Campaign accusations spread in Statehouse
6:31 PM 11/10/01
Dee J. Hall Wisconsin State Journal
Campaigning has been common in the offices of some state lawmakers and not confined to the soon-to-be-defunct legislative caucuses, according to Capitol sources and documents obtained by the Wisconsin State Journal.
Despite state laws prohibiting campaigning with state resources, seven staffers said campaigning directly out of the Capitol is routine among some lawmakers and reaches into the ranks of the legislative leaders. Campaign-related documents stretching from 1994 to 2001 also show that such activity takes place in some legislative offices.
On Nov. 1, work rules aimed at eliminating illegal campaigning took effect for lawmakers and their employees as a result of a State Journal investigation that revealed widespread campaign activity at the four partisan legislative caucuses.
Late last month, a former aide to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Chvala, one of the two most powerful lawmakers in Wisconsin, came forward to say he often witnessed and participated in campaign activity on state time during his year in Chvala's office. Former press secretary Dan Kroll said he believes he was fired in February 1997 because of his opposition to the illicit campaign work he witnessed.
Kroll, who now lives in Colorado, said he came forward because "it's important for Wisconsin people to fully understand how career politicians and staffers have secretly appropriated democracy in Wisconsin and warped it into something self-serving and grotesque."
Chvala has issued a written denial of several specific allegations. "I have a strict policy of requiring that if employees choose to volunteer on campaigns, that they do it on their own time," Chvala said. He has refused repeated requests for an interview to discuss the allegations.
The State Journal contacted numerous current and former legislative aides to determine how widespread campaign activity is at the Capitol among the 99 representatives, 33 senators and their more than 250 aides.
Most declined to comment or failed to return repeated telephone calls or e-mail messages. Others agreed to brief interviews in which they said they neither witnessed nor participated in any campaign activity on state time during their employment with the Legislature. They said staffers are careful to campaign outside of work hours or while on vacation.
But five aides representing both political parties said they witnessed or engaged in questionable campaign activity as recently as the 2000 election. They declined to be named, saying that revealing their identities could jeopardize their current jobs. Two are legislative aides, two work for organizations that have regular dealings with the Legislature and one was concerned that the revelations could harm relations at her current job.
Two others - Kroll and Greg Humphrey, who worked for former lawmaker Rep. Lary Swoboda, D-Luxemberg - agreed to be identified.
"It was my understanding that weekday campaigning was very common," said Kroll, a long-time copy editor at the State Journal. "Everyone talked about doing these things, and no one expressed any concern about doing it on state time. It was my impression that it (campaigning) was just accepted as the way it was done up there."
A former aide for one Assembly Democrat said she declined to participate in campaign work on state time but in 2000 saw other aides working on lists of likely voters and preparing campaign flyers at their Capitol office.
A current Senate aide said campaigning from the Capitol is common in some Senate offices. Another aide currently working for an Assembly Republican reported raising campaign donations for a previous boss from that lawmaker's Capitol office in 1998.
A former Democratic aide who worked in the Assembly and the Senate said he often spent entire days during 1998 and 1999 working on campaigns at the behest of his bosses.
Four lawmakers contacted about campaigning in their offices declined to comment or failed to return repeated phone calls and e-mail messages. One said he was unfamiliar with the allegations and declined further comment. Swoboda said he was unaware that any of his staff might have campaigned illegally.
In a series that began in May, the State Journal reported allegations that the four legislative leaders were running secret campaign machines out of the legislative caucus offices near the Capitol, contrary to state laws prohibiting such activity.
That series prompted the state Ethics and Elections boards to negotiate with the four leaders - Chvala, Senate Minority Leader Mary Panzer, R-West Bend; Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen, R-Waukesha; and Assembly Minority Leader Spencer Black, D-Madison - to abolish the $4 million-a-year caucus offices as of Jan. 1 and to implement personnel policies aimed at curbing illicit campaigning.
District attorneys in Dane and Milwaukee counties are continuing to investigate whether any criminal activity took place at the caucuses. The Elections Board also is looking into whether the Assembly Republican Caucus illegally helped a private group run attack ads against Democrats during the 2000 election cycle.
The agreement eliminated 62 caucus positions, but legislators authorized moving six staffers to each leader's office. In exchange, the boards agreed not investigate past electioneering on state time or with state resources. The Assembly voted to eliminate its 12 positions. A handful of other caucus employees, such as graphic artists and photographers are to become non-partisan employees assigned to the chief clerk of each house.
Among the new work rules are more detailed record keeping of hours worked, a ban on using compensatory time for campaign work and a requirement that staffers obtain permission in advance if they plan to campaign while on vacation.

