Campaigns should not be coordinating with dark money donors

By Jeff Simpson 

Cross Posted from JSonline:

Gov. Scott Walker was correct when he called the rash of news stories about the latest John Doe investigation a "media frenzy." The first John Doe resulted in six criminal prosecutions, and in the midst of the second John Doe, Appeals Court Judge Frank Easterbrook ordered the release of a small batch of documents related to the latest investigation.

The highlight of the document release was part of an email Walker had sent to Karl Rove, former top adviser to President George W. Bush. In the email, Walker tells Rove that his longtime campaign strategist, R.J. Johnson, would be coordinating between an unlimited number of right-wing groups to help make sure that they were going to be successful in the recall elections. There is not much question whether the Walker campaign coordinated with these different groups. However, there is doubt as to the legality of such coordination.

Do we as a society, in our constitutionally limited democratic republic, just wait until a current lifetime-appointed judge gives us his all-too-predictable ruling on the matter, or do we demand more out of our public servants?

There are two kinds of people who believe that money in politics is not a problem: the people receiving the money and the people who are not paying attention. The two major parties and their respective supporters spent as much as $60 million on the gubernatorial recall election in addition to spending almost $40 million in the 2010 gubernatorial election. Two men spent $100 million to battle for a job that pays $140,000 a year plus benefits. And we are supposed to trust these people with our state budget?

Do we continue to look the other way, while politicians spend massive amounts of money on ads (Walker is currently spending $245,000 on a TV ad campaign to run for over a week) while our children go hungry? In Wisconsin, the number of children on free and reduced-cost lunch has more than doubled in the last 10 years.

Our politicians understand the importance of keeping money out of politics, as they wrote it into our state statutes: "When the true source of support or extent of support is not fully disclosed, or when a candidate becomes overly dependent upon large private contributors, the democratic process is subjected to a potential corrupting influence."

Abraham Lincoln warned us that if we enthrone corporations, "an era of corruption in high places will follow." There is no higher place than our statehouse.

We also need to look at the silly claims that Johnson and Eric O'Keefe, head of Wisconsin Club For Growth, among others, have made. They assert that their First Amendment rights were violated due to the John Doe investigation. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The First Amendment tells us that Congress shall make no law "abridging the freedom of speech." At no time have Johnson or O'Keefe lost their rights to free speech. They have the same rights that you and I do. What they have lost is the ability to collect unlimited amounts of anonymous money to use, with the collaboration of elected officials, to work together in coordination to get as many members of one party elected.

The question we have to ask is not whether Walker will face criminal charges. The question we need to ask as a society is: Do we want to outsource our elections and our politicians to a handful of multimillionaires? As Thomas Paine said, "a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right."

No matter what the outcome of the second John Doe, it is wrong to have politicians collaborating with outside dark money groups. We need to start holding our elected representatives to a higher standard of ethics and personal responsibility.

Jeff Simpson of Cottage Grove is a small business owner, member of the Monona Grove School Board and Progressive blogger.