Wisconsin's Road to Ruin

Perhaps no issue illustrates the corruption of state politics more than road building. Today Patrick Marley in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel presents the first of two parts exposing the links between public transportation p0licy and road lobby campaign cash. Especially revealing is this graph showing how increases in state funds for road building between 1990 and 2003 outpaced the UW System and state parks. Major findings of the report include:

• Since 1994, political donations from road interests increased faster than contributions from other donors. The road builders' donations crossed party lines, usually favoring front-runners.

• While governors and the Legislature have funneled more money into road building, they have cut the number of employees who do engineering work, forcing the department to outsource that work to more expensive private firms. Employees of those firms often make political contributions.

• Dozens of DOT employees, including those in top positions, have left the department for jobs with those private companies. At least four former secretaries moved from the department's top post to jobs with engineering companies.

The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign has been exposing the influence peddling culture of Madison for a long time, revealing the road lobby connection to the Thompson administration long before the mainstream media had any interest in the topic. WDC's Graft Tax 2005 shows clearly the connections between cash and public policies that benefit not only road builders, but other powerful interests.

Probably the most shocking and disappointing comment in the Journal Sentinel is from Democratic state representative Spencer Black. He argues that increased road builder contributions are the result of how expensive campaigns have become, but then he concludes that "I don't believe there's any correlation between the contributions and the work." Spencer cannot really believe that, especially since he's been a long time clean government advocate and he must be aware of University of Michigan researcher Roland Zullo's study that showed a clear connection between size of campaign donation and awarding of state contracts from 1991-2000.