Bill Lueders, Money and Politics Project Director.

Wow. That was fast.

The email from Tom Barrett went out at 10:05 p.m. on Tuesday, May 8, about an hour after he was declared the winner of the Democratic primary in the recall election for governor. The email said a number of things but asked for only one: cash.

“Can I count on you to make a $12 donation right now so we can defeat Scott Walker on June 5?” Barrett asks, linking to an online contribution page.

The significance of the $12 amount is not explained, and email queries to the campaign yielded no response. It’s likely Barrett would accept any legal donation; he’s since made appeals seeking other sums. In the time that remains before the June 5 election, he has some catching up to do.

Between March 20 of this year, just before launching his campaign, and May 7, the eve of the primary, Barrett raised $1.1 million, including reported late contributions, state Government Accountability Board records show. About $60,000 came from political action committees, particularly the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Wisconsin Professional Police Association. The rest — a cool $1 million — was from individuals.

That’s not a lot of money, compared to the more than $25 million Walker has taken in (and mostly spent) since becoming governor. And while Barrett’s fundraising will surely spike now that he’s secured the nomination, it’s instructive to examine how he’s done so far, compared to his opponent.

During this seven-week period, Barrett garnered more than 6,200 individual contributions, compared to Walker’s 46,500. Walker had 58 donations of $10,000 or more, including 23 above the usual $10,000 limit, which under state law is suspended for officials facing recall. Barrett had 14 donors who maxed out at $10,000.

In fact, Walker’s top five donors gave more than all of Barrett’s 6,200. This includes $500,000 from Diane Hendricks, a Beloit businesswoman whom Walker in January 2011 told of his plan to “use divide and conquer” toward public employee unions.

Barrett’s receipts include just about $130,000 from people in other states, 13 percent of his total. Walker, in this seven-week period, took in $4.1 million from out-of-state donors, which was 64 percent of the $6.4 million he received in individual donations.

Attorneys are a big part of Barrett’s funding base, donating $222,000 through May 7, nearly a quarter of his take from individuals. Walker during this time secured about $80,000 from people listed as belonging to the legal profession, less than 1 percent of his total.

Contributors identified as CEO, chairman or president gave Walker more than $1.1 million during this period, and only $134,000 to Barrett. Walker got seven donations totaling $442 from people identified as “Unemployed” — compared to 26 donations totaling $10,785 for Barrett.

State campaign finance law requires campaigns to include the occupation and employer of any donor who gives more than $100. Walker has about 1,000 donors in this category during this period (and 3,000 going back to January 2011) for whom this information was not provided. Barrett had one.

The law says campaign committees must make “a make a good faith effort to obtain all required information,” and GAB spokesman Reid Magney says campaign committees are asked to do so. But the board’s executive director, in fielding a query about the failure to include this information, recently advised, “It would be unlikely that the board could successfully obtain a forfeiture if a committee was, in fact, making good faith efforts to obtain information.”

Finally, there’s the candidates’ own giving: Since mid-2008, Barrett has made nine contributions totaling $855, the largest being a $160 check to the Democratic Party of Columbia County. Walker has given $243 in seven contributions, topped by $50 each to a Milwaukee judicial candidate and the Sawyer County Republican Party.

Bill Lueders is the Money and Politics Project director at the Wisconsin Center for  Investigative Journalism (www.WisconsinWatch.org). The project, a partnership of the Center and MapLight, is supported by the Open Society Institute.

The Center collaborates with Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television, other news media and the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by the Center do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.

Gov. Scott Walker discusses his jobs plan Feb. 1, 2012, with workers at Brennan Marine in the town of Campbell as part of his "Turning Around Wisconsin" tour, a post-State of the State trek to tout the accomplishments of his first year in office. Walker, who faces a recall election in June, told the employees, "We are turning things around." Credit: Peter Thomson/La Crosse Tribune

By Kate Golden and Amy Karon
Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

On Nov. 10, 2011, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker gave the keynote address at the annual dinner of the Goldwater Institute, a conservative think tank in Phoenix with ties to the powerful, corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council.

“Tonight, you might say I’m preaching to the choir with a bunch of fellow conservatives,” Walker, the son of a minister, told more than 1,000 supporters that night. “I preach to the choir because I want the choir to sing. So tonight I’m asking you to sing.”

His message: Spread the word “in Arizona and all across America that we can do things better.”

The high-profile event was no anomaly. Two days later, Walker addressed students at a conference at the Reagan Ranch in Santa Barbara, Calif., where he was billed as one of America’s “top conservative leaders.”

