Ms. Linda Ketcham
Executive Director
Madison Urban Ministry
2300 South Park Street, Ste. 5
Madison, WI 53713
Dear Ms. Ketcham:
I had the privilege of attending and participating in MUM’s annual meeting and the first phase of your strategic planning process. I too was extremely impressed with the commitment and clarity of the MUM membership regarding the agency’s core key strengths and customs. I felt our discussion captured the essence of MUM’s unique identity. You may recall that we briefly met following the meeting. It was a pleasure to meet you and wish you well on your new journey.
If you will allow me as a MUM member I would like to share with you and the MUM Board my deepest concern for our community. I pray that as you move further into this planning and discovery process you will ask whether your agency is now being called to respond to the ever increasing estrangement between our law makers and the people of Wisconsin ---especially the people with little or moderate means and influence.
Of course I am referring to the recent caucus scandals and the growing special interest influence now playing out in our legislative halls. More specifically I am referring to the fact:
1.) That citizen apathy has reached such a high level that now only less than 8% of our citizens earmark the mere one dollar voluntary contribution from their state income tax to help maintain the Wisconsin Election Campaign Fund (WECF). This fact represents a 66% drop from when the State adopted a comprehensive campaign finance reform law in 1977. This apathy has served to deplete this fund and signaled our legislators that as taxpayers we really don’t care where their campaign money comes from.
2.) Our legislators have not chosen to adjust the spending limits for conducting political campaigns since 1982 and thus allowing this money management mechanism to die a slow death and to open the door to special interests groups and ad issue funding. Less than a half dozen legislators now elect to use these dwindling public funds. This has opened the flood gates to a wide open special interest contribution bonanza.
3.) The insidious effects of issue ads sponsored by special interest groups beginning in 1996 has now removed almost completely the people’s capacity to any longer elect their representative without being outspend many, many times over by special interests groups that have a narrow self interest monetary (verses public welfare) motive. Issue ads, combined with unlimited campaign spending, have produced gigantic campaign race expenditures.
It is now not unusual for incumbents to hold a 14 to 1 cash advantage over their challengers. From my own research, I counted only 37 of our 95 assembly races where the citizens of this state will actually be given a choice of two or more candidates.
Sixty-one percent (61%) of these seats will be uncontested. In Senate seat races it’s even worse with sixty-eight percent (68%) are going uncontested. This compares to 1970 when there were no uncontested races for the legislature
The mad money chase that legislators now have to run means that most of the incumbent’s time is now given over to listening to and serving their dozen or more major special interest contributors. If you are not a corporate head or a lobbyist your chance of getting your legislator’s ear is increasingly difficult if not impossible. The fact now is they no longer have time to study your issues or to represent you or me in the legislature. This has done profound harm to our electoral process. Voters have been robbed of competitive races and of making meaningful choices at the ballot box.
4.) The breakdown of Wisconsin’s campaign finance system has now led to distortion of our public policymaking process as well. For example, the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign (WDC), a public advocate and non-partisan watchdog organization, shows that lawmakers who crafted the most recent state budget included items worth $819 million in special tax breaks, pork barrel spending projects and other budget favors --- benefiting special interests groups. Get this! This was in exchange for their $3 million in campaign contributions to legislators while budget decisions were being made.
This special interest money is increasingly concentrated and centralized in the legislature’s leadership where one legislative leader reported special contributions totaling $560 thousand. This amount was then broken down into the following special interest categories for analysis: Health Professionals 12%, Construction 9%, Manufacturing and Distribution 9%, Health Services 8%, Tourism and Entertainment 8%, Road Construction 7%, Bank and Financing 6%, Law Firms and Lobbyists 6%, etc..
The recent prosecutions disclosed gross misuse of the public offices and resources by our lawmakers for electioneering purposes as well as widespread allegations that legislators are trading public policy for campaign donations.
With so much special interest money pouring into our “democratic process” it is now foolish and naive to believe and hope that this government institution will reform itself. After all, it’s the legislators who are the principal beneficiaries of this corrupt system. . Special interest groups have totally hijacked our representative democracy. Northing short of raising the awareness of all the people – you and I - and our neighbors, will cause this takeover of our liberty be undone.
As a father and grandfather I most humbly and respectfully, but urgently, ask MUM to closely consider by request for your interest and possible action on this grave issue that is looming over our State and Nation. This is a struggle and reform that will not be accomplished in a year or five years, but a reform that is so critical to our freedom that it must be begin NOW! There are few if any informed critics who believe that the recent prosecutions will have any significant effect on the “pay to play” mind set or culture that now pervades our Capitol.
If you begin to get close enough to it, as I have, you clearly sense a confident arrogance and disdain for the “common person” or citizen. It is a culture that is so well established now that to raise this issue to a moral level would, for most of the legislators, be considered a waste of time for any concerned citizen. The fact that our Supreme Court has used our First Amendment to define money as the same as “freedom of speech” only goes to show how insidious and all powerful this “pay to play” norm is now ensconced in our state and country. This brazen arrogance was best seen just this past month when your legislature refused to bring to the floor, Senate Bill 1, intended to establish an independent and bi-partisan commission to reform our existing ethics and election boards, and to oversee, and if necessary, investigate and prosecute wrong doing.
I ask for your deliberation of my concern because I know that MUM is committed to the poor and needy, to the abused and neglected, to the underemployed, prison reform, to families, and most of all, to the well being and solidarity of our community, state and nation.
I am truly convinced that working for campaign finance reform must become a permanent program staple on the program menu of every social agency, church and civic group. It can no longer be taken for granted. Our freedoms must constantly be won and re-won for our children and grandchildren. What is at stake is the very essence of our democratic freedoms. It must become a part of every group’s mission and armamentarium. It must be a “up stream” concern for all of us while we still continue to work in the social vineyards of the present.
MUM’s twenty-five year reputation as an interfaith beacon for people without a voice knows better than most what it means to be daily oppressed by feeling “powerless” and not heard. This is exactly the condition which now exist in our State Capitol. I truly believe that there is not one social problem or issue in this community that would not best be served if people like you and I could succeed in taking back our State Legislature.
I dream for the day when your grandchildren and mine can run for public office without mortgaging their homes; when our legislators take time to listen to the average citizen while the special interest lobbyist waits her/his turn. I dream for the day when a legislator is no longer beholden to any person or group except to his constituency. I dream for a time when a fraction of our tax dollars will be spent willingly and generously to publicly finance our elections in order to insure that the people’s basic needs will be addressed for the common good rather than for the benefit of special interests.
My vision and hope as a MUM member is that MUM will take some action to begin to address this deep concern. It may take the form of simply signing off on a referendum to demonstrate its support for this cause. It might take the form of conducting an educational forum geared toward raising your supporters’ awareness of this dire threat to our freedom. Perhaps the first step would be to hold study circles for MUM’s staff and Board by inviting in a local representative from Common Cause or the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign or have a few churches hold such study circles as well.
I now must end by apologizing for such a long letter. This is due in part to the complexity of this issue, and also to my lack of experience doing personal advocacy. I thank you in advance for giving me this time, as well as the time involved in bringing this issue to your staff and Board.
Sincerely yours,
William R. Benedict
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