MADISON, Wis. – A government watchdog group says the ouster of Wisconsin Elections Administrator Michael Haas means Wisconsinites will have diminished confidence in the result of their elections.
Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause in Wisconsin, says Haas, who resigned under heavy partisan political fire rather than face an extended legal battle, is the victim of the worst kind of political payback.
Heck says the Republicans who attacked Haas didn't take issue with anything he did as overseer of state elections. Heck says this move will likely affect the reliability of election results.
"If you are ousting the one person who had the confidence of both Republicans and Democrats to do a fair job and an impartial job in overseeing our elections, I think that just bodes very, very ill for public confidence," Heck states.
Republican leadership says they lost confidence in Haas' ability to act fairly in overseeing elections because of what they call his partisan actions when he worked for the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board, which was disbanded three years ago.
According to Heck, there's residual anger among Republicans from the Government Accountability Board's investigation into possible campaign law violations by Gov. Scott Walker's campaign during the recall election six years ago.
Heck says, "Vendetta is the perfect word to describe what's going on.”
And he adds, "They want to elevate this issue to somehow create a narrative that the Republicans were wronged for even being investigated for possible violation of campaign finance law, and it's quite clear that at the time, it was illegal to engage in campaign coordination."
Heck says it's not bad enough that Republicans forced a respected state official to resign, but now they intend to hold a series of hearings about the now defunct Government Accountability Board.
"To determine the criminality–- and I say that sarcastically – that may have occurred while the Government Accountability Board was investigating alleged crimes, mainly in the form of illegal campaign coordination during the recall elections of 2011 and 2012," he states.
At that time, the board was looking into possible coordination between Walker's campaign and the Wisconsin Club for Growth.
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Today, people across Arizona are voting in the Presidential Preference Election, a chance for registered Democrats and Republicans to choose their respective party's candidate. What's known as Arizona's "PPE" is paid for by taxpayers.
Chuck Coughlin, treasurer with Make Elections Fair Arizona, said the largest portion of the state's electorate is made up of voters who aren't affiliated with a political party. That means almost 1.4 million people can't exercise their voting rights today, although they might have a chance to vote to change this in November.
"When we were drafting our initiative, we thought we should fix that, and so we have. In the initiative, we require anyone to be able to request a ballot. So, if you're an unaffiliated voter, you can request a Republican or Democratic ballot and participate in the process," Coughlin said.
The PPE is not a primary election, according to the Citizens Clean Elections Commission. And it's important to note that independent voters can vote in the primary election in July.
For today's PPE, polls are open from 6 a.m. until 7 p.m. Coughlin said their initiative has already gathered over 200,000 signatures of the 500,000 they'll need by June to get it onto the November ballot.
Coughlin contends as the weather in Arizona improves, so will signature gathering. He said they've expanded their petition-gathering locations and is confident they can meet their goal. He added Make Elections Fair Arizona is looking to also grow its volunteer network to help get those signatures, and said the goal of the initiative is to increase competition within the political sphere.
"So, what we're doing here is requiring a competitive General Election - so, having an open primary that allows anybody to compete under the same rules promotes competition. So better ideas, better candidates, better outcomes," he explained.
The group is holding an Arizona Democracy Summit in Phoenix on Saturday, March 23, a free event open to all. Coughlin said local and national election experts will be there to not only discuss Arizona's election system problems, but proposed solutions as well.
Disclosure: Make Elections Fair AZ contributes to our fund for reporting on Civic Engagement. If you would like to help support news in the public interest,
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By Jimmy Cloutier for OpenSecrets.
Broadcast version by Roz Brown for Texas News Service reporting for the OpenSecrets-Public News Service Collaboration
The American Federation for Children, a leading school choice advocacy group, intends to spend $10 million on state elections in 2024. Its first targets: 15 Texas Republicans who opposed a school voucher program championed by Gov. Greg Abbott.
AFC Victory Fund, the group’s main super PAC, has spent nearly $461,000 on mailers and digital ads ahead of Texas’ March 5 primary elections, attacking GOP state legislators who last year blocked the Republican governor’s plan to allow families to spend taxpayer dollars on their children’s private schooling.
Thus far, AFC Victory Fund appears to be focused entirely on Texas. But the American Federation for Children plans to spend millions on legislative races nationwide in 2024 to support state candidates who prioritize school choice — education policies that give parents the option of enrolling their children in private, religious and other alternatives to public school using state funds.
Texas’ primary elections next week will test the organization’s political clout and messaging. The American Federation for Children said its affiliates and allies spent $9 million on state elections in 2022, winning 277 out of 368 races and defeating 40 incumbents. Forty-four states hold legislative races this year.
According to campaign finance reports covering election spending through Jan. 25, most of the super PAC’s money — about $64,000 — has been levied at Rep. Glenn Rogers (R-Graford), a three-term House Republican representing a district west of Fort Worth, Texas. AFC Victory Fund also spent roughly $42,000 each against Reps. Travis Clardy (R-Nacogdoches) and DeWayne Burns (R-Cleburne).