Walker’s official calendars from his first 13 months in office chronicle these and scores more hours he spent building credentials with conservatives in Wisconsin and across the nation.

LINK: Explore every entry in Walker’s calendars.

The governor granted more interview time to the national, conservative-leaning Fox News cable channel than any other media outlet — nearly twice as much as to his hometown newspaper, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which had endorsed him in 2010.

Gov. Scott Walker delivers the keynote address at the Nov. 10, 2011 annual dinner of the Goldwater Institute, a conservative think tank in Phoenix with ties to the powerful, corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council. Credit: Goldwater Institute/YouTube

Walker’s spokesman, Cullen Werwie, said the governor “has multiple media availabilities every week where he is available to answer questions from any legitimate news organization who chooses to attend, liberal or conservative.”

Last fall and winter, Walker halved his overall work schedule, but his PR time hardly changed even as he raised unprecedented millions in response to a recall campaign. Since taking office in January 2011, he has raised more than $25 million — more than half from other states.

Prime time for conservative hosts

Fox News isn’t the only conservative-leaning outlet Walker favors. Charlie Sykes, a radio host of Milwaukee’s WTMJ, was scheduled for more interview time with Walker than any other media professional in his first 13 months in office. Sykes donated $500 to Walker’s 2010 campaign, records show.

However, Mike Gousha, a television news anchor of Milwaukee’s WISN whose work long has been respected by conservatives and liberals alike, was scheduled for nearly as much time as was Sykes.

Conservative-leaning Vicki McKenna, a radio host on Madison’s WIBA, accrued the third-most time with Walker.

Overall, five of the seven radio and TV talk show hosts with whom Walker spent the most media time are conservatives. (The seventh, Greta Van Susteren of Fox News, has said her stance “depends on the issue.”)

Sykes and McKenna didn’t respond to emails seeking comment.

Walker’s time with media was tallied using a database the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism created from Walker’s calendars.

Katherine Cramer Walsh, political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the Center’s findings matched her own assessment of Walker’s strategy: “To shore up his base, spend time with his supporters, and not necessarily build bridges, compromise or reach out to opponents.”

Although politically charged radio hosts such as Sykes and McKenna are popular, their programs are heard by a relatively small slice of the population, said Michael J. Flaherty, who runs a Madison public relations firm and is a former Capitol reporter for the Wisconsin State Journal.

“Most folks don’t listen to these people, but the folks who do tend to be fairly loud voices in their local communities,” Flaherty added. “It may look like the governor is talking only to himself half the time. But he’s reinforcing a message that has been multiplied many, many times by these storytellers.”

Walker faces Democrat Tom Barrett, mayor of Milwaukee, in a nationally watched election on June 5.

Distant with liberal media

During Walker’s first 13 months in office, he appeared at numerous press conferences, scheduled nearly 200 hours with media and granted interviews to at least 115 outlets. But not all media outlets had easy access to the governor.

Gov. Scott Walker addresses the media during a press conference in La Crosse on Feb. 28, 2011. Walker called on 14 Democratic senators who fled to Illinois to stall passage of his collective bargaining bill to return to the state. Credit: Erik Daily/La Crosse Tribune

“Gov. Walker skips interviews, does NYC fundraiser,” read a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel headline in January 2012 after a reporter was denied an interview. Walker was fundraising at the time for his recall election alongside Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, the founder of financial services giant American International Group.

Liberal-leaning media, such as Madison’s The Capital Times newspaper and The Progressive Magazine, attended Walker’s press conferences. But they weren’t scheduled for interviews, his calendars show. Capital Times Editor Paul Fanlund said in one instance this winter when the governor was scheduling year-end interviews with many news media outlets — a common practice — Walker seemed to single out his paper for rejection. Fanlund said Werwie told a reporter that “he personally didn’t like our editorial about his role in the John Doe investigation and he didn’t think Walker would gain anything by talking with us.”

Werwie responded by email that it was “completely absurd” to cover a single denial and supplied four rejections to a Fox News producer. “I turn down tons of requests for interviews,” Werwie said, adding that the governor has rejected media requests from “across the ideological spectrum.”

Dean Pagani, a former press secretary for Republican Gov. John Rowland of Connecticut who now covers gubernatorial issues at GovernorsJournal.com, said he wasn’t surprised Walker didn’t “waste time” talking to people he’s unlikely to persuade.

“When I was (a press officer), our job was to get as much press as possible, regardless of who was asking the question,” he said. But now, “the press secretaries are much more protective, and they want to know where you’re coming from before they let you talk to their governor.”

