Proposal Would Exempt Wisconsin Campaign Donors From Discolsing Their Employers
People who give money to candidates for state office would no longer have to list their employer under a proposal by a Republican state Senator. The proposal comes less than a year after that information led to criminal charges against a railroad executive.
Sen. Glen Grothman says he decided to introduce his plan after some Wisconsin Democrats called for boycotts of businesses whose employees give to Republicans, “By putting down the employer, we’re kind of helping people and punishing individual businesses. I don’t know why we want to help people punish individual businesses.”
The West Bend Republican says he thinks that in most cases, the contributions made by average employees have nothing to do with their employer’s agenda, “It’s entirely misleading and inappropriate to sit there and put that employer down there so some goof like a Michael McCabe sort can publicize that I’m taking money from an employee of say West Bend Insurance Company because of where I stand on insurance issues, it’s just not true.”
The Michael McCabe Grothman mentioned there is the director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a watchdog group tracks campaign finance contributions. McCabe spoke next at a public hearing, telling Senators people wants more disclosure, not less, “This bill would blind voters to the financial interests of campaign donors. This would be a dagger to the heart of Wisconsin’s campaign finance disclosure laws.”
McCabe also pointed to criminal charges filed last year against railroad owner William Gardner for illegally funneling company money through his employees to support Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign, “This legislation would make such investigations difficult if not impossible.”
McCabe says the same was true when federal authorities charged Democratic donor Dennis Troha a few years ago.
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