Facts

CFAF First Amendment (97 kb .pdf)


A Partial List of Pay-to-Play by Jim Doyle

  1. Philadelphia Attorneys deliver $10,000 to Doyle’s campaign the same day they meet on state property with Doyle’s top aide Marc Marotta. According to Doyle’s own campaign, the meeting was arranged by Doyle’s fundraiser. (MJS 7/7/06)
  2. A company that Jim Doyle gave a no-bid $685,000 contract to create a website donated another $17,684 to his campaign. (MJS 7/24/06) That same company donated $47,000 to Doyle’s coffers before they got the no-bid sweetheart deal. (MJS 11/24/04)
  3. A member of Jim Doyle’s administration was convicted of two felony counts of steering a bid to a big money campaign donor. Adelman Travel should have lost the bid under the state’s bidding process, but $20,000 in campaign cash seems to have put them over the top. Doyle finally cancelled the bid, but has continued to keep the campaign money. (WSJ 1/25/06)
  4. Two weeks after a jury proved his administration rigged the bidding process for Adelman, Doyle hit up the travel company for another $250 in donations. (TCT 7/22/06)
  5. An executive from the Hunger Task Force was approached by Doyle’s campaign to give money, right after her agency submitted a grant application to Doyle’s office. She donated and her group received a $50,000 grant from Doyle. (MJS 4/25/02)
  6. According to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, Doyle has raised more than $1 million from outside contributors, mainly from Illinois. http://www.wisdc.org/pr071806.php
  7. Doyle accepted $236,842 from a group trying to build a casino in Kenosha. Thanks to his vetoes, Doyle remains the sole elected official in Wisconsin who could approve the deal. http://www.wisdc.org/pr071806.php
  8. At least seven companies who received no-bid contracts from Jim Doyle donated $32,050 to his campaign (AP 2/14/06)
  9. Taxpayers are paying a $10,000 Doyle donor $230 an hour to get money already owed to them by gambling interests. (AP 1/6/06)
  10. Utility executives donated $43,650 to get Jim Doyle’s Public Service Commission to reverse an earlier decision and allow the sale of a nuclear power plant. State investigators interviewed PSC employees for several hours about the deal. Two of the three PSC members are Doyle appointees, one is married to his campaign fundraiser…another former PSC high ranking staffer is now working on the governor’s re-election campaign. (WJS 5/10/06, MJS 12/21/05, GB PG 12/29/05)
  11. Personal injury attorneys donated $20,500 to Doyle’s campaign in the same month that Doyle vetoed a bill that would have limited their access to jackpot juries in medical malpractice cases (WSJ 2/21/06)
  12. According to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, Crowe Chizek secured a $6.7 million deal from Doyle and shortly after, proceeded to donated $17,500 to the governor’s re-election bid. Equis donated $27,250 to Doyle around the time they were awarded a deal from the state that paid them $2.6 million plus expenses including an unheard of 25% cut on property they sell for the state. According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, most real estate firms usually get less than 10% in similar deals. (TCT 3/27/06, MJS 3/27/06)
  13. A yacht making company donated $5,000 to Doyle’s campaign right around the time it received a $2.1-million state grant. (AP 2/2/06)
  14. Jim Doyle continues to hang on to as much as $45,000 from an improper fundraiser organized by DOT employees. (MJS 11/10/05)
  15. Executives at a development firm gave Doyle $8,000 two months before Doyle voted to provide $13.2 million in funding for a project the firm was working on. The loan was the largest the board ever approved. (MJS 8/27/02)
  16. A Hollywood producer gave Doyle $10,000 just weeks after Doyle issued a $250,000 grant in that producer’s name for a pet cause. (MJS 2/13/02) An independent campaign watchdog called Doyle’s spin “unconvincing” (WDC release 6/17/02)
  17. Gambling interests funneled one million dollars in the weeks before the 2002 election through the Democratic Party to skirt Wisconsin’s campaign laws. The Party then spent most of that money on campaign ads for Doyle. Doyle then rewarded those gambling interests with unlimited, lifetime compacts. (MJS 2/20/03)
  18. According to The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Governor Doyle’s administration awarded an $18.4-million contract for work on the Marquette Interchange to Chicago’s CTE Engineers in February of 2005. Shortly after this, the governor holds an out-of-state fundraiser with CTE and three of its partners in the contract, that nets him $20,000. Doyle’s campaign also netted another $12,000 from other Chicago area contributors that same day. The paper pointed out that most of those donors had never donated before. One donor admitted to not even knowing who is the governor of Wisconsin. (MJS 1/28/06)
  19. A major insurance company donated $28,500 to Doyle’s campaign to get the governor to turn a blind eye to a controversial merger that created the largest health insurer in the United States. Several other states objected to the merger, campaign cash helped make sure Wisconsin did not. (MJS 2/5/05)

“Jim Doyle is the most ethically-challenged governor we've had in the 30 years I've been in the Legislature.” – State Senator Mike