 Welcome to the Donahue group. We're in our Christmas mode. Nobody's wearing jingle bells, but we do have a beautiful tree coming out of Mr. Risto's head, and it's a good time. It's actually gotten to be a very nice set right now, so I realized that during the taping of our first show, I neglected to introduce my fellow... Elves. Elves. Elves. Yeah. Mrs. Claus over here. Mrs. Claus. Oh, my. Oh, dear. Where do I go with that? Elf, Tom. Elf, Tom, and Elf, Kendra. Okay. Elf, Cal. Elf, Tom. Snoopy. Snoozy. You're at the North Pole. Dopey. Dopey, and I'm just playing grumpy, so we're doing fine. We're mixing our metaphors. We're mixing elves and dwarfs. There you go, so. The age is setting, and the stories are melding together. So we don't have to start this segment over. We're gonna continue to move forward. There's actually fairly serious business before the state. Remarkably, in my opinion, Governor Doyle is calling a special session of the legislature to convene December 11th. Cal, I asked you to kind of brief us on what it's all about. And... Well, the governor has finally called a special session on campaign financing, and that is something after he and the legislature being beat up by Common Cause and other public interest groups for the last year or so, because many people ran after the Jensen and Koala fiascos of the last session on reform. And everybody was seeming to say, well, when is the poof coming into pudding here? And finally, the governor has put forth a special session. The bill is basically the Ellis Bill that has been around for a number of years. And it does several things. One, it increases, emphasis is public financing, basically. We have had a public financing law in place. God, when did we debate that in the legislature? Probably in the 1970s, I think, 76. I even chaired the elections committee at that time and took a lot of heat for it. And it was a dollar check off voluntarily on your income tax. And basically, it became so ineffective financially that candidates didn't take public financing. And so, they turned to special interests. And we know that from Supreme Court races and governor's races and legislative races, that special interest money and shaking down special interests has become almost a full-time profession for some of these candidates and groups. And so, the call for public financing rejuvenation has been one that Common Cause, particularly, has championed. And the bill that's before the special session, the heart of it is to beef up the funding and make it viable so that candidates now will be able to plug back in. And it will raise the dollar check off to $5 or more. I think there's flexibility as what you can put into the fund. The big debate, of course, will be between the conservative Republican viewpoint, where many of the Republicans in assembly, particularly, have said, we don't believe in public financing. This is something that's unnecessary. Private interests, if they want to give money to candidates, that's fine. So there is that conservative viewpoint who will not take up this bill, don't want to take up this bill at all. So it's going to be interesting to see what happens in the assembly. Then there's another group of conservatives who say, we are willing to accept some type of public financing, but it's going to have to come as an additional tax on the person who checks it off or a reduction in their refund. Right now, the present, the bill that's been put forth and the way public financing has operated over the years is that you check it off, but it comes out at a general fund. It doesn't come off. Like the federal system. Yes. And the reason it's done that is that we're not trying to punish anybody or make it onerous on anybody to say, we ought to be financing these campaigns without special interest. The other thing that they're looking at is Supreme Court has ruled that without public financing, you can't have limits. The new limits will be much substantially increased, just looking at the common cause. Summary, $4 million for governors, $700,000 for attorney general, $150,000 limit for state Senate, $75,000 for state assembly. The old limits, I think, for $35,000 for the assembly and $50,000, I think, for the Senate. So you can see substantial increases. It tries, in some way, to get around the court ruling about that have legitimized and said there's nothing wrong with the independent expenditures. By saying that if you do get barraged as a candidate by the special interest, you will get additional money from the fund up to three times what your spending limit is. So in other words, $150,000 limit for a state senator three times that $4,450,000 could come your way if WMC or write the life or WEAC or whoever the special interest group comes on the scene and starts maligning your character and spending a lot of money in your district. I wish this would be, there would be a way we could get around the Supreme Court ruling because I think these independent expenditures are ones where we don't know where the money's coming from. It usually comes in last minute. It's a real game in character assassination and I really think there ought to be new ways of doing it. I don't know, this is a solution, but it is being suggested as one way. There's also provision in the special session bill saying that groups that want to participate in the public arena can give