FIRST REPORT: State employees secretly campaign
2:04 PM 5/20/01
Dee J. Hall Wisconsin State Journal
Employees at four state agencies secretly campaign for legislative candidates on state time and from their state offices in apparent violation of the law, a Wisconsin State Journal investigation revealed.
The employees work for four partisan legislative caucuses that cost taxpayers an estimated $3.9 million a year.
The caucuses, one each for Assembly Democrats and Republicans and one for each party in the Senate, are officially charged with helping lawmakers with legislative tasks such as researching bills, drafting news releases and printing newsletters.
The state Ethics Board has advised legislators and their employees that it is illegal to campaign on state time or with state resources. But a State Journal investigation involving hundreds of records and interviews with more than 70 people found that the caucuses operate as secret campaign machines, especially during the election season.
"It's not confined to either the Democrats or Republicans, but I would say it happens on a wholesale basis and it's barely disguised anymore," said Greg DiMiceli, who was ousted last year from the Senate Republican Caucus (SRC) along with three others when state Sen. Mary Panzer took over GOP leadership in the Senate.
"It (campaigning) is almost the reason now for the existence of the caucuses," he said.
Among the State Journal's findings:
The state caucus offices serve as campaign central for many legislative races, performing a variety of campaign functions in their government offices including coordinating advertising, providing lists of registered voters, designing brochures and giving out advice.
Most candidates interviewed by the State Journal said they were unaware that caucus workers were prohibited from offering campaign help on state time or in state offices.
Caucus employees placed dozens of long-distance telephone calls from their state phones to non-incumbent candidates and political advertising firms during the three months leading up to the Nov. 7 election. The State Journal also obtained campaign documents, e-mails, bills and telephone messages sent to and from some caucus offices.
While the questionable activity occurs in caucuses from both parties and in both houses, the State Journal obtained more detailed records about the Assembly Republican Caucus that show widespread and well-coordinated participation in virtually every one of the fall legislative races. It's unclear whether all four caucuses are involved in campaigns to the same extent.
Tracking exactly how much state time is spent on campaigning is nearly impossible because Assembly and Senate staffers are required to keep only minimal track of their time.
The four caucuses are headed up by the Legislature's top leaders: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Chvala, D-Madison; Senate Minority Leader Panzer, R-West Bend; Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen, R-Waukesha; and, until earlier this month, Assembly Minority Leader Shirley Krug, D-Milwaukee.
Chvala, Panzer, Jensen, and the new Assembly minority leader, Rep. Spencer Black, D-Madison, also control legislative campaign committees that give money to candidates and plan statewide campaign strategies. These campaign committees are not taxpayer funded and are supposed to operate separately from the state caucus offices located near the Capitol.
But the State Journal found that the line between the campaign committees and the caucuses is often blurred, allowing the leaders' hand-picked candidates to use state employees and resources to help their campaigns.
Two of the four legislative leaders in charge during the 2000 campaign season - Krug and Chvala - refused several opportunities to comment. Black, who has been in the Assembly since 1984, said he is new to top leadership and unaware of the caucuses' campaign role. "If there are allegations of that sort (campaigning out of state offices), I'm going to take them extremely seriously," Black said.
Panzer and Jensen agreed to issue written statements through their spokespeople.
"Since being elected leader, Senator Panzer has made every effort to insure that state law, Senate policies and the state ethics code are complied with and that campaign-related activity does not take place on state time," Panzer spokeswoman Maureen McNally said in a written statement.
Jensen spokesman Steve Baas said Assembly Republicans "go to extraordinary lengths to ensure that the campaign-related activity of staff is conducted on their own personal time," noting that many staffers choose to use vacation time or leaves of absences "to be involved in our democracy."
But former employees say campaigning on state time with state resources is an open secret at the state Capitol to which regulators, lawmakers and the media have turned a blind eye for many years.
Ethics Board Executive Director Roth Judd said that although such activity has been rumored for years, no complaints ever have been filed nor have any investigations been launched by his agency. He said members of the Ethics Board, which enforces the state's Ethics Code, are "eager to learn what the State Journal has turned up."
"If state tax dollars are being misdirected to private campaign activities," Judd said, "that is wrong and possibly unlawful."

A $5,000 fine
State ethics laws prohibit public officials and state employees from using the resources of state government for their own personal benefit. A single infraction could cost an employee or lawmaker a $5,000 fine.
