Money & Politics Blog: Code changes tied to donor group axed
It was an easy conclusion to leap to. A recent Wisconsin State Journal report on Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal, since aborted, to deep-six building codes requiring electrical safety devices...
View ArticleMoney & Politics Blog: Cash is key in Ryan-Zerban (who?) race
Wisconsin journalist Joe Tarr, writing about his experiences at the Democratic National Convention, recalled running into congressional candidate Rob Zerban at a nightclub in Charlotte. It was a...
View ArticleMoney & Politics Blog: Outside cash flows to hot state races
Forget opinion polling. Ignore endorsements. Never mind how much money the candidates raise. To see which electoral races are truly competitive, look at where the special interests are putting their...
View ArticleMoney & Politics Blog: Congressional candidate cash on rise, too
Jay Heck is clear on who’s to blame — the U.S. Supreme Court. The executive director of Common Cause in Wisconsin, a nonpartisan group that backs campaign finance reform, says the huge and perhaps...
View ArticleMoney & Politics Blog: Campaigns embrace new technologies
The other day, the Wisconsin State Journal ran a wire service item about a minor celebrity who “took to social media to announce the birth of her (son).” It said actress Megan Fox on Oct. 17 used her...
View ArticleMoney & Politics Blog: Cheeseheads frugal in presidential race
Frank Burgess, the head of an investment management firm in Madison, says he’s “solidly behind (Barack) Obama, in every sense,” including his donations to the president’s re-election campaign. He would...
View ArticleMoney & Politics Blog: Record spending brings little change
The Nov. 6 election was as exhausting as it was astonishing, especially when viewed from the new Ground Zero for American elections — the intersection of Money and Politics.Records were broken, along...
View ArticleMoney & Politics Blog: TV ads reviled, but effective
On Election Day, capping off months of record spending on federal and state political campaigns, reporters from the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism visited some Madison polling places to...
View ArticleMoney & Politics Blog: Election law violations not easy to prove
A week before the Nov. 6 election, Americans for Prosperity tried to pump up support for GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The conservative advocacy group offered $1.84 per gallon gas to...
View ArticleMoney & Politics Blog: Sen. Schultz expects better mining bill
Two days after the Nov. 6 election in which Republicans retained dominion in the state Assembly and regained control of the Senate, a GOP assemblyman interviewed in the state Capitol press room...
View ArticleMoney & Politics Blog: Groups eye redistricting reforms
The Wisconsin Government Accountability Board’s Nov. 29 certification of the official results of the Nov. 6 election made it, well, official: Democratic candidates got more votes than Republicans in...
View ArticleMoney & Politics Blog: Mining expert lobbies, but is no lobbyist
On Nov. 29, Tim Sullivan appeared before the Senate Select Committee on Mining and presented a report critiquing the state’s mining laws. The report was commissioned by the Wisconsin Mining...
View ArticleMoney & Politics Blog: Lemon law lawyer lays an egg
The Capital Times of Madison recently ran an article on Vince Megna, the flamboyant Milwaukee “lemon law” lawyer who plans to run against state Supreme Court Justice Patience Roggensack this...
View ArticleMoney & Politics Blog: Walker backs transparency, in theory
Scott Walker isn’t anybody’s idea of a champion of campaign finance reform. He was elected governor in 2010 after outspending the competition in what was then the costliest statewide race in Wisconsin...
View ArticleMoney & Politics Blog: Gun law push will face pushback
In late October, “Saturday Night Live” spoofed the second presidential debate, in which Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney fielded questions from a town hall audience. One question: “I...
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