Earlier this month, a tweet from Slate political reporter Dave Weigel saying “Gov. Scott Walker just left ATR/Norquist Xmas Party” was the first news to most Wisconsin residents that their Governor was out of the state and attending a posh Tea Party hang with the Americans for Tax Reform bunch.
Under Wisconsin state law, the Governor can keep both official and personal calendars, as his predecessor, Democrat Jim Doyle did. But what is of particular note with regard to Walker are his claims that his opponents are using out-of-state money to fund their efforts against him when it turns out thatWalker is doing the same thing himself:
Nearly half of the $5.1 million raised by the embattled Republican governor since July 1 came from outside of Wisconsin. In all of 2010, when Walker won a hotly contested election that included a primary, just 8 percent of the more than $8 million he raised came from out of state.
Out-of-state donors accounted for $2.4 million of the amount in Walker’s most recent report, or 47 percent of the total.
In all, Walker has raised $7.6 million in donations since he took office on Jan 3. Of these, $3.2 million, or about 42 percent, came from out of state.
“I’ve never seen any candidate — ever — get close to half their money from out of state,” said Mike McCabe, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a nonpartisan watchdog. “I used to always be stunned when I saw a candidate for state office with 10 percent coming from out of state.”
Walker seeks to frame the recall against him as “baseless” and being led by “big government union bosses,” yet he is going from one conservative cocktail party to another begging for money to try to keep his job. That’s where the question of his travel comes in. The Tea Party elite are kings of the ‘do as I say, not as I do’ approach. They are playing the same game they are trying to decry as unfair. HTRNews recently looked into Scott Walker’s double calendar life:
Walker’s administrative office maintains his official calendar, which includes meetings and trips to promote the state. It does not include trips the governor makes to fundraisers, nonofficial parties and other such political events.
The line separating such events, to most people, is nearly invisible. For example, the governor’s trip on Nov. 10 to Phoenix to be the featured guest at the Goldwater Institute was on the official calendar. But Walker’s trip to Orlando, Fla., for the Republican Governor’s Conference at the end of November was not.
Officials with the Wisconsin Democratic Party said they have been forced to use mostly out-of-state websites, news stories and news releases to track the governor’s travel, which has quietly taken him to California, Arizona, New York, Illinois, Iowa, Tennessee and Kentucky.
Walker’s campaign staff said they do not discuss the governor’s campaign schedule. His administrative staff said they are prohibited by law from doing so.
This situation is not unique to Wisconsin as other states have had issues in the past with the transparency, or lack thereof, of Governor travel:
In 2009, Virginia Republicans went after Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine for keeping secret his travel record. Kaine was also serving as head of the Democratic National Committee at the time, a job that took him out of state often.
“In the end, he had to disclose everything,” Larry Sabato, a national political expert and director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics said. “They always do. The bad publicity is worse than just letting people know where you’re going.”
Groups like the National Governors Association, the Council of State Governments and the National Conference of State Legislatures do not track rules regarding governor’s travel.
But a survey of surrounding states shows a variety of approaches. Iowa’s laws are not much different than Wisconsin’s. But according to the state’s Democratic Party, Republican Gov. Terry Branstad keeps a relatively transparent calendar.
Walker’s funding revelations could add fuel to the fire that is the Wisconsin recall election. Traveling the country picking up support and donations is the job of a man running for President, not a man whose state is suffering from job losses month after month. Further,One Wisconsin Now suggests that Walker’s out-of-state monies are being acquired from a small number of donors and that some are being illegally unreported:
“Scott Walker intends to win this election with huge donations from a nationwide cabal of corporate, anti-middle class extremists,” said Scot Ross, One Wisconsin Now Executive Director. “No state candidate in the history of Wisconsin has gotten so much money from such a small number of wealthy donors.”
Walker’s report shows he amassed $4.87 million in individual contributions, 49 percent of which, or $2.39 million, came from out of state contributions. One Wisconsin Now analysis of his report shows:
**Massive concentration of high dollar donations: While Walker has more than 46,900 individual contributions, he raised $2,247,688 from those giving mega-donations of $1,000 and above. This top 1.3 percent of individual givers donated 46 percent of Walker’s total itemized individual money. In fact, Walker has used the unlimited campaign finance restrictions on individual donations to amass $1,210,000 from a mere 41 contributors. This means 25 percent of Walker’s individual money came from 0.00087 percent of his donors.
**Massive amounts of out of state money: Walker not only took nearly 50 percent of his individual money from out of state, his top four donors totaling $550,000, came from outside of Wisconsin. Of Walker’s largest 655 contributions of $1,000 and above, 53 percent of the money from these contributions, or $1,196,600 is from outside of Wisconsin.
**Violations of reporting requirements: Walker failed to report employment information for $41,644 in 187 contributions above $100 in violation of campaign finance reporting laws. This does not include the unprecedented $154,781 in “unitemized contributions,” which include no information. Walker was previously the subject of a Government Accountability Board complaint for failing to disclose the employment information for over $500,000 in 1,100 contributions in violation of the law.
This story, not unlike Walker’s TV ad featuring a multi-millionaire touting the Governor’s small business friendliness, shows who his few, true supporters are: wealthy donors and the Tea Party elite.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.