Governor on the go

In a single day last November, Walker flew to Wausau for a jobs announcement, hopped to La Crosse to sign two economic bills, gave a radio address and headed to his home near Milwaukee, where he gave a Fox & Friends interview the next morning.

Gov. Scott Walker, pictured at a March 9, 2012, event to mark a planned expansion at Authenticom in La Crosse, holds a copy of the La Crosse Tribune documenting one of his appearances the previous day. Photo: Peter Thomson/La Crosse Tribune

His calendars highlight what political scientists call a key political strategy — a constant public-relations focus in a 24-hour news world.

“Scott Walker is a modern politician,” said Geoffrey Skelley, political analyst at the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “He spends a lot of time in transit, doing public relations events, talking to people and trying to promote his agenda.

“As the population gets larger and people feel less connected to government officials, it’s a way to seem like you’re still in touch with the people who put you in office,” Skelley said.

Walker spent about 530 hours on PR work. His top priority appeared to be his jobs agenda, at about one-fifth of that time, according to the Center’s analysis. Time spent networking with his base and with other politicians came in second.

During his first year in office, Walker visited at least two-thirds of Wisconsin’s counties and 12 other states, plus Washington, D.C. But he bypassed much of the northern third of Wisconsin.

Spokesman Werwie said, “While some counties are harder than others to visit given his hectic schedule, (Walker) has made it a priority to regularly have events and grant media interviews in all areas of the state.”

Pagani said Walker has leveraged his national attention well. If he wins the recall election, he’ll be a conservative hero. If he loses, he’ll be a martyr who can “travel the country saying, ‘I fought the good fight.’”

Explore interactive graphics of the governor’s calendars at the Walker Calendar Files overview page.

Coming Sunday, May 20: Who got access to Walker?

The nonprofit and nonpartisan Center (WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with Wisconsin Public Television, Wisconsin Public Radio, other news media and the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Works created, published, posted or disseminated by the Center do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or its affiliates.

Scott Walker giving his State of the State address in the State Capitol on January 25, 2012. Lukas Keapproth/Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

By Kate Golden and Amy Karon
Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

On Jan. 28, 2011, two weeks before Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker unveiled his plan to slash public employee unions’ powers, he dined at the Washington, D.C., area home of Fred Malek, a wealthy Republican power broker.

It was a taste of what would become routine for Walker.

As protesters swarmed the state Capitol and a historic effort to recall him took shape, Walker crisscrossed the nation, breaking fundraising records and netting about half his donations from out of state. He logged more time with Fox News, a national, conservative-leaning cable channel, than any other news outlet.

But his calendars show the consequences of fame and fundraising.

By January 2012, Walker scheduled about 30 hours a week for state business — half as much work time as six months earlier. On some weekdays, eight- to 12-hour time blocks were simply marked “Personal.”

“Gov. Walker would be the first person to tell you that if it wasn’t for big outside special interests and union bosses trying to recall him, he wouldn’t need to be spending any time campaigning,” spokesman Cullen Werwie said in an interview last week.

Walker, much like former Gov. Jim Doyle, keeps his official calendar open to the public but reveals few details in advance. Other appointments — personal and political — generally aren’t disclosed.

As the recall against him took shape, Gov. Walker crisscrossed the nation to raise money, meeting with people like Fred Malek, a wealthy Republican power broker. Photo courtesy of American Action Network

To analyze how Walker has used his time as the state’s chief executive, Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism reporters created a database of the more than 4,400 entries in Walker’s calendars from his first 13 months in office, through Jan. 31, 2012.

The team labeled events with categories like travel time, public relations, and time with legislators or companies.

LINK: Explore every entry in Walker’s calendars.

The calendars chronicle the life of a seemingly tireless governor. Some days list more than two dozen entries — phone calls, meetings, photo ops, speeches, travel and other work.

Walker visited at least 50 of the state’s 72 counties and numerous states. He spent a third to half his time each month traveling, often while speaking on the phone to reporters or company CEOs.

Selling policies a high priority

In August, one of Walker’s busiest months, the governor averaged 60-hour work weeks and – excluding travel time – spent a total of 42 hours on public relations.

He announced tax credits for Weldall Manufacturing in Waukesha, presided over the Governor’s Red White and Blue livestock auction at the Wisconsin State Fair in West Allis and held a “meet and greet” in his office with an Iraq veteran.

Political experts said Walker’s PR-heavy schedule wasn’t surprising, given the reaction to the collective bargaining bill.

Dennis Dresang, founding director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Credit: UW-Madison.

“People were explicitly talking about recall as a measure right away,” said Dennis Dresang, founding director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who signed a recall petition. “So right from the start he felt beleaguered and as if he had to maintain high positive visibility in order to retain his job.”

