This Dennis Troha story is a snoozer. It's about as action packed as the Georgia Thompson matter was, and proves just about as little - at least at this point. So as with the Georgia Thompson matter, I'm going to do one post on it, until someone proves that Jim Doyle's people were on the phone with Troha and were actively involved in arranging contributions that they knew were illegal.
The whole problem with money - if you can call it a problem - is that it's highly fungible. If I give you $2,000 to give to a candidate, perhaps you will do that. Or perhaps you will take that $2,000, go to Home Depot, and buy $2,000 worth of stuff to renovate your kitchen. Then later in the week you will write a $2,000 check out of your own checking account and give that money to the candidate instead.
Technically, the money is not the same. But because we can't tell which is which, we're inclined to consider the motives of the person who gave you the first $2,000 when determining whether the actions involved are illegal.
Coordinated giving is hardly a new activity, especially from big players. Late in a campaign cycle, gofers are often picking up matching max checks from husbands and wives, for instance, or stopping by the office of a lobbyist to get checks in matching amounts from a handful of clients or members of a business or trade organization.
These checks are often requested by the finance people on campaigns. Calls go out to big givers and maxed-out donors and lobbyists asking for their help in finding more money. That "more money" almost always ends up coming from family members or close acquaintances of the solicited individual.
If Team Doyle just hit Troha up for help in shaking the money tree, that's hardly different than what the Green Team or any other major candidate was doing with its major donors.
Perhaps Dennis Troha's motives were indeed suspect. I'm glad that we've got a U.S. attorney as capable as Steven Biskupic, a guy who is willing to investigate matters on both ends of the political spectrum. But for some to suggest that Doyle, as a political candidate, is responsible for figuring out where his donors are coming up with their cash is ridiculous. No political candidate should be held to that standard.
Would we prosecute or publicly malign a business owner whose employees accepted bad money for a purchase? Of course not. They can't tell if the money backing that $2,000 check was obtained through hard work or through you robbing a bank the day before.
Republicans are also eerily silent on the fact that Dennis Troha is a bipartisan giver. Whatever is being said about Jim Doyle by Republicans surely should also be said about Janesville Congressman Paul Ryan, who also took a five-digit sum from the Troha clan.
And how soon Republicans forget that just last year we were talking about construction executives who used a fraudulent billing scheme to funnel contributions to President Bush, former Gov. Scott McCallum, and former U.S. Senate candidate Russ Darrow. Shall we imply that those three are also of deficient character because they took dirty money - even if they didn't know the money was dirty?
It isn't the job of a campaign to investigate its donors. That's why we have the FBI. That's why we have U.S. attorneys. Doyle's already said that he'll return the money if Troha is convicted. Seems like a reasonable course of action to me. I'd say the same thing for a Republican governor.
If anything, perhaps we should cast less of a critical eye on the Republicans and Democrats who unknowingly take dirty money and direct that eye towards a campaign finance system that encourages such manipulation. I've often said that our current system of campaign finance is deplorable, and that either extreme would be better than where we're at now.
If we go to a fully transparent system with no spending limits, guys like Troha don't have to allegedly funnel money because they can give it all under their own name - but at least we know where it all comes from. If we go to full public financing, guys like Troha can't buy access or influence, period. But as long as we have this joke of a system that we have now, people are always going to be looking for a way to skirt their limits and give more money.
And maybe that's the real problem here.
The whole problem with money - if you can call it a problem - is that it's highly fungible. If I give you $2,000 to give to a candidate, perhaps you will do that. Or perhaps you will take that $2,000, go to Home Depot, and buy $2,000 worth of stuff to renovate your kitchen. Then later in the week you will write a $2,000 check out of your own checking account and give that money to the candidate instead.
Technically, the money is not the same. But because we can't tell which is which, we're inclined to consider the motives of the person who gave you the first $2,000 when determining whether the actions involved are illegal.
Coordinated giving is hardly a new activity, especially from big players. Late in a campaign cycle, gofers are often picking up matching max checks from husbands and wives, for instance, or stopping by the office of a lobbyist to get checks in matching amounts from a handful of clients or members of a business or trade organization.
These checks are often requested by the finance people on campaigns. Calls go out to big givers and maxed-out donors and lobbyists asking for their help in finding more money. That "more money" almost always ends up coming from family members or close acquaintances of the solicited individual.
