Mining bill shows might isn’t everything

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By Bill Lueders

Virtually all the lobbying muscle regarding the redrawing of voter boundaries was brought to bear against the bills that sailed through. That undercuts the popular notion that outside special interests drive the political process, since here the push entirely came from the GOP-controlled state Legislature.

But that’s not the only example of how lawmakers serve other masters besides money and might.

Take the state’s voter identification law. Almost three dozen lobby groups registered in opposition to these new voting requirements. Only one group, the Fox Cities Chamber of Commerce & Industry, registered in favor.

For 2011, about 1,000 hours of lobbying was reported by the bill’s opponents. No hours were reported spent by the Fox Cities group, the lone supporter.

The state lobbying community’s message to the Legislature was loud and clear: “We don’t want voter ID.” The Legislature’s response: “We don’t care.” The new law easily passed last May on party line votes.

A more astonishing example of how lobby clout doesn’t always decide legislative outcomes is the state Assembly’s mining bill, which recently failed to pass the state Senate.

That’s surprising, given that 28 state lobby groups favored this bill, and only 13 were opposed.

Through the end of 2011, opponents lobbied longer than proponents, 1,157 to 779 hours. Most of this effort came from a single group, the Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters, which invested 1,061 hours.

The bill’s supporters included such heavy hitters as Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, which logged 386 hours last year backing the bill.

Gogebic Taconite, which wanted to open a $1.5 billion iron mine in northern Wisconsin, reported spending 161 hours on this bill.

An analysis by MapLight, a nonpartisan group that tracks lobby clout in terms of campaign contributions, found that between July 1, 2009, and June 30, 2011, backers of the Assembly mining bill gave a total of $244,886 to members of the Legislature. This compares with $21,905 from groups opposed, a margin of 11 to one.

The bill’s failure is even more extraordinary considering the breadth of its support base. Backers included not just the Wisconsin Mining Association, but also the Wisconsin Restaurant Association and United Sportsmen of Wisconsin. Five labor unions, including the Wisconsin Laborers’ District Council and Wisconsin State Council of Carpenters, signed on as supporters.

People often talk as though the American political system is a giant vending machine: Interest groups put money in, get policy out. But it’s much more complicated than that. The system is run by human beings, who obey all sorts of masters — including, at times, their sense of what’s right.

Bill Lueders is the Money and Politics Project director at the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism.