Sen. Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend) plan would end rule that donors disclose employers

[midnight]

e-mail print By Patrick Marley of the Journal Sentinel
Sept. 29, 2011 9:34 a.m. |(141) COMMENTS

Madison - A Republican state senator on Thursday proposed ending a requirement that donors to political campaigns disclose their employers.

The requirement has long been in place as a way to let the public know where candidates' support comes from. With that information, people can know if candidates are backed by insurers, bankers, public workers, plaintiff's attorneys or others.

But Sen. Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend) said in a news release Thursday he wants to end that practice because he says employers are being harassed if their workers donated to Republicans, who put a law into place this year that ends most collective bargaining for most public workers.

Grothman blamed the Wisconsin Professional Police Association, the Wisconsin Firefighters Association and local teachers unions for efforts that he said make it hard for businesses with employees that backed Republicans to continue to operate. He also cited Sen. Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee) for her support of a boycott of Georgia-Pacific Corp. because it is owned by Koch Industries, whose political action committee donated $43,000 to Republican Scott Walker in his successful bid to be governor.http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/130778733.html

[undeterred]

1. I agree with it.

The fact that someone works for a particular business and donates to a particular candidate really have nothing to do with each other at all.

[sybylla]

3. Sometimes. Sometimes not.

When you get 30 executives from M & I Bank donating the max to a candidate, that's really the company talking. Year before last, we had a company executive in the Milwaukee area get into trouble for laundering contributions through his employees/family members. Without this kind of reporting, that kind of fucking over the system won't stand out and will be harder to investigate.

When you get Joe Blow from Billy Bob's Window Washing donating $100 bucks to the state senator that helped get his veteran father's VA troubles sorted out, that's a clean individual contribution that shouldn't reflect on the business in the least.

What's missing here is that the employer info isn't collected by the GAB until someone reaches over $100 in donations.

When you want to make it easier for the wealthy to break the rules, you eliminate oversight.

When you want to help businesses not be hurt by employee contributions, you raise the limit at which that information is collected.

You see which it is that Grothman wants.

This is a bad idea all the way around.

[undeterred]

4. What about all the people who are admins, IT, accountants

who work at various companies but have nothing to do with the mission of the company? Those people make up way more than half the staff of most large companies.

[Viking12]

6. Disclosure is important.

Grothman's 'fear' is a bunch of hooey. It's tainted with the "union thug" bullshit.

A solution in search of a problem, no different than Voter ID.

[sybylla]

7. The cool thing about reporting employer is that you report occupation as well

So when you search in the database for someone, it tells you who their employer is and what they do for their employer.

It's simple to judge for yourself whether this is the owner, the executives, the Joe/Jane Schmoes and middle management.

Sunshine brought donations and any potential for quid pro quo out into the light. If you can't stand the sunshine, then don't make the donation.

I've worked with several campaigns where people wouldn't make the donation because they would get into trouble with their employer. I find that far more troubling than that a corporation or gazillionaire might get a little blowback for pressuring employees to support a particular candidate.

You can't discern the quid pro quo if you can't see who's in the game.

[undeterred]

8. I really don't think its the employers business to know the

political affiliation of its employees so I would rather not have to disclose this information.

[LiberalFighter]

10. They don't need the disclosure to know if their employees contribute.

They funnel the contributions through them through the use of bundling so they can have first hand knowledge. Then if they also have it set up to reimburse their employees for the contributions the employee receives the amount contributed back faster. Otherwise, they would have to wait until the candidate files their reports which may be as long as 6 months depending on the state and federal rules and whether it is minor or major amount.

[LiberalFighter]

9. The various companies that an individual provides services to are not reported.

They would be listed as an employee of the company providing services to the other companies.

[undeterred]

11. Thats not what I meant at all.

Suppose I am an IT person or an accountant or a secretary working for a defense company. And suppose a liberal candidate gets thousands in contributions from people who work at that company. People say "oh look, candidate X is in the pocket of the defense industry". But the people who are contributing the $5K are all liberal Democrats who happen to work at that company.

I'm not talking about outside contractors from other companies, but employees who work at the company in jobs unrelated to the mission of the company.

[Yon_Yonson]

2. NEOCON Grothman is just another slug turd who hasn't got a clue

Squeeze his head and tea comes out!

[dembotoz]

5. don't trust him-he wants to be able to hide contributions with walkers train thing