But Werwie had a different explanation: “It’s fair and responsible, and really (Walker’s) job to do his part to show what we’ve been doing for Wisconsin and the impact it’s had on our schools and on all taxpayers and citizens.”

Uptick in personal time

Walker’s official work schedule shrank in the fall and winter, when his calendars note less time spent meeting business leaders and staff, interviewing candidates for appointments and working on open records requests.

Meanwhile, far more time was labeled “PERSONAL 1.” Such entries lacked other details, but news reports from those days describe Walker jet-setting around the country for fundraising and other political events, such as the Republican Governors Association conference in late November, neoconservative Grover Norquist’s Christmas party in Washington, D.C., and Walker’s $2,500-a-person January fundraiser in New York hosted by Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, founder of the insurance giant American International Group.

Dean Pagani, who covers gubernatorial issues at GovernorsJournal.com. Photo courtesy of Chion Wolf/WNPR

“The governor is a public servant,” said Dean Pagani, who covers gubernatorial issues from Washington, D.C., at GovernorsJournal.com and was chief of staff to Republican former Gov. John Rowland of Connecticut. “You want to know that he or she is paying attention to the problems of the state, not spending too much time promoting himself or herself and his own career.

“It’s a very basic question that should always be asked: Is he doing his job?” Pagani added.

Walker spent two grueling days in December giving 15- to 20-minute interviews with 25 news outlets. But the next month, the calendars clocked just two hours for media: two TV interviews in Milwaukee, an open press call and a conference on his children’s reading initiative, Read to Lead.

A handful of entries in the fall were blacked out entirely. Werwie described these as “haircuts, parent teacher conferences, family events, as well as other personal items.”

No mention of John Doe

The calendar entries are silent on one subject: the John Doe investigation that’s been swirling around the governor and his former aides.

Activities involving Kelly Rindfleisch, Walker’s fundraising director, appear in March and April 2011 but lack details. “Phone call to your CELL: Kelly will provide information,” reads one entry. Rindfleisch, who was Walker’s deputy chief of staff when he was Milwaukee county executive, was charged in January this year with four felony counts of misconduct in office for allegedly campaigning on county time. Walker has repeatedly declined to discuss the investigation, citing its secrecy.

Walker faces Democratic nominee Tom Barrett in a recall election scheduled for June 5.

Next: How Walker sold his policies — and himself — in and outside Wisconsin.

The nonprofit and nonpartisan Center (WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with Wisconsin Public Television, Wisconsin Public Radio, other news media and the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Works created, published, posted or disseminated by the Center do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or its affiliates.

Reporters categorized entries as down time (listed as such in the calendar); redacted (when all details were blacked out); meetings with legislators; meetings with company officials or CEOs; “other work” (a general category including activities like appointment interviews and staff meetings), and public relations activities (a somewhat subjective category). Entries lacking details were labeled “unknown.”

Walker spokesman Cullen Werwie assured the Center that the calendars describe the governor’s activities fairly accurately. Reporters cleaned the messy data, but some errors are likely for a data set this size. It’s also not clear what Walker did in the hours that aren’t scheduled in the calendar. So the Center’s analysis shows how many hours Walker scheduled, not how many hours he actually worked.

Readers can explore the calendar entries and categories at wisconsinwatch.org/walkercalendars. The analysis also links to the original PDFs. Reader feedback is welcome: info@wisconsinwatch.org.

Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Bill Lueders, Money and Politics Project Director.

It’s been called a quirk in state law and even “an outrageous loophole.” In fact, it was a deliberate change with unintended consequences.

The change, passed in 1987, temporarily allows unlimited contributions from individuals for recall-related expenses. For Gov. Scott Walker and five other Republicans, the window of opportunity for incurring these expenses was open from Nov. 15, when the current recalls were launched, to March 30, when the Government Accountability Board certified the elections.

For Walker and Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, the normal cap is $10,000 per person for a four-year election cycle. Through May 1, Walker has snared 97 donations above this amount, state Government Accountability Board filings show. These totaled just over $5.5 million, or about $4.5 million more than this group of individuals could normally give.

Walker’s campaign has flagged a total of $11 million in contributions as “Recall,” according to a GAB analysis. This may have been because the donors maxed out their ability to give on other candidates, or just an accounting convenience.

The law suspends usual limits for “the payment of legal fees and other expenses” incurred in connection with a pending recall, until the election is ordered. The ability to incur recoverable costs ended on March 30, but the ability to accept unlimited donations did not.