If Team Doyle just hit Troha up for help in shaking the money tree, that's hardly different than what the Green Team or any other major candidate was doing with its major donors.
Perhaps Dennis Troha's motives were indeed suspect. I'm glad that we've got a U.S. attorney as capable as Steven Biskupic, a guy who is willing to investigate matters on both ends of the political spectrum. But for some to suggest that Doyle, as a political candidate, is responsible for figuring out where his donors are coming up with their cash is ridiculous. No political candidate should be held to that standard.
Would we prosecute or publicly malign a business owner whose employees accepted bad money for a purchase? Of course not. They can't tell if the money backing that $2,000 check was obtained through hard work or through you robbing a bank the day before.
Republicans are also eerily silent on the fact that Dennis Troha is a bipartisan giver. Whatever is being said about Jim Doyle by Republicans surely should also be said about Janesville Congressman Paul Ryan, who also took a five-digit sum from the Troha clan.
And how soon Republicans forget that just last year we were talking about construction executives who used a fraudulent billing scheme to funnel contributions to President Bush, former Gov. Scott McCallum, and former U.S. Senate candidate Russ Darrow. Shall we imply that those three are also of deficient character because they took dirty money - even if they didn't know the money was dirty?
It isn't the job of a campaign to investigate its donors. That's why we have the FBI. That's why we have U.S. attorneys. Doyle's already said that he'll return the money if Troha is convicted. Seems like a reasonable course of action to me. I'd say the same thing for a Republican governor.
If anything, perhaps we should cast less of a critical eye on the Republicans and Democrats who unknowingly take dirty money and direct that eye towards a campaign finance system that encourages such manipulation. I've often said that our current system of campaign finance is deplorable, and that either extreme would be better than where we're at now.
If we go to a fully transparent system with no spending limits, guys like Troha don't have to allegedly funnel money because they can give it all under their own name - but at least we know where it all comes from. If we go to full public financing, guys like Troha can't buy access or influence, period. But as long as we have this joke of a system that we have now, people are always going to be looking for a way to skirt their limits and give more money.
And maybe that's the real problem here.
5 comments:
Yah, it is.
I vote for fully transparent. All donations, all donors, on-line, within 1 week of the donation.
Including all officers/directors of all PACs, yada yada, 527s, ALL of them.
Channel 27 news has your number, numb nuts.
Try not blogging about alleged free legal services from DOT to help Troha settle his multi-state business tax problems.
Only one post my ass. Kathy Falk and others, maybe on both sides of the aisle, are going to force those sausages you call fingers to type away.
Take a look for yourself
Thanks for the link. I'll try to, um, NOT get right on that?
It'll be easy for me to not blog about this stuff for the same reason that things like Georgia Thompson were easy to not blog about.
I don't find it interesting. Others have a greater interest in talking about public corruption and they'll do just fine with it. Throwing Dennis Troha in jail or indicting Jim Doyle or whatever still won't fix school funding, or access to affordable health care, or do anything to make someone with a college degree want to stay in Wisconsin. Those are the real problems we have. This stuff is small potatoes.
Besides, Troha threw money at TGT and Paul Ryan too. What does this prove other than the whole system is broken?
Not much, IMHO.
Oh please. It proves that Doyle, Ryan, Troha are all corrupt. The only reason the Republicans are not pushing for a recall is they don't have the stomach for it.
On the first count, you may well be true. I guess it's a matter of perspective.
I suppose my point in regard to Doyle is that those who think this will hurt him are likely mistaken, just as they were with Georgia Thompson.
Many on the right predicted that Thompson would be a major ethical headache for Doyle, and guess what? He destroyed Mark Green anyway.
Your comment is telling, and I think reflects the partial sentiment of most of the public. The reason Doyle is immune to scandal is that, even when his hand is caught in the cookie jar, the public at large reflexively assumes that Republicans are also doing it, but perhaps just haven't been caught yet.
When it comes to raising money, people assume ALL politicians are dirty. So when one of them gets caught, it serves to affirm the public's perception of ALL politicians, not just Republicans or Democrats.
That Paul Ryan was also doing Troha's bidding in Washington seals the deal. People will read this and say "ah, to hell with 'em, they're all corrupt." And that'll be the end of it.
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