Lying and Lying Boldly

The Cap Times printed an AP story yesterday on the 2005 federal legislation, which is set to go into effect this week, to extend the allowable length of trucks from 75 to 97 feet.

Plain old logic would tell most people that this move wasn't done with safety in mind. Money, of course, is the true culprit: bigger profits for the trucking companies and bigger campaign donations for the politicians.

But here's the section of the article on Rep. Jim Oberstar's (D-Minn) decision to back the legislation in his role as ranking member of the House Transportation Committee:

A spokesman for Oberstar, who is now chairman of the House Transportation Committee, said that the congressman supported the amendment after looking into it and determining the new rules would be safe.

"Jim has traditionally been concerned about longer vehicles," said the spokesman, John Schadl. "He took a long look at this and had to be reassured before he would allow it."

So Oberstar looked into it before voting and determined that safety wouldn't be harmed by allowing trucks one-third the size of a football field on the road in spite of the fact that his initial reaction told him otherwise. *I'd say* that's a lie.

Now observe the section of the article on Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Janesville) decision to back the legislation:

[Ryan] said that he and several colleagues decided to write the letter to the committee in 2005 because they believed the change would be good public policy. Ryan argued that it will improve safety and reduce fuel consumption.

So not only would the legislation not harm safety, Ryan claimed that increasing the length of trucks by 30 percent would improve safety on the roads. *I'd say* that, my friends, is a bold lie.

Come on, Oberstar. You gotta own your deceit if you want to roll with the big boys.

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UPDATE: See the comments for an explanation of the *I'd say* additions.

Core Questions on DOT Story Remain Unanswered

There are some questions arising in the last few days about DOT secretary Frank Busalacchi's decision to send state attorneys to help resolve out-of-state tax disputes regarding Dennis Troha's trucking firms.

It's no surprise that this is being made into a political issue. It seems reasonable enough to believe that at least part of the reason the attorneys were sent is because of Troha's donations to the Doyle campaign.

After all, the last trucking firm known to get this type of treatment was Schneider National in 2001, when the state sent attorneys to Georgia to settle an out-of-state tax dispute for the Green Bay trucking giant.

And a quick look at campaign finance records shows that Schneider CEO Donald Schneider has been a major donor to Tommy Thompson, Scott McCallum, and a number of other GOPers since the 1990s (although the JS, WSJ, and other news outlets haven't seemed to notice that, yet).

McCallum, of course, was governor when the state sent an attorney to Georgia in 2001 to help settle Schneider's tax dispute, though much of the administration was probably still Tommy's, who would've just left in January of that year to become DHHS secretary.

It would be little surprise to me that the Schneider donations to Thompson/McCallum or those made to the Doyle campaign by Troha impacted the decision to send state attorneys to settle the out-of-state tax disputes. Any major business in the state is surely going to get heard on some level by the administration regardless, but I bet a little donor love can go a long way toward cutting through some of the red tape that otherwise might exist.

And a big wild card for the issue of whether anything blatantly improper was done is something mentioned in a WSJ article yesterday (emphasis mine):

Trucking companies pay taxes on the fuel purchased for their vehicles in various states as they drive across the country. Under a multistate compact, the home state for a given company, in this case Wisconsin, is responsible for auditing company reports and making sure the correct amount of taxes goes to each state in which the trucks are operating.

It seems to me that this multistate compact is a pretty big piece of the puzzle. WKOW in Madison also noted the compact, called the International Fuel Tax Agreement (IFTA), in a recent story, but important questions still remain.

What are the specific expectations for states participating in this compact when disputes arise? Do those expectations entail sending state resources out-of-state? Has any other state sent resources to Wisconsin or another state in the compact to help settle disputes? Has a company ever been denied state services pertaining to the compact? These are all rational questions, and I'm sure there are others, that our media should be answering.

The IFTA section on the DOT website gets the ball rolling on the basics of the compact, but more pertinent info on the issue of resolving disputes surely could be gained through a minimal amount of media digging.

Instead, much of the media has opted to engage in more speculation over the issue -- such as whether it's right for the state Senate to proceed with confirmation hearings for Busalacchi next Tuesday -- rather than spending time finding answers to the core questions of the story.

A cynic would almost think some media outlets believe it's more beneficial to leave those core questions unanswered -- stories about them are not nearly as enticing.

The Troha Indictment: It's the Institution, Stupid

Allow me to get out of the way up front that I'm not happy about Doyle's acceptance of campaign funds from Dennis Troha's family members. I think the campaign knew all of the money was really from daddy and not any of the kids.