The Ethics Board has interpreted the law to say that legislative employees and lawmakers should not engage in campaign activity using "state supplies, services or facilities not available to all citizens." Campaign activity is prohibited during regular work hours and in state offices regardless of the time of day.
Yet 11 former caucus staffers told the State Journal that at certain times of the year, campaign work is the primary - and required - duty of caucus employees.
Paul Uebelher, who worked at the Assembly Democratic Caucus (ADC) on and off for more than a decade, said that by the end of his tenure in 1997, "The overwhelming majority of our work was campaign related." He since has joined the reform group Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.
Lyndee Wall, former executive assistant to the Assembly Republican Caucus (ARC), said in 7 months of working with the caucus she engaged almost exclusively in campaign activity, "and it was wrong. I don't think anything that was done (at the caucus) was not campaign related."
Wall said she resigned from her $33,780-a-year job March 5 because she was promised by her boss, ARC director Jason Kratochwill, that the campaign work eventually would end, but it didn't. Kratochwill declined to be interviewed for this story.
As for other ARC employees, "There was no policy research being done whatsoever," Wall said. "Caucus employees were out of the office (working on campaigns) all the time. They come back once a week, but then it's still not to do state business - it's for Monday morning campaign meetings."
Longtime Rep. Frank Boyle, D-Superior, agreed that campaigning by state workers is no secret at the Capitol. He said it's done by partisan employees on both sides of the aisle.
"Are they engaged in campaign activity? You bet," Boyle said of the caucuses. He added that in his 14 years as a lawmaker, he's never asked for caucus help with a campaign.
Former caucus staffer Sen. Jon Erpenbach, D-Middleton, said any campaigning he did during four years at the Assembly Democratic and later Senate Democratic caucus was done on his free time or vacation. He left the SDC in 1998 to run for office.
"I wasn't expected to do anything when it came to politics and working on campaigns," Erpenbach said.
He added that as a senator, he often uses the services of the Senate Democratic Caucus. "There are times of the year - like right now, we're in session, the budget - where you can always use more help. That's where the caucuses can fill in," Erpenbach said. "Some people say we could eliminate the caucuses. I'm uncomfortable with that ... (because) the support they provide during busy times of the year is invaluable."
Former SRC staffer DiMiceli, who also worked at the ARC and as an aide to former Sen. Tim Weeden, R-Beloit, said legislative leaders feel they have little choice but to continue campaigning on the state's dime - or lose seats in the Legislature.
"It's like an arms race," DiMiceli said. "Both sides are doing it. You can't compete if you know that your opponent is working with 14 (caucus) people at his disposal, working around the clock on such activity ... . You have little left to do except to engage in those activities."
Jay Heck, former communications director for the Senate Democratic Caucus (SDC), recalled with irony the campaigning he said he and other caucus staff members did during his tenure from 1989 to 1991. It's ironic because Heck now runs Common Cause in Wisconsin - a leading advocate for campaign-finance reform and clean government.
"Much of that (campaigning) was done right on state property," Heck said. "You were, essentially, in many cases, the campaign apparatus for the candidates."
Mike Boerger said during his two years at the Senate Republican Caucus in the late 1980s, campaigning on state time was rampant. Later, during a decade working as an aide to Senate Republicans, he said the joke going around the Capitol was, "What does the caucus do all day? Answer: Opposition research."

Two sets of supplies
Wall turned over hundreds of pages of documents to the State Journal that show the Assembly Republican Caucus participated in some way in virtually all of the 99 races throughout Wisconsin last year in which a Republican ran for an Assembly seat. Several Assembly Republican candidates from the fall races also said they either visited or called the ARC office for help with their campaigns.
Wall said she maintained two sets of office supplies at her desk - one for legitimate government work for the Assembly Republican Caucus and another for campaign work she was told to do for the Republican Assembly Campaign Committee (RACC). RACC, which is controlled by Assembly Speaker Jensen and is supposed to operate separately from the ARC, has a post office box but no office of its own.
According to the documents provided by Wall, ARC staff members participated in the following campaign activities last fall:
Recruiting candidates and maintaining a database of candidates and potential candidates.
Soliciting and selecting political consultants.
Producing photos and graphics and arranging for printing of campaign materials.
Scheduling filming of campaign commercials.
Sending packets of information and distributing RACC funds to candidates.
GOP Assembly candidate Ryan Strnad said ARC employees gave him position papers and "we were even being urged to use these issues in our campaign." He ran unsuccessfully against incumbent Rep. Jeff Plale, D-South Milwaukee. "Definitely, it was helpful," Strnad said.
