Here & Now; 431

January 27, 2006

Here and Now, people's legislature tape, Department of Administration staffer Georgia Thompson was charged with two felony counts. A federal grand jury alleges Thompson altered bidding procedures to award a state contract to Adelmen Travel of Milwaukee in an effort to gain political advantage for her supervisors. The indictment was handed down in a week when citizens rallied for campaign reform and an assembly committee held a hearing on a bill to toughen state ethics and elections laws. Reporter Art Hackett has the story. conneticut campaign law, Connecticut, where new campaign laws and public funding of elections go into effect later this year. Connecticut State Representative Chris Caruso is one of the authors of that states new campaign finance plan. He joins us from Norwalk Connecticut. wisconsin campaign finance laws, Nationally known campaign law expert. He says the list of things a candidate CAN do to raise and spend money in Wisconsin is a lot longer than the list of things a candidate CANNOT do here. That's why Madison Attorney Mike Wittenwyler decided he'd walk us through the short list. The Wisconsin campaign 'no-no's.', pay to play legislation, Questions over the legality of a Jim Doyle political fund-raiser. Specifically: should highway contractors, businesses eligible for big contracts with the state, have been invited to a Jim Doyle campaign fund-raiser? The State Ethics Board says there 'oughta be a law' against it. But because there isn't the Doyle political appointee who set up the barbeque fund-raiser did not break any law. Jonathon Becker is legal counsel to the State Ethics Board. Message from Home, Peter Leidy sings about what he says was Governor Doyle's message from home to our Wisconsin troops serving in the Middle East when he visited them recently.