While misguided legislation to expand taxpayer financing schemes in Wisconsin awaits the governor’s signature or veto, the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (WPRI) released a study that details exactly how the state’s earlier experiment with taxpayer financing has actually played out in the state.
Wisconsin enacted a system of partial public financing in 1977 in order to “supplant campaign donations from political action committees, ensure those of modest means had money to run and prompt ‘more competitive races.’” It was signed into law by acting governor Marty Schreiber and was funded by $1 check-offs on state tax forms.
32 years later, amid a consistently declining number of people opting to check-off on their tax forms (from a high of 20% in 1979 to less than 5% in 2008) and a budgetary crisis, Wisconsin is somehow on the verge of enacting further taxpayer financing, with proponents of the program apparently impervious to the fact that the first program hasn’t met a single goal or changed campaigns in any way.
WPRI’s report attempts to teach legislators the history of their own state by reviewing exactly what the original taxpayer financing program has and hasn’t accomplished.
As report author Mike Nichols notes, what the program has done is fill the war chests of incumbents who continue to take grants despite the fact that they no longer face credible challengers or any chance of losing their election. The program allows candidates to spend tax dollars “on ads or pencils and either save private contributions for their war chests or give them to somebody else.” One example the report discusses is frequent recipient of taxpayer dollars for campaigns, Representative Spencer Black. Black applied for a grant almost every campaign since he first ran in 1984 – and only stopped in 2000 because his victory margins were so great that opponents simply stopped running against him. Although Black hasn’t received less than 87% of the vote since 1992, he has in fact amassed more than $146,000 in his campaign account.
But maybe Representative Black is just one atypical example, and the program has succeeded in encouraging challengers to run against these well-heeled incumbents anyway? Alas, no. The report notes that “of the 129 challengers taking grants since 2002, only 6 have defeated sitting incumbents.” Another analysis by Wisconsin Interest shows that “virtually the only people who use the fund are either Assembly-seat challengers who have no chance of winning or incumbents in safe seats.” It would appear then, that Representative Black is more the rule than the exception.
Wisconsin has the opportunity to learn from the past and not continue to waste taxpayer money on continuing their public financing for legislative races or expanding it to judicial races. Perhaps the state legislators who continue to support taxpayer financing could learn a valuable lesson from former governor Schreiber, the initial sponsor of the law. Now a successful lobbyist with his own firm, which has exercised its right to contribute to candidates (to the tune of over $73,000 to various candidates and committees since 2000), he seems to have changed his tune.
He is no longer engaged in the fight against “special interests” in government by supporting public financing, and now has come to the conclusion that “anyone who has an interest different from anyone else’s has a special interest.”
Welcome back to reality, Governor Schreiber.