Hotbed of activity
The State Journal has obtained numerous documents that show campaign activity was common in the offices of some Assembly Republicans, including during the 2000 election. Among them is a 1998 memo directing Assembly Republican staff members to visit specific legislative offices to arrange campaign activities, directions for sending campaign-related material secretly to Capitol offices during 2000 and dozens of solicitations for fund-raisers and appeals for campaign help sent to state employees at their offices in 1998 and 1999.
One hotbed of campaign activity during 2000 was the office of Assistant Majority Leader Bonnie Ladwig, R-Racine, according to the documents and former legislative staffer Lyndee Wall. Wall was administrative assistant to the taxpayer-funded Assembly Republican Caucus until earlier this year.
Wall said she faxed and hand-carried requests to Ladwig's Capitol office for reimbursements for the Republican Assembly Campaign Committee (RACC), whose treasurer is Ladwig.
RACC, which directs staff and funding toward Republican Assembly candidates, is operated by Jensen, who along with Chvala, is the one of the two most powerful lawmakers in Wisconsin. RACC and the three other campaign committees operated by the legislative leaders, have agreed to pay $20,000 each as part of the settlement that eliminated the caucus staffs.
Wall said Ladwig aide Judi Rhodes wrote checks in her state office from a "RACC checkbook in her drawer. She had her RACC supplies there."
Wall provided a memo from her job at the Assembly Republican Caucus to back up her claims. It said, in part: "For any RACC supplies that you need (example, envelopes or other offices supplies - you buy them at Office Depot and keep the receipt) turn the receipt into Judi Rhodes (Rep. Ladwig's office) and you'll get a reimbursement check."
Ladwig declined to answer any questions about campaign activity at her office. She said she recently was contacted by the office of Dane County District Attorney Brian Blanchard on the same topic.
"While the district attorney is investigating, I don't think it's proper to comment at this time," she said.
Rhodes did not return telephone messages and an e-mail seeking comment.
The Assembly Republican Caucus for which Wall worked also routinely sent campaign material to the offices of Assembly Republican lawmakers but hid it in elaborate ways. Wall's job description instructed her to avoid having legislative pages deliver campaign-related materials to the Capitol and to hide them in an envelope stapled to the inside of an interdepartmental envelope. According to that memo, Wall was to be "vague" and "NEVER mention RACC or the word campaign" when sending campaign-related e-mails to the Capitol.

Dozens of memos
For the past several elections, Assembly Republicans have operated a group called SWARM - Staff Working for an Assembly Republican Majority - that solicits staffers to work on campaigns and to attend campaign fund-raisers. The State Journal has obtained dozens of SWARM memos that legislative staffers say they received at the Capitol.
The memos appear to violate a state law that prohibits state employees from being solicited for campaign contributions or political services while at their government jobs.
When asked about SWARM's possibly illegal solicitation of state employees in the work place, Jensen spokesman Steve Baas said: "The activities of SWARM are done on personal time. The information they share is a courtesy to members and staff ... (who) are understandably interested in their colleagues' events and activities and often wish to attend or participate."
In one SWARM memo from July 28, 1998, legislative aide Rob Richard directed fellow staff members to work directly with the offices of state Rep. Rick Skindrud, R-Mount Horeb, and state Rep. Eugene Hahn, R-Cambria, to volunteer for campaign work.
"... Rep. Skindrud and Rep. Hahn will be needing your assistance throughout this campaign season with lit drops, parades, mailings and phones. ... If you want to volunteer in these races, please call the office of Rep. Skindrud or Rep. Hahn. Their staff will set everything up," the memo said.
Skindrud didn't return telephone calls and e-mails seeking his comment. Hahn sent an e-mail saying he wasn't familiar with the memo. Richard, who works for Assembly Speaker Pro Tem Steve Freese, R-Dodgeville, said he would have no comment.
In January of this year, Wall said she sent a survey marked "confidential" from the ARC office at 17 S. Fairchild St. to the offices of dozens of Assembly Republican lawmakers at the Capitol. The survey sought to gauge the services available to staffers who worked on the 2000 campaigns.
In her response, staffer Sarah Popp reported that among the resources used by Skindrud's campaign before the most recent election was a "state computer."
Popp wrote that she and Skindrud aide Al Colvin - who took a leave to run Skindrud's campaign in 2000 - "were hesitant to use the laptop but it did the job when we needed it."
Said Colvin: "I have no comment on that."
Today, Popp, who now works for Ladwig, claims that she used the computer just once by mistake when someone left it at Skindrud's campaign headquarters.
"I am sorry if my response on the questionnaire led you astray as to the nature of the incident," Popp said. "I never intentionally used a state computer to benefit this campaign."