additional contributions. In other words, WMC or unions or whoever want to participate in funding their democracy, they can contribute to the campaign financing law and it make additional contributions which would then be monies available to candidates. All candidates, though. Yes, yes. So I think it's a package that's, because a lot of merit, there's more to it that I'm not gonna spend all the program going over the details, but it is something that has been sort of talked about for the last couple of years, since as I said, the scandals in Madison and it's good to see that now something's on the front burner. I think it'll pass the Senate, the state Senate because the Democrats do control it and they're gonna be loyal to the governor, but I think the assembly is gonna be, even though there's only a three-volt margin in this, by Republicans in the assembly, there is that split amongst Republicans about public financing in general, as well as how it is financed. And so that may indeed make this bill only a watered-down version of it when it comes out of the assembly and then going to a conference committee, how do you resolve that? But I commend the governor for doing this because if it goes down in flames, he can simply say, I did put forth, the culprits are such and such, these groups, they killed it, not me, I'm for it, and he has done his work in initiating the legislation. Well, I think it's a big package, it's certainly long overdue, and I particularly like the provision about if you are attacked by independent expenditure groups that you can get additional money to fight back. I was the treasurer for an assembly candidate a couple different times who took public financing because he really couldn't raise money any other way. And the rules were complex, the reporting requirements understandably were thorough as they should be when you're getting public money. But it really, in this particular candidate's case, it was much more money than he would have ever had in any other respect, but if you had a really viable candidate, I mean, it's just a noose around your neck. You take this money and you're done. See, this is right for fun and games. I'm gonna be, I'm attacked, I need more money. And then, or if I need some more money, I send somebody out to attack me. I don't let people know that, but I send somebody out to attack me and say, I'm being attacked, I need more money. I mean, it's right for all kinds of abuses, at least that part of it where you say they request for more money, three times more money. My response would be that the system has been broken that is wrought with games today. Yep, I agree. All these candidates do from the Supreme Court, to the governor, to the legislature, is shake down special interest groups. And one of the provisions in the bill is at least there's no fundraising during the budget, which is the ultimate shake down, because that is a big thing. Oh, I did not know that. Yes. Well, now that's an important piece. Yes, it is. That's an important piece, I'd agree with that. It sounds like it will be eventually compromised. I mean, do you think any action will happen at all? Well, when the special session is called, this is, that's the legislature meets because the governor says you be there at 10 o'clock on such and such a date, and that bill is introduced, and the legislature must dispose of it. They can ship it off to committee and kill it, but they have to, something has to action with the bill has to be taken. And if the assembly decides to can it someplace in some committee, that's their decision, and they have made a decision to kill the bill. So the governor has gotten, they need to take some action because when they're in session, the chief clerk in each house reads the bill, says this is the hour, this is the session, and somebody's gotta do something about what, with this bill. It's been just introduced. Has anybody heard or do we have any sense of what reactions are among legislators? Well, I heard the leadership in the assembly echoed the long held position of the Republican caucus that they have trouble with the public financing aspect of it. And like I said, that is the caveat for some people who don't like public financing, as well as those who don't want it to be without an additional tax on the person who wants to participate. Maybe a compromise would be at least to try a vibrant and realistic public financing structure for Supreme Court races. I mean, I think that we have seen the justice system which should remain above political pandering and politics and all those other kinds of things really be demeaned in these terrible, terrible Supreme Court campaigns. And I mean, the Justice Ziggler is still, I mean, the sky is still falling in on her. Justice Butler, who's running for reelection, disclosed a $500 contribution, I think, from one of the attorneys who appeared in front of him, did it a little belatedly, at least according to the account that I read. And I mean, it can get to the point, you could have, and it has come close to this where issues come before the court, where the justices have all received contributions in one shape or another from the parties before them. And that's not cause for automatic disqualification. I mean, it almost can't be. And we do need to remember that people running for judicial offices may not, cannot, and do not ask