Elections Board settles lawsuit over Mark Green's campaign funds
(Published Friday, March 16, 2007 11:46:00 PM CST)
A d v e r t i s e m e n t
By Scott Bauer Associated Press
MADISON, Wis. - A lawsuit over nearly $468,000 in campaign funds Republican Mark Green had wanted to use in his unsuccessful race against Gov. Jim Doyle was settled Friday.
Under the agreement reached with the state Elections Board, Green is prohibited from using the money for another run for office, but he can tap into it to pay for legal fees and make contributions to other candidates.
The case had been pending before the state Supreme Court.
Kevin Kennedy, executive director of the Elections Board, said the board and Green had "agreed to disagree about the law" but the settlement allows both sides to move on.
Green had put the money aside in a separate account while the case was pending. He is now working as an attorney in private practice in Green Bay.
The Elections Board ordered Green in August to get rid of the $468,000 in donations because the money came from out-of-state political action committees that had not registered in Wisconsin.
Under the settlement, both sides agreed that Green had complied with previous decisions by the Elections Board on similar issues, current interpretation of the law and instructions provided by the board's staff. The settlement also says the board's actions against Green were based on the panel's interpretation of relevant state laws.
"We complied not only with state law and Elections Board rules, but we actually followed the advice of the board's staff," Green said in a statement. "The decision by the Elections Board last fall has now been exposed as nothing more than a crass manipulation of a governmental agency by Jim Doyle in his desperate effort to hold on to power."
The fight over the money became an issue in the governor's race and the board's vote to take it from Green, made along party lines, has frequently been mentioned as a motivating factor in the passage of an ethics reform bill in January. The new law eliminates the Elections Board and creates a new Government Accountability Board comprised of former judges.
"It is unfortunate that taxpayer dollars had to be wasted to defend Jim Doyle's actions, but I am gratified that the Elections Board itself has been eliminated," Green said. "No other candidate will ever again receive the kind of unfair treatment I received from what was supposed to be an impartial body."
Doyle's campaign spokesman Anson Kaye said the settlement, which prohibits Green from using the money, confirms Doyle's belief during the campaign that donations like that were not allowed. Doyle defeated Green 53 percent to 45 percent in the November election.
Green had argued that Doyle rigged the Elections Board vote to deprive him of the donations. Doyle insisted the board's decision, backed up in an initial court ruling, showed Green was not entitled to use the money.
On the eve of the November election, then-District Attorney Paul Bucher of Waukesha County, a Republican, said he would charge four Democrats on the Elections Board with violating the open meetings law regarding the vote on Green's funds, but Bucher never did before leaving office. The new district attorney, Republican Brad Schimel, said earlier this week he would not file the charges because he was not sure he could prove a violation.
The vote to strike the settlement was 7-2. Board members Kerry Dwyer and Robert Kasieta voted against it. They were two of the three Democratic board members that one of Doyle's attorneys contacted before the vote on the Green money and urged to sanction Green. They voted in favor of making Green get rid of the money.
Kasieta and Dwyer were both out of the office Friday and did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
Mike McCabe, director of the nonpartisan Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which pushed the complaint with the board, said he feels for Green given that the board allowed Tom Barrett to transfer money from his congressional account in 2001 to run for governor.
"Of course I have sympathy for Mark Green in all of this," McCabe said. "My biggest beef was with the Elections Board."
But McCabe maintained that the donations were illegal and the board's decision to break with its past action and require Green to get rid of the money was correct.
"This is a fitting final chapter to the Election Board's existence," McCabe said. "The board hasn't consistently enforced campaign finance laws."
