Campaign Finance and the Culture of Responsibility

Right Cheddarsphere denizen Lance Burri picks up on the Brian Burke Goes to Jail story, with a focus on calls for stricter campaign finance laws. He's against 'em:

We’ve already got laws on the books, and in [Burke's] case, those laws did their job. But never mind that. A pittance. A trifle. Not worth mentioning. No. We need more laws.

True, there may be episodes like Burke’s that go unprosecuted and unpunished. For example, this dreadfully underreported story: Wisconsin’s state government gave a travel contract worth $750,000 to a company that didn’t earn it, after the company’s owner gave $10,000 to Governor Doyle’s campaign.

Chicken feed, compared to the $700,000 the Indian casinos spent on Doyle’s 2002 campaign. But then, their payoff was supposed to be bigger.

Was pay-to-play involved? It sure looks that way. According to Madison’s Channel 27, at least 5 out of 7 members of the committee responsible for choosing a bidder preferred another company – the one that gave them the lowest bid.

But, when the smoke cleared, the state gave the contract to the Governor’s contributor.

It’s not likely we’ll ever prove pay-for-play. Linking a criminal act back to Governor Doyle and his administration would be next to impossible. So: that’s proof that the laws we’ve got aren’t enough. Right?

I suppose you could make that argument, but consider: in Burke’s case, a District Attorney aggressively pursued allegations of wrongdoing, which resulted in serious consequences for a powerful State Senator.

In the Governor’s case, a news team is aggressively pursuing a story. A story that looks dirty, even if all involved are really as clean and white as a Christmas Day snowfall. A story the voters deserve to hear.

End result? We – the voters – can make up our own minds when election time rolls around again.

Legal consequences in the first case. Potentially, political consequences in the second case. Because our legal system did its job, in the first case. Because our professional journalists did theirs, in the second.

To a real extent, Lance's argument makes sense. If what Burke (and Jensen and Foti and Chvala and so on) did was illegal, there are legal consequences that can be applied. If the voters disapprove of J-Dizzle's pandering (or that of Gard or others), they can vote him out. In traditional Republican parlance, this might be considered the "culture of responsibility"--when people do wrong, punish them.

I, on the other hand, take a more traditional Democratic position; I would rather see the motivation to do wrong reduced or eliminated. Take the war on drugs, for example. Republicans salivate at the thought of imprisoning addicts and dealers, while Democrats would rather bring jobs to drug-addled neighborhoods and heal, rather than punish, addictions.

In the realm of campaign finance, the Democratic solution is to eliminate the culture of corruption that led Burke (et al.) to break the law, and led J-Dizzle (and Gard) to skirt the law in his deals. Public financing of campaigns--a system like Arizona's, maybe--would eliminate the constant need to trawl for more money, stopping before they begin the kinds of crimes or ethical challenges that Doyle (and Gard) and Burke (and friends) were doing that led to prosecution or journalistic scrutiny.

Right now, Madison is so deeply mired in the business of campaigning, rather than the business of governing, that the people's business is not getting done. Republicans are too busy posturing for the Pro-Life Wisconsin crowd to effect real change, for example. Every day I get an email from some Democrat asking for money. While I could remind them that I am a humble public servant and can't afford it all, I'd rather remind them that they were elected to govern, not solicit.

So, there you have it, Lance. I'm not looking for more laws for the sake of more laws; I'm looking to change the culture of corruption in Madison. And that's not a pittance.