for money, personally. That's school choice. If you've got a judge who probably favors school choice versus a judge, possible Supreme Court who might not, we act, maybe contribute, they don't want school choice. So they contribute to this judge, this judge can't vote on it, he has to recuse himself. And then the judge who got money for, because they kind of favor school choice, they have to recuse themselves. I mean, where do you stop? Yeah, well, where you stop is you say, at least in this particular part of the political spectrum, we can afford to have public financing, we can afford to have campaign limits, and we can afford to keep this system as pure as possible and out of the really nasty political arena. I mean, there just don't seem to be the limits that there used to be. And that is carrying over into these judicial races. Race between Chief Justice Abrahamson and Sharon Rose. You may not remember, I sure do, it was real, real, real unpleasant. The race between Clifford and Ziegler was very, very unpleasant. I'm trying to think, there have been a couple in between Justice Wilcox, got a huge amount of improper support from charter school organizations outside the state. And I'm sure he did not have any personal knowledge of these various violations and so forth, but that was very tough for him and tough for the court. This has gotta stop. And even if it's in a compromised position where you don't have this kind of thing going on, where you at least would have some sort of rules and financing, and just Supreme Court Races. Yeah, I'm not asking for the sun, the moon and the stars, just a Supreme Court Race. I don't know, to me it makes sense. I think it's going to be in the law with a proposal that Cal's talking about. If people don't check off the $1, $2, $5, and as I understand, and maybe I read it wrong in the summary to Cal, people actually will have an opportunity to check off on a partisan basis, is that? In other words, I can put $5 to the Democratic side or $5 to the Republican side. But the point being is that if people don't do that, and I know we don't have time here to go into this public integrity endowment, which is a way for people, organizations, as you were talking about, to put more money into the pot, if that money isn't sufficient to fund this, then it is going to come out of general revenues. And I think that's what's going to be difficult for Joe Blow to get their head around, I think, is that for the first time, tax dollars are going to be financing private politicians, and that's something we're not used to, and it's going to take. It's going to say when the monies were insufficient, the candidates were prorated. Right. The pot just got, my hapless candidate, just got a little tiny amount of money. He was supposed to get $37,000, and I think he got $17,000. I think that's going to be a real mental obstacle for lots of folks is to really understand that if you're unhappy with the current arrangement, and it seems like large people are in the general sense that they don't feel politicians are being responsive to them and their needs and in their lives and connecting with the average folks, whatever that might mean, and the bridge will cross that river too, accepting the fact that my hard earned tax dollars are going to be part of them anyway, are going to be going not only to universities and schools and bridges and highways, but to pay for elections. That's going to be a travel for a lot of folks, I think, a real journey for them. And that's why I think ultimately there'll be a discussion and a debate, but I don't know how far or how much this bill's going to be passed. But I do think the proper beginning is to at least say that, at least for judges elections, because even if there is an impropriety, even if judges don't really vote or decide cases based upon their campaign contributions, a lot of people think they are. And I think there is a certain double standard when you start looking at the way, because Ziggler's been down this road, I think the bar for her has been laid up a little higher than say Justice Wilcox, who nobody really much, there wasn't much yelling and complaining about Wilcox. And then you got all these kind of questions about when do you recuse yourself and when don't you recuse yourself? And I think that's really very, very, it's a bizarre sort of standards and it's going to cause real trouble. It's going to make the court look like the legislature or the governor for that matter. And we don't want that to happen. No. At least not with our legal system, which is a pretty swell system. Justice Ziggler is now disclosing all campaign contributions. I think that's an excellent step. Not that those things are not accessible, but to take the step of actually letting the public know in a proactive way who you're getting your money from is, one, I think was a smart PR step for her. But two, just from an ethical perspective, I think it's an excellent idea. And I give her credit for trying to salvage something out of this very difficult time for her. And didn't we, I think we talked in one show that she's going to work, she had to contribute so much money to her own campaign that essentially she will work six out of 10 years just to come even to the, the job won't start paying until she's well into the second half of her term. So, things got to change as far as