But I don't think there's going to be any evidence to actually convict Doyle or any of his top campaign staffers of wrongdoing. And setting aside that legal question, as Brian Fraley points out, it's the court of public opinion that most politicians need to consider first and foremost when news like this hits.

In many ways, the standard for conviction in the court of public opinion is lower than in a court of law. There are rules and regulations in a courtroom that don't exist in the realm of public discourse. And courts of law are presided over by judges who often have a level of respect for fairness and equity, while the court of public opinion is presided over by the media that is -- more and more, as a recent Frontline series pointed out -- after an eye-catching and, subsequently, money-making headline.

That said, my guess is that this story will have little to no political impact on Governor Doyle. And that has nothing to do with Doyle himself, but rather the Office of Governor in the State of Wisconsin.

After Doyle beat Mark Green in November -- so much so that the GOP didn't even bother using Doyle's cash advantage as an excuse -- many conservatives in the state were at a loss for words to explain why. Indeed, Doyle had been hit and hit hard for months on ethical questions.

I had conservative commenters showing up on nearly all of my election-related posts from last spring on telling me to "just wait until November" when Georgia Thompson and all of the other messes thrown at Doyle would finally hit the fan (and I'm sure I'll get the same about Troha).

And the Journal Sentinel easily has enough coverage of its own to dedicate a special section on its website to all of the front page stories it ran against the governor.

But not only did Doyle greatly expand his margin of victory from 2002 across the state, as Jay pointed out shortly after the election, the governor went from losing the 5-county Milwaukee area to McCallum in 2002 to winning it in 2006. That means in spite of the incessant JS attacks, Doyle actually picked up votes in the area where the paper is most widely read.

And this isn't to say that Wisconsin voters don't care about ethics, as some conservatives assumed after the election. Rather, most simply see it as part and parcel of the institution of governor in the state. For most, ethics was going to be just as questionable under Green as it was under Doyle. In short, ethics was a wash.

To be sure, does anyone think that Troha and others who skirt campaign laws would simply stop donating to the Wisconsin governor in the event that Green won the election? People can talk all day about how Green is a "good guy," and I'm sure he is. After seeing his webmercial where he played basketball with his kids out in the driveway, I thought he seemed like a pretty good guy myself.

But, again, ethical questions are not as much about the person as they are the institution. Green didn't talk at all about how he'd change the institution of governor in Wisconsin, and so voters were left to believe -- and I'd say rightfully so -- that he wouldn't have changed it.

For more evidence, take a look at who Dennis Troha was giving his money to between 1991 and 2000: Tommy G. Thompson.

Of course, ethical bombshells that dominate even TV news -- where most people get their info these days -- can play a role in the outcome of gubernatorial elections, but as riled up as conservatives got over Georgia Thompson and as riled up as they'll get over Dennis Troha, those stories simply don't constitute bombshells in the general public's eye.

To put it bluntly, the bar for what constitutes an ethical bombshell for governors in Wisconsin is so high because the bar for public expectations of gubernatorial ethics is so low.

So where does that leave us? For me, it's about getting back to the point where the ethical expectations for the governor in Wisconsin aren't at the basement level.

Wiggy argues that the issue is about the play side of pay-for-play. He writes:

With the news of the Dennis Troha brouhaha, we have yet another reminder that if we really want clean elections without campaign contributors trying to buy influence, then the surest way would be to remove the power of the state to reward campaign contributors. Putting the governor as the main arbiter in handing out casino licenses is just an invitation for abuse.

I just don't see a solution there. After all, the issue is not simply about the governor's control over casino licenses. Even if stronger checks were given to the legislature on that issue, it may disburse the level of stink by spreading out the donor love to more legislators, but the process as a whole would still stink just as much.

And this issue isn't just about casinos. It's a problem that pervades public policymaking. Unless the plan is to stop elected officials from setting public policy -- in other words, doing their job -- then no amount of futzing with the legislative process in relation to the campaign donation process is going to change the fact that elected officials are accountable first and foremost to those who help their chances at re-election the most. That is, those who give them the most amount of money.

The solution, rather, is to focus on the pay side of pay-for-play. If politicians are going to be accountable first and foremost to their donors and the goal is to make them accountable first and foremost to the public, then you need to make the public their donors, plain and simple.

Elections and the representatives that are created by them are public entities, and they should be funded that way.

UPDATE: The Recess Supervisor nails it, as usual.