Wisconsin's election laws are amongst the most strict in the country. There are so many rules and regulations that it's very easy to run afoul of them.
So, as the treasurer for our political action committee, I'm having to make sure that every "i" is dotted and "t" crossed.
A report has to be filed in January. Typically, that one isn't very long, unless there's a ton of contributions from the prior three months.
Then there's the report due in July, which covers the period 1/1 through 6/30. The one I filed last month was over thirty pages. Imagine a thirty+ page tax return.
The next report is the pre-primary report, which is due September 5th. I've been working on that for about an hour or more a night for the last week, and will spend the entire weekend on it. Maybe more. I'm already at 50+ pages, and nowhere near done.
Since our group has surpassed the $20,000 mark in contributions for the year, I also have to file electronically, using an Excel spreadsheet format. So, everything I've written down by hand will have to be entered again.
Then there's the pre-election report.
And, of course, the January report once again.
Please don't take this as a whine. I volunteered to do it.
It's just frustrating, though, to have to go through all this for maybe $30,000+ in contributions. Especially when our governor's campaign manager can sit down with executives from companies bidding on state contracts, and walk out with $10,000 checks after an hour or so.
It takes just as much time to record a $10,000 contribution as it does a $25 contribution. But it takes a lot more time to record $10,000 contributions in $25 increments.
And there's the lunacy of campaign finance laws. Regular folks like us give the little that we can, but don't have the power to sell our government to the highest bidder.
Wisconsin law requires that any contribution over $10 must be recorded and reported. Is $10 really going to change a legislator's vote?
The only thing that campaign finance laws accomplish is to discourage the average people from getting involved in the process. The dirty money still flows; it just takes a different route everytime a new law is passed.