I'm concerned. It'll be interesting. Well, you never get your money back from the presidency, so. There you go. Well, what some candidates have done is, they give the money to their campaign, but it's an understanding that's a loan. And then they, through the budget years and whatever they shake down all these special interest groups to raise their 60,000 and whatever they lent the campaign and the check has written back to them to reimburse them for. Absolutely. Which is something that smells too. Yeah. Although I think candidates who make loans always do hope that one way or another that they'll get repaid, but in any event. We are now at the juncture where the cable bill, the infamous cable bill has been passed in both houses of the legislature soon to be signed by the governor. We're gonna have a really nice farewell show here. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Shall we be as the young folks on the Titanic and stand on the bow of the ship as it slowly sinks down? I don't know if that will necessarily happen, but that's been a very interesting process, kind of fast-tracked. and it'll remain to be seen how all of this plays out. Well, I think it was a good victory for the opponents of the bill, which were companies that are not the cable franchise, the people in place now, and the AT&T's of the world who want to enter the arena. There were substantial contributions made, and I think they bought goodwill in the legislature and the bill passed. I think from people I have talked to with fewer amendments than they thought would occur. And as a result, they were somewhat surprised that the fact that the legislature amended the bill so little even after very heavily being lobbied by people who are, for example, in the community television area and other people who had concerns about the way the existing operations are and whether they ought to be continued. I didn't get a sense that the local municipalities, the mayors and common councils across the state, you didn't hear their voice, maybe it was there, maybe the lobbying was going on in Madison because they stand to lose us a flow of money that their budgets rely on. So I would think that mayors and common councils across the state would have really been a much more vocal, much more visible discussion in this debate. I was really surprised about that. And I don't think most people understand that. Yeah, I may save a couple of bucks here in my cable bill or whatever it might be, but what's going to happen to my property taxes when those funds now flow someplace other than to the local communities as they negotiate local contracts with whoever's going to be providing their services? For example, the money that comes to the city of Sheboygan is about $400,000, as I understand it, from cable fees, about a third of which comes to produce the show and the many other fine shows that are on TV8 and other cable stations. So $200,000 will be lost to the city in terms of revenues depending on how all of this flows. And so that will be interesting. I did check the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign's website because they have all the financial records online sorted by industry. And so you could see that the candidates and legislators, rather, who were in favor of the bill received about six times more money from AT&T-associated lobbyists than legislators who did not. And so there was really quite a disparity there. So I think this probably was one of the better bills that money could pay for. I don't know, but it'll be interesting to see, number one, just how it works and if it does deliver all the promises that have been made and then second, how it affects this station and this wonderful TV show. I mean, we're gonna be nominated for an Emmy one of these days, I keep thinking, right? Right? Best comedy. Best comedy show. Yes, the best disjointed reality show. Best disjointed reality comedy show in the universe, but in any event. It really will be interesting to see what'll happen because I think a lot of people do watch, at least some of the time, shows like this or they watch their local school boards or they watch their local common councils and their county board meetings and they get at least a general sense of what is going on and when that, if this plays out where cable companies can provide services without having to worry about these types of things, it'll be interesting to see how well-involved and informed people are going to be about local government and even for that matter, state government because there's been some discussion about putting the state government on local access cable channels also so people can see the Senate and Assembly at work just like we watch C-SPAN on our national channels. And that's terribly exciting. Well. It can be, particularly when we're making speeches and we know the camera's on us. Scott Jensen, the DA in Dane County has picked himself up, brushed himself off and he's gonna start all over again. He says with a new trial for Mr. Jensen, it is my understanding that the Attorney General decided not to appeal that. And it will be interesting to see how that plays out. I wonder if Chacwala is saying, gee, maybe I should have been played it a little bit more. I don't know. I mean, there's talk now that rather than going through a trial that could be much longer because that judge at that