The super PAC attacked lawmakers over their stance on school vouchers, but also sought to tie them to the crisis at the southern border and paint them as “too liberal for Texas.”
AFC Victory Fund, which officially launched in September, entered 2024 with $4.3 million in cash and reported raising about $4.6 million from half a dozen donors last year, including $3.5 million from billionaire investor Jeff Yass and $1 million from former U.S. Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and her husband, Dick DeVos. Betsy DeVos, who chaired the American Federation for Children before joining former President Donald Trump's administration in 2017, has been a longtime crusader in the school choice movement.
According to campaign finance reports filed with the Texas Ethics Commission on Feb. 5, AFC Victory Fund received an additional $1.5 million in January, including $1 million from Dick Uihlein, the billionaire founder of Uline. Another $250,000 came from Future of Education LLC, a limited-liability company incorporated in 2023, one day before it donated $1 million to Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin's gubernatorial PAC. The LLC has no website or online presence, but the Texas Observer traced it to Mackenzie Price, an education reformer and the founder of a private school.
Texas would have become the latest — and largest — state to embrace universal school vouchers, but Abbott wasn’t able to win over holdouts in his party who preferred a scaled-back program limited to disadvantaged students. According to The Texas Tribune, the governor refused to compromise on a program open to all students. Twenty-one lawmakers eventually voted against the plan.
Notwithstanding the setback in Texas, the movement to unlock public funding for private and religious schools has gained momentum in recent years.
School choice programs come in different forms but typically involve tax credits or taxpayer-subsidized education savings accounts, also known as ESAs, that are available to parents who withdraw their children from public schools.
Similar programs have existed in some states since the 1990s, but were mostly available to certain students, such as those with disabilities or from poor families. Groups like American Federation for Children have been pushing states to embrace so-called "universal school choice" legislation open to all students.
West Virginia became the first state to do so in 2021, when the GOP-led state legislature approved an ESA program eligible to nearly every student, regardless of household income. Arizona followed suit in 2022, eliminating restrictions to its voucher program that limited eligibility to students with disabilities and those in the foster care system, attending low-performing public schools or living on Native American reservations. Five other states approved similarly expansive programs in 2023: North Carolina, Florida, Arkansas, Iowa and Utah.
Many more states are poised to create their own voucher programs or expand existing schemes.
Last week, the Alabama state House advanced a school voucher program that would be limited to students with disabilities and low-income households until 2027, at which time it would be open to all students. Idaho lawmakers have introduced a "parental choice tax credit" program that would unlock $50 million in state funding for private education. And in Kentucky, there is an effort underway to put a constitutional amendment on the November ballot to remove barriers blocking the state from enacting school voucher programs. The Kentucky Supreme Court has ruled that taxpayer dollars must be spent on "common schools" and cannot be diverted to private education.
Critics argue that these programs largely subsidize affluent families who already send their children to private school, while siphoning money from public education. Research from around the country also shows that voucher programs have delivered mixed academic results, and recent reports raise concerns about their costs to taxpayers.
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, has called the state's new voucher program, which was expanded under her Republican predecessor, "unsustainable." Last year, her office estimated that the program, initially expected to cost $65 million, could cost the state $943 million in 2024, with over 53% of all new K-12 education spending going towards only 8% of Arizona students. The state could face a $320 million shortfall over the next year.
The Texas Legislative Budget Board projected that the cost of Abbott’s voucher program would have ballooned to more than $2 billion annually by 2028.
Jimmy Cloutier wrote this story for OpenSecrets.
Support for this reporting was provided by The Carnegie Corporation of New York.
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Public comment has long been a staple of local government meetings. But in North Dakota and other parts of the country, this engagement tool faces a future that's a little less certain.
This month, the Fargo City Commission has come under scrutiny over possible plans to revamp the public comment portion of its meetings.
Some commissioners have proposed breaking up when residents can talk about certain issues.
Another idea being floated is to remove public comment from regular meetings and possibly shift that option to quarterly forums.
Cody Schuler, advocacy manager with the American Civil Liberties Union of North Dakota, said he feels local leaders are beginning to walk down a dangerous path.
"We are a government by, for, and of the people," said Schuler, "and our elected representatives are an extension doing the work of the citizens - and citizens have every right to fully speak."
Fargo leaders in favor of exploring a format change say they want more productive dialogue and to give residents meaningful answers on the spot.
However, not all city commissioners are on board with kicking around these ideas, echoing concerns raised by free-speech advocates. Similar debates have surfaced in cities such as Spokane, Washington.
In Fargo, Schueler said leaders need to realize that public participation has become a valuable way for BIPOC residents and younger adults to share their concerns with the city.
"We need to make sure that those who are not in power," said Schuler, "those who may be marginalized, those who might be of lower socio-economic status, have a voice."
He added that while this City Commission is pretty accessible, it can't be guaranteed for future elections.
He said fully maintaining public comment can mitigate any future panels that might not be viewed as fully engaged with constituents.
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