Office door locked

The State Journal also has obtained campaign-related letters written by longtime Democratic legislative aide Ritch Williams in 1994, 1995 and 1996 on state stationery when Williams worked for then-Speaker Pro Tem Tim Carpenter, D-Milwaukee. Williams now works for State Rep. David Cullen, D-Milwaukee.
The memos were sent to Gary Bahr, a Belleville businessman who was an unsuccessful candidate for the Assembly in 1994. In them, Williams discusses Bahr's campaign and urges him to run again in 1996 - an offer Bahr declined.
In addition, Bahr said he saw Williams working on his campaign from Carpenter's office on at least one occasion in 1994. Carpenter didn't return repeated telephone calls seeking comment about the campaign activity that allegedly took place out of his office.
Bahr said that during his 1994 campaign for the 79th Assembly District, Williams worked closely with his campaign, often contacting him or his campaign manager during the middle of work days from his Capitol office.
"My feeling was that he (Williams) was ... assigned to my campaign," said Bahr, the owner of a Belleville area bed-and-breakfast.
After he declared his candidacy, Bahr said he was invited to Carpenter's office for a meeting. When he arrived, Bahr said, the lawmaker's office door was locked.
"Ritch Williams opened the door and said, 'Come on in. We're not supposed to be doing these meetings here. ... We're working on some of your brochures. That's why the door is locked,'" Bahr said.
Williams said he didn't recall that meeting.
In 1995 and 1996 memos written on Carpenter's stationery, Williams urged Bahr to run again for the seat.
"As I mentioned previously, I really do believe that this is a seat which can be won by Democrats and I think you're the only candidate who can actually give (Rep. Rick) Skindrud a run for his money," Williams wrote in a Feb. 9, 1996, letter to Bahr. " ... The database is ready to go and I will be getting the February poll lists to continue the update. I would be happy to do all the other work for you during the campaign without any charge. ... "
When asked about the Bahr memos this spring, Williams indicated that he might have accidentally used Carpenter's stationery to write the campaign-related memos.
Bahr said he harbors no animosity toward Williams but feels compelled to blow the whistle on a system that he calls "pervasive," "partisan" and "wicked."
"I have mixed feelings about revealing this because they were trying to help. But I also realize this (illicit campaigning) has got to stop - it's nonsense," Bahr said.

subhead
Throughout his time working for Chvala, Kroll said, the senator's aides often worked on the Chvala campaign and the campaigns of other Senate Democrats while on state time or from Chvala's Senate office, which during that time was on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
Chvala has denied the allegations in a prepared statement, saying Kroll is a disgruntled former employee who was fired for being "slow and incompetent." Replied Kroll: "That's just what he's saying now so he appears to have a legitimate reason for firing me."
According to Kroll, Chvala used his Senate office to help engineer the 1996 recall campaign against Sen. George Petak, a Racine Republican who was targeted because of his support of a regional sales tax to support the Milwaukee Brewers' new stadium. Petak lost to Kim Plache in a special election that tipped control of the Senate to the Democrats and elevated Chvala to majority leader.
Among the campaign activities Kroll said he engaged in was distributing literature a few times during work hours and using his state computer to write fund-raising letters and thank you notes that he kept on a diskette in his desk drawer. Kroll said he did the work at the Capitol because, "Chuck had no campaign office. ... There were no other computers to use."
Kroll said a Chvala staffer also handed out so-called "walk lists" from Chvala's office to legislative staffers listing homes targeted to receive campaign literature in Chvala's district.
"We took a lot of campaign calls," Kroll recalled. "In fact, I found it frustrating to do my job as a legislative aide because we were getting so many campaign calls ... that I couldn't get my legislative work done."

Nothing to gain

Although most legislative aides contacted by the State Journal were reticent to talk about campaign work at the Capitol, former Democratic staffer Greg Humphrey was not. He said he came forward to help change a system that he believes gives an unfair advantage to incumbents and selected challengers and places unwanted pressure on legislative aides.
Humphrey said during his seven years working as an aide for state Rep. Swoboda, campaigning on state time was an expected part of the job. He lost his job in 1994 when Swoboda was appointed to head the board that runs Wisconsin's Americorps program.
Humphrey said he campaigned on state time up to and including Swoboda's 1993 run for state superintendent of public instruction. Humphrey said he drove Swoboda all over the state for that campaign and never took vacation time to do it.
Swoboda said he was unaware of any questionable campaign activity by Humphrey.
"I did not expect of my staff that they would be doing anything that was not according to the rules," Swoboda insisted.
Replied Humphrey: "If everybody keeps denying what's going on up there, nothing's ever going to change. The process will never get any better. I have nothing to gain by (talking about) this. I've 'fessed up to what I did. It's only going to get better if we all step back, take a deep breath and say, 'This is how it really is.'"