“You are still under the law entitled to raise contributions in excess of normal limits if you use these for recall-related debts,” says Jonathan Becker, the GAB’s Ethics Division administrator.

Becker adds that there’s some question among GAB staff whether incurred expenses that have been paid, as Walker’s have, still qualify as debts. But Walker’s campaign apparently believes they do qualify. He is continuing to receive donations in excess of $10,000 — more than $1 million of them since March 30

Walker’s campaign filings have labeled $13.5 million in expenditures as recall-related. That’s $2.5 million less than what he’s identified as recall contributions. And this amount could grow higher if the campaign amends some of the contributions that were classified as “Recall” but didn’t have to be.

Kleefisch and the state senators facing recalls have likewise all benefited from contributions in excess of normal limits, while the Democrats vying for these positions have not. Indeed, three of these senators — Van Wanggaard, Terry Moulton and Pam Galloway (who has dropped out of the race) — have reported extra-legal donations in excess of their recall-related costs.

The three collectively received at least $71,500 in donations beyond the usual $1,000 limit for their office. Under the law, this additional money can go only to recall-related expenses; otherwise it must be returned to donors or given to charity or the state school fund. But to date, the three senators have identified less than $30,000 in expenses.

“They’ve either got to reclassify expenditures as recall, or disburse excess recall funds,” says GAB campaign auditor Richard Bohringer. “We’ll be following up with them on that.”

The GAB will continue to audit the candidates’ filings and investigate any complaints. But Becker says the language allowing extra-large donations (“or other expenses”) is so broad he finds it unlikely that any plausible expense would be struck down as inappropriate.

A Democrat-backed bill to turn off this campaign finance spigot died a quiet death in the GOP-controlled Legislature’s most recent session. State Sen. Chris Larson, D-Milwaukee, the bill’s lead Senate author, calls the current ability of recall targets to raise unlimited funds “a subversion of democracy.”

But the 1987 change was backed by the state Elections Board, the predecessor of the GAB, which deemed it “not significant.” PolitiFact Wisconsin quotes board officials as saying they didn’t foresee how campaign spending would boom.

At the time, the change was seen as helping state Sen. Gary George, a Democrat who racked up debt fighting a recall. It passed as part of that year’s state budget, with bipartisan support, including from a Democratic assemblyman named Tom Barrett.

Bill Lueders is the Money and Politics Project director at the Wisconsin Center for  Investigative Journalism (www.WisconsinWatch.org). The project, a partnership of the Center and MapLight, is supported by the Open Society Institute.

The Center collaborates with Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television, other news media and the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by the Center do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.

Gov. Scott Walker has been making fewer mentions of his jobs pledge amid growing evidence that the state will likely fall short. Lukas Keapproth/Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

By Bill Lueders
Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is downplaying his pledge to create 250,000 new private-sector jobs by the end of his term, a review of his official pronouncements suggests.

Walker’s office and campaign staff say he remains committed to this goal, a staple of his campaign and early administration. But as the embattled Republican governor heads into a historic recall election in which jobs will be a central theme, his rhetoric seems to have shifted.

“We lowered taxes and made it easier for small businesses to keep and to add jobs like the more than 17,000 new jobs we’ve added in the first two months of this year alone,” Walker said in a campaign commercial released April 13. “It’s why the unemployment rate, well, it’s the lowest it’s been since 2008. We’re turning things around.”

The commercial is one of 10 released by Walker since mid-November, when the recall effort against him was launched, according to his campaign website and WisPolitics.com. None of these ads mentions the 250,000 jobs pledge.

Walker’s campaign website included a link of his plan to add 250,000 new jobs through at least April 3, according to a cached version of the site. It was replaced with a new menu of issue offerings, including one that mentions the 250,000 number in connection with tourism. But it’s not part of his section titled, “Putting Wisconsin Back to Work.”

According to Ciara Matthews, Walker’s campaign spokeswoman, “The governor is still committed to his No. 1 priority of helping businesses in Wisconsin grow and create 250,000 jobs by the end of his term.”

But a review of Walker’s Twitter posts and archived press releases by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism shows that his mentions of this jobs pledge have tapered off amid growing evidence that the state will likely fall short.

Cullen Werwie, the governor’s spokesman, said Walker still refers to the pledge, including in an update memo on March 29 and at a meeting with an editorial board on April 30.

“A number of other issues have come up that we’ve been talking a bit about with press releases,” like the savings generated by his changes to collective bargaining, Werwie said in an email. “The governor has continued to cite his goal of 250,000 jobs when applicable.”