A computer-assisted analysis of long-distance phone calls from the caucuses, documents obtained by the State Journal, and interviews with former employees indicate similar campaign activity has gone on in the other three caucuses.
Such activity begins even in the primaries, at a time when political parties generally claim neutrality. Gary Bahr of Belleville, who ran in the 1994 Democratic primary for the 79th Assembly District, said he gradually figured out that the legislative and Assembly Democratic Caucus staffers who worked on his race were doing so in apparent violation of state law.
"I don't like tax money being spent wrongly and illegally, and I don't like state employees running campaigns," Bahr said. "They're so corrupt, in every way, shape and form."

Candidates in the dark
Because the Ethics Board has determined that state law prohibits such activity, the operations of the caucuses often are kept secret even from the candidates on whose behalf they work, according to more than a dozen candidates interviewed by the State Journal.
Several candidates from both parties said they didn't know they were in government offices when they visited the caucuses or that their campaign workers were state employees. The Assembly caucuses are at 17 S. Fairchild St., and the Senate caucuses are at 1 S. Pinckney St.
Former Assembly Democratic Caucus Director Tanya Bjork responded, "People routinely call or visit the ADC with questions about legislative issues. ADC staff responds. The ADC can't discriminate against people that might be running for local or state office."
But candidates interviewed by the State Journal said they specifically received campaign help at the caucus offices:
Candidate Strnad said he visited the Assembly Republican Caucus office to get lists of pro-life and Republican voters from caucus database specialist Paul Tessmer. Strnad said his main contact throughout the race was Jim Emerson of the caucus.
"(Emerson) was calling me every other day between mid-June and the middle of July. The caller ID said, state of Wisconsin,' " Strnad said.
Neither Emerson nor Tessmer responded to messages seeking their comments.
"I never really bothered to wonder where they got their money from," Strnad said, adding that he's "embarrassed" state employees may have worked on his campaign on state time.
Dave Jones, a Republican from Cottage Grove who ran unsuccessfully against state Rep. Tom Hebl, D-Sun Prairie, said he had no idea the Assembly Republican Caucus was part of state government. Among the items Jones said he received while at the Assembly Republican Caucus office were a brochure designed for his campaign and lists of likely voters compiled by Wisconsin Right to Life.
When told that the ARC is a government agency, Jones was angry.
"That's wrong! Do the taxpayers know this? People should know these things. That's not an appropriate use of tax dollars," Jones said.
Jefferson County Sup. Steven J. Nass of Lake Mills, a Democrat who ran unsuccessfully against state Rep. David Ward, R-Fort Atkinson, said he met a few times with Gerald Lowrie at the Assembly Democratic Caucus office to get help on his campaign. (Nass should not be confused with state Rep. Stephen L. Nass, R-Whitewater.)
Democrat Chad VanDierendonck, a Carroll College student who ran unsuccessfully against Jensen, said he knew that the ADC's Lowrie was a state employee. He said he visited and called the state office several times for help on his campaign.
When told by the State Journal that caucus staffers including Lowrie are required to keep campaigning separate from their state jobs and state offices, VanDierendonck appeared surprised.
"Wow! I basically thought they (caucuses) were put together to help campaigns. Everyone was doing it - that was my impression. It was kind of explained to me that everything we were doing was totally legal," he said.
Lowrie replied, "I did help these two candidates on my own time. Yes, they did stop by our office with questions about state issues and also to inquire about legal requirements for those running for office. They were referred to the Assembly Democratic Campaign Committee (ADCC). All assistance received by these two candidates was from the ADCC."
Added Lowrie: "Chad was a first-time candidate, and I think he might not have understood the difference. Chad did call on a couple of occasions. I instructed him that that was not appropriate and that he should call my (personal) cell phone after business hours."
Republican Dan Kapanke, who ran unsuccessfully against former state Democratic Rep. Mark Meyer for the Senate seat that includes La Crosse, said he often called the Senate Republican Caucus office in Madison to get advice about his campaign. SRC director Brian Fraley didn't respond to messages seeking his comment.
"If I had questions on particular things, I would just call down there (SRC) and deal with whoever answered the phone," Kapanke said.
When asked whether he realized that the Senate Republican Caucus was a taxpayer-funded office, Kapanke replied, "I'm not aware of that."

State Journal reporter Phil Brinkman contributed to this story.