time, anytime Jensen's defense and Jensen himself would say, well, everybody's doing it. I would like to bring in people who also have done this to show that I was not the only perpetrator here. The judge says that's not relevant. Shout them up and sort of maybe compress the trial. If they can bring in truckloads of people who said, yeah, I did the same thing. I shook down people, I did it on state time and I used state phones and all those type of things. Is this gonna be a long trial? And now is the DA gonna say, I gotta run it. I got the Dane County DA's office. Should I plea bargain now with Jensen and all of a sudden the deal that's wrought is a good one for Jensen, I don't know. Can you imagine getting that subpoena, having the process server at the door, hi, you've been invited to testify at this trial to the illegal activity that you engaged in, just like Mr. Jensen. But unless I'm misunderstood and please disabuse me if I'm wrong, the appeal, the appellate courts overturning of that or ordering a new trial was based upon the judge's instructions to the jury being erroneous. So that judge in theory could run the very same trial, make the same kind of rulings along the things that you're suggesting. Cal, as long as he just or she changes her instructions of the jury at the end, I mean, that was the offending piece there, right? Well, and part of it was that the instructions were in operation of the trial that he could not, he was always silenced and when he said, I'd like to bring in someone else who did this. Or I think Jensen wasn't corrected by the judge when he would start going off on these things. And well, so-and-so down the hall was making the calls at the same time I was, and with the idea that I wasn't the only guy, I was part of the whole atmosphere of how things ran in state government at that time. And the judge would say, well, that's not relevant. You can't say that, you know. And I think part of the appeal court judge says, well, you can't shut him up for that. He could raise to say that if he wants to. Sure, and typically the jury instructions, particularly in a big case like this, you would have thought that those would have been, there's always a jury instruction conference at the end of the trial, but you have to imagine that there was a whole lot of work on those issues prior to the trial. And something called emotion and limine, which, if granted, prohibits one party from saying or presenting a theory of the case or whatever. So the jury instructions, I think, are pretty tied to the testimony that's allowed. Yeah, and because it's an element of the case and it's a part, jury instruction tells you what elements the district attorney has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. So it's my sense the judge all along, and this was just, this was wrong. But I mean, typically in a big case, that's how that would get played out. So I don't know what the plea deal was. Jensen was convicted of three felonies, I guess, and a misdemeanor. So maybe not, maybe just something a little less serious. I can't remember what Quallo was convicted of or what he pled to. I can't remember. But, I mean, he spent nine months in jail. Yes, well, and he was convicted of felon, I believe, I think he lost his license, correct? Well, I think it'll be an interesting defense strategy to say, well, everybody else was doing these things that looked deeply suspicious and corrupt, so let me off. Yeah, I know juries are gonna do what juries are gonna do, and you just don't know at any given time. Well, that was this, I think, the whole intent of when we wanted to get into this, but I don't know, that might play well with a jury of saying all these politicians are all corrupt, you know? They're all dirty. The parks in and all in their house, you know? Well, I, if there's life. I better not be in that jury, because I'll say guilty and I'll just bring on the next one. It's just like a speeder, everybody speeds, but you get caught. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah. I would certainly advise any incline of mine who has been subpoenaed to plead the Fifth Amendment, but in any event, we have very little time left. Let's celebrate Madison and the state of Wisconsin, again, being in the forefront of stem cell research, new stem cells, viable cells being developed from human skin. We get away from the embryo debate, which was certainly, was not a good thing for the state in terms of advancing its research and economic interests in stem cells, but again, I think Wisconsin needs to celebrate, number one, being a leader. Number two, it needs to capitalize from an economic perspective. Sort of the Silicon Valley of the stem cell, Valley of the country. We need to keep it here in Wisconsin, I think. And one thing we could do, the little promotion here that the Wisconsin Academy, of which we're both involved in the Sciences, Arts, and Letters, will be sponsoring one of the UW researchers speaking at B-Library in May of 08 to talk about stem cells. So I'm sure we'll get right from the horse's mouth what research gains they have made. Excellent, a fine way to stop. We here from the Donahue Group send our wishes for a happy holiday season, and I was gonna make everybody sing, but I guess we won't do that. Thanks, and we'll see you in the new year. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"]