Man with a plan

Walker unveiled his pledge to create 250,000 new jobs and 10,000 new businesses in February 2010, when he was a candidate for office. One of his GOP rivals called it “borderline ridiculous,” but when Milwaukee broadcaster Mike Gousha asked, “Is this a campaign promise something you want to be held to?” Walker answered, “Absolutely.”

Walker followed his pledge with a plan. It named “six things we must do to make Wisconsin economically competitive with other states”: lower taxes, eliminate red tape, end frivolous lawsuits, improve education, make health care affordable, and invest in infrastructure.

The governor, backed by solid Republican majorities in the state Legislature, succeeded in enacting a raft of legislation in the first few months of 2011. Walker and his allies also had their way with the state’s biennial budget, which took effect July 1.

Between February 2010 and May 3, 2012, Walker sent 59 tweets on his personal and official Twitter sites that mention his plan to add 250,000 new jobs. The last such reference was on Oct. 14, a week before the state Department of Revenue predicted a net gain of just 136,000 private-sector jobs between 2010 and 2014, suggesting Walker will fall well short of his goal.

The state Department of Workforce Development reported job losses in each of the last six months of the year; the numbers saw an uptick in January and February 2012, but fell again in March.

Since Walker took office, the state of Wisconsin has gained just 5,900 private-sector jobs.

Katherine Cramer Walsh, a UW-Madison political science professor, said Walker’s jobs pledge, and any retreat from it, “certainly seems to be a point of vulnerability” for his campaign. “The economy is the issue and it was a very blatant claim.”

But Walsh isn’t sure how much it will matter, given that this jobs pledge may have fallen from public awareness and few voters “have not made up their mind about Walker.”

Vanishing act

Walker, on his official website, maintains an archive of press releases, commentaries and executive orders going back to Nov. 2, 2010, the day he was elected governor. The Center’s review found more than three dozen references to Walker’s pledge to add 250,000 private-sector jobs.

The governor’s first State of the State address, on Feb. 1, 2011, was especially unequivocal: “We are defining success for this administration by our ability to shape an environment where 250,000 jobs are created.”

In fact, Walker called attention to his job pledge more often than this archive reflects. Several earlier releases that mentioned the 250,000 job goal, including ones on May 19, June 13 and Sept. 5 of last year, were on the site at least until Nov. 21, 2011, according to an online archive collected by the Wisconsin Historical Society, but were removed sometime thereafter. That’s also true of a number of other posts on unrelated topics.

But the frequency of these references has declined sharply since last September. In recent months, Walker has mostly eschewed making predictions of future job growth, even when trumpeting positive economic news, like his Jan. 16 announcement that Kestrel Aircraft Corp. will be relocating to Superior, bringing 600 new jobs. He also made no mention of the pledge in his second State of the State address, on Jan. 25, 2012.

Werwie said Walker remains committed to job creation, calling this goal “still possible.” But he frames the difficulty of the governor’s challenge by noting that, when Vince Lombardi took over, the Green Bay Packers were 1-10-1.

“In the three years prior to Gov. Walker taking office, nearly 150,000 private-sector jobs were lost,” Werwie said. “Last year we saw that trend stabilize, and (we’ve since seen) the creation of thousands of new private-sector jobs. Gov. Walker’s policies have built a foundation for success moving forward.”

The nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television, other news media and the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Bill Lueders (blueders@wisconsinwatch.org) directs the Center’s Money and Politics Project, a partnership with MapLight that is supported by the Open Society Institute.

All works created, published, posted or disseminated by the Center do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.

By  Christa Westerberg

Wherever they may be on the political spectrum, most Wisconsinites would likely agree that the last year has been a lively one for open government issues in our state. Access issues — including Capitol access, records requests to university professors, arrests of photojournalists, and secret redistricting, to name a few — have regularly made the headlines.

Wisconsin’s status as an open government hot spot is reflected in the National Freedom of Information Coalition’s decision to host its annual conference here this month. The 2012 FOI Summit, also held in collaboration with the Society of Professional Journalists, will be held at the Madison Concourse Hotel and Governor’s Club in downtown Madison on May 11 and 12.

The summit is co-hosted by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, a longtime member of the national group. It will focus on federal and state transparency laws, giving attendees from across the country a chance to share stories and successes, and discuss ways to combat secrecy going forward.

There is good reason for combating secrecy. As Wisconsin’s own open records and meetings laws recognize, an informed electorate is essential to democracy. If citizens are ignorant of the actions of their government — due either to apathy or the calculated efforts of government officials to hide their activities — they cannot make informed choices.

Moreover, transparency encourages better behavior from the government and fosters public trust. As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously said, “Sunshine is the best disinfectant.”

