll that showed that only 6% of people in Wisconsin believe that legislators act in their constituents' interests. 47% believe that legislators act at the behest of big money special interest groups. And the other 44, whatever it is, percent believe that they act in their own self-interest. Only 6% think that... So legislators and politicians are held somewhere just below used car salesmen on the public trust barometer. And that's horrible because, you know, what does that do to democracy if everybody is so cynical about fixing the problem? What would... We wave your magic wand and what would the whole enchilada look like? When we talk about what's doable, what would really be needed to fix this change? Well, you know, I think really what's required first of all are people who care about the reputation of Wisconsin and care about good government and care about regardless of party. You know, really care. I mean, I wasn't here, but I'm told that, you know, when Warren Knowles was governor and Democrats had control of one house, I mean, they worked together on stuff to resolve problems in the interests of the citizens of Wisconsin. Now it's so partisan and so polarized that they don't do that. And really what we need to do is have a bipartisan coming together. And reform has got to be bipartisan. This is one issue that can't be tipped one way or the other because it just doesn't work. And there's got to be bipartisan agreement. Well, the best result to answer your question is for Jim Doyle, John Gard, the speaker who's leaving the run for Congress, but maybe Mike Hipsch is probably the new speaker from the La Crosse area, Dale Schultz, the majority leader, Mike Ellis, and then the Democratic leaders, Jim Cruiser of Kenosha and Judy Robson, lock them all in a room and throw away the key until they emerge with a bipartisan agreement on reform. That's right. And they could do that. I mean, it's a matter of political will and that's what's got to be done. And I think they need to do it to just to reinstill at least some confidence that state government's actually working because I don't really think people today have very much confidence in state government. So the magic wand would be this, putting the side of your own interests and coming together to do this. And I think it's the greatest gift that they could give because if you get this problem solved and if you get the corruption solved, I think it becomes much easier to work together to solve the problems that people really care about. And there are tremendous problems, as you know. I mean, there's huge problems in this state. I mean, whether it's healthcare or whether it's taxes or whether it's, you name it, property tax relief. I mean, they cannot get it together because so many of them are working at the behest of groups who are calling the shots because of the money. And why do people run in the first place? You used to run because you wanted, I mean, to express your view, people ran because they wanted to do something good. But now I don't think they run for that purpose because they're paid to run. We need you in there. The demographics of who is in the legislature has changed. I don't want to talk too much about the good old days, but when I did get in, the legislature in 1975, we did have a very large number of people who were town chairman, county board supervisors, school board members, and they were sort of people who were just moving up on the ladder of public service. Today, there are a lot of young Turks that I observed after I was in the Department of Public Instruction. I'd go over to the capital of lobby who were aides and I knew they were aides and they started lecturing me on how we couldn't afford to do this or do that and you just shake your head, you know, and these are, it was a new generation, sort of cloned politicians that were brought up and trained to run for public office. More ideological. Yes, they were more ideological and they also then were steeped in raising money because they were in the offices that did raise money and they fell into that same mode and did a little better job than maybe their boss did in raising money and they milked the special interest groups and they know who they were and so it was a whole new atmosphere that sort of just fed on itself. Jay, do you think the partisanship and the unwillingness not to come together and compromise, is that a function primarily of campaign? Money is coming into coffers and different groups just so hell bent on getting their agenda passed and people locked into positions they just can't possibly compromise? I think it's a large part of it because the problem is that if there are groups that are funding your campaigns and they have an agenda, you're beholden much more to that agenda than you are to actually coming together making the necessary bipartisan compromise that you have to make, particularly when you have a divided government with a Republican legislature and a Democratic governor. I mean very little gets done, Madison, now. It's the Republicans pass something, the governor vetoes it. I mean it's the same charade played out over and over again on vote after vote rather than coming together and they don't really even address the issues that most people are concerned about. I mean Concealed Carry and a Gay Rights Amendment and all those things, I mean those are not issues that people generally are concerned about. They're concerned about healthcare, they're concerned about education and taxes and those things often are just put to the side. So yeah, I think if you clean up the system you've gone a long way towards being able to bring people back together. Well our discussion will continue in another segment. Jay, it's been a lot of fun, a little depressing, but we had some laughs along the way. We'll try to lift it up in the next segment. There you go, thanks. You could tell that joke, you didn't tell anyone. We'll be back.