Wisconsin Watch Media Partners Center (https://partners.wisconsinwatch.org/tag/wisconsin-manufacturers-commerce/)
Wisconsin’s 700-plus registered lobby groups reported spending $11.5 million seeking to influence state law and policy in the last half of 2014. That brought total lobbying expenditures for the two-year legislative session to $57.5 million.
In the first six months of this year, Wisconsin’s 700-plus registered lobby groups collectively invested $14.1 million trying to shape state law or policy, according to new filings with the state Government Accountability Board.
The ongoing John Doe probe into alleged illegal activities concerning Gov. Scott Walker’s recall election campaign is nothing if not complicated. Here’s an attempt to make it understandable.
“No one outside of the Capitol Square in Madison has been clamoring for increasing the ability of lobbyists to make campaign contributions to legislators,” declared Jay Heck of Common Cause in Wisconsin.
Donations to Walker of $1,000 or more accounted for $2.6 million, more than half his total take. Burke got about $870,000 in donations of at least $1,000, or 68 percent of her total, excluding herself.
Of the more than 600 bills introduced in Wisconsin’s 2013-14 legislative session, none contains the terms “climate change,” “greenhouse gases” or “global warming,” and only a handful deal with energy policy.
Special interest groups in Wisconsin spent less trying to sway state law and policy in the first half of 2013 than in comparable past periods. But it’s still a whole lotta moolah: more than $17 million.
This column’s prediction a few weeks back that “all signs point to another jaw-dropping spend-fest” seems not to be coming true. The spending is merely substantial, not overwhelming.
Roggensack’s foes, as well as her supporters, will likely respond to her perceived vulnerability by digging deep into their coffers. All signs point to another jaw-dropping spend-fest.
Wisconsin Democracy Campaign reported that mining bill proponents have given more than $15 million since 2010 to Scott Walker, who was elected governor that year, and to current members of the state Legislature. Meanwhile, only about $25,000 has flowed from environmental groups registered against the bill.
Now the GOP is assured of a 18-15 lead — enough to make Schultz as irrelevant as the Democratic minority. But the Republican from Richland Center is optimistic that the Senate will pass a bill that has his support.
During the first six months of this year, registered lobby groups spent $13.9 million trying to influence state government, pushing the total spent on lobbying for the session that began in January 2011 to $52.3 million.