This year’s keynote speaker is Gene Policinski, executive director and senior vice president of the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University. Among the founding editors of USA Today, Policinski has had a distinguished career in print and broadcast journalism. He currently co-authors a weekly syndicated newspaper column, “Inside the First Amendment,” serves on several boards, is a member of the American Society of News Editors, and is a national trustee of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

The summit will also feature panels on high-profile access issues, such as campaign finance transparency in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, access to daily schedules of state governors, issues arising out of using digital photos and videos to monitor government officials and officers, and strategies for fighting efforts to erode FOI laws.

Panelists for the event include Lucy Dalglish of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Mark Horvit of Investigative Reporters and Editors, Amy Bennett of OpenTheGovernment.org, Gina Barton of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Professor Ciara Torres-Spelliscy of Stetson University School of Law, and Andy Hall of the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism.

A nonpartisan alliance of citizen-driven nonprofit freedom of information organizations, academic and First Amendment centers, journalistic societies and attorneys, the National Freedom of Information Coalition traces its origins to national assemblies of freedom of information advocates held in Dallas in 1989 and 1991.

The Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council is a statewide nonprofit and nonpartisan group devoted to protecting public access to meetings and records. Founded in 1978, the WFOIC tracks legal and legislative developments that affect these areas, and works to educate the public on the importance of open government.

Registration for the FOI Summit is, naturally, open to all. Registration fees are a maximum of $95, less for students or those not seeking individual NFOIC membership. You can find out more about the conference at http://www.nfoic.org/2012-foi-summit, and register online.

Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by theWisconsinFreedomofInformationCouncil (www.wisfoic.org), a nonprofit group dedicated to open government. Christa Westerberg, the group’s vice president, is an attorney at McGillivray Westerberg & Bender, LLC, in Madison. She also serves as counsel to the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism.

From the time he took office in January 2011 through the end of April 2012, Walker has raised more than $25 million, more than half from other states. Photo from December 2011. Lukas Keapproth/Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

By Bill Lueders
Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Bill Lueders, Money and Politics Project Director.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, appearing on the April 29 episode of “UpFront with Mike Gousha,” laid out his concern about the upcoming recall election:

“The big question mark for me,” Walker told the Milwaukee television journalist, “is whether or not we’re going to be overwhelmed by an onslaught of out-of-state money.”

Walker has been keen on painting the recall campaign against him, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and four Republican state senators as driven by out-of-state money and special interests, particularly organized labor.

But in the race for governor it’s been Republican Walker who has been raking in boatloads of out-of-state cash, not his Democratic rivals. Indeed, Walker has become Wisconsin’s new fundraising champ, shattering records with each campaign finance report.

From the time he took office in January 2011 through the end of April 2012, Walker has raised more than $25 million, more than half from other states. This is a tribute to his aggressive out-of-state fundraising and a testament to how much he is admired by well-heeled conservatives across the country. But it’s not something he brags about.

The Walker campaign heralded his new numbers in a press release titled, “Grassroots donors fuel Walker fundraising.” It noted that 76 percent of Walker’s contributors since his last reporting, in January, gave $50 or less.

Left unmentioned was that about 74 percent of the amount raised during this period came from donors who gave $51 or more.

The filing periods for Democrats heading into a May 8 primary differ from Walker’s. So the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism analyzed the campaign receipts by date, from Jan. 1 of this year to April 28, including reported late filings.

During this period, Walker raised $15.9 million, while his four potential Democratic rivals garnered less than $2.1 million — combined.

Former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk netted nearly $1 million, going back to the start of the year. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett raised $917,658, all since March 20. Wisconsin Secretary of State Doug La Follette reported receipts totaling $118,088, of which $112,000 came from a particularly ardent supporter — himself. And state Sen. Kathleen Vinehout scrounged up about $44,000.

These totals are for the candidates only, not groups making “independent expenditures” on their behalf. One such group, Wisconsin for Falk, has this year raised more than $5 million, mostly from labor unions.

All four Dems together reported raising $413,357 from people in other states. Falk led the pack, with $294,840 from out-of-state donors, 47 percent of the $622,910 she’s received from individuals. Barrett’s out-of-state donors gave $111,071, about 13 percent of his $879,749 take from individuals.

Walker, meanwhile, raked in $10 million from out-of-state donors, more than two-thirds of his $14.7 million in individual contributions. Walker’s total in this category is 24 times as much as his potential rivals.

Walker’s fundraising fortunes have been boosted by a quirk in state law that suspends the usual contribution limits for candidates facing recalls. Between mid-November and April 23, Walker reported 97 individual contributions in excess of the usual $10,000 per person limit per election cycle.

These contributions totaled $5.5 million, or about $4.5 million more than this group of people could usually give. (Two donors — Diane Hendricks of Beloit and Bob Perry of Texas — each chipped in about $500,000.)

And the governor leads his would-be challengers in two other categories. So far this year he’s racked up $12.5 million in campaign expenditures, compared to the four Dems’ total of $1.9 million. And as of April 23 he had nearly $4.9 million cash on hand, compared to his rivals, who had just over $600,000.

Of course, there’s still a month to go before the June 5 election. That’s plenty of time for whoever wins the Democratic primary — and maybe even Scott Walker — to come up with an infusion of cash.

Bill Lueders is the Money and Politics Project director at the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism. The project, a partnership of the Center and MapLight, is supported by the Open Society Institute.

The Center collaborates with Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television, other news media and the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by the Center do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.

Bill Lueders, Money and Politics Project Director.

Stevens Point columnist Bill Berry, writing just after Wisconsin’s recent presidential primary, called it perhaps the only thing our deeply divided nation can agree upon: “Robo-calls suck.”

He’s right. No one likes getting call after call on their home phone delivering pre-recorded messages, often attacks, on political candidates. It’s obnoxious. It makes people angry.

Berry proposed a remedy he found online: Press star-pound-zero (*#0), which “may disrupt the call.” Of course, so does hanging up. Others suggest pressing pound (#) can spur removal from a given call list. Do that a few dozen times and you might see a significant decline.

Currently, no federal laws prevent political robo-calls, says Shaun Dakin, head of the National Political Do Not Contact Registry, run by the nonprofit, nonpartisan Citizens for Civil Discourse.

“There’s nothing wrong with robo-calling as a concept,” Dakin says in an interview. “What we’re looking for is to give voters the right to opt out.” (At least two states, Indiana and Wyoming, prohibit political robo-calls, and other states have some restrictions.)

Dakin gets thousands of emails from people who hate robo-calls, some more than others: “You can’t imagine the wrath of a mother with a sleepy baby who was woken up during nap time.” Then there are night-shift workers who sleep during the day, and seniors whose phone is their lifeline to the medical community.

Moreover, he vents, political robo-calls “have a perfect record of never having worked.” He cites a raft of studies, including one published in 2008 by Yale professors Donald Green and Alan Gerber, which found that robo-calls are largely ineffective at getting voters to the polls.

But Dakin says the calls continue because “the last thing a campaign manager wants to be accused of is not doing everything possible to win.” Besides, robo-calls are cheap and fast: “You can record a robo-call at 9 o’clock in the morning and send it at 10 o’clock.”

The state Government Accountability Board is “not considering any policy initiatives to regulate robo-calls,” according to spokesman Reid Magney. Occasionally it looks into complaints about robo-calls that allegedly give bad information about when or where to vote.

“Sometimes we’re unable to identify exactly who is behind a robo-call,” Magney says.  Complaints about calls involving federal candidates are referred to federal officials.

The GAB’s website can track expenditures — for state campaigns only, not federal races — by “purpose.” Nearly $1.3 million has been spent since mid-2008 in Wisconsin on “Media – Phones / Robo Calls,” which includes human and automated calls. As these things go, that’s not a lot of money — until you consider that $1 million can buy tens of millions of robo-calls.

The state’s top call provider — used by Friends of Scott Walker and the Republican Party of Wisconsin, among others — is FLS Connect in St. Paul, Minn. The company, which has received $336,811 for calling people in Wisconsin over the past four years, did not respond to an interview request.

Neither did Advantage Inc. of Arlington, Va. ($277,309), The Shop Consulting of Madison ($47,526), and Campaign Now of Milwaukee ($35,222).

Apparently, the people who pester you with robo-calls at home don’t even like getting real-person calls at work.

But John Jameson, president and founder of Winning Connections in Washington, D.C., which has rung up $173,085 in Wisconsin “Phones / Robo Calls” business in recent years, mostly for legislative Democrats, was willing to talk. His view: robo-calls are “almost a total waste of money.”

You see, nearly all the calls made by Winning Connections involve live people. Although live calls cost about $1 each, compared to four or five cents for robo-calls, Jameson says they are a much better value. In fact, he thinks robo-calls are as likely to sour people as compel their vote. So why do campaigns continue to make them?

“There’s some very good salespeople out there,” Jameson says. And some very angry voters.

Bill Lueders is the Money and Politics Project director at the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism. The project, a partnership of the Center and MapLight, is supported by the Open Society Institute.

The Center collaborates with Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television, other news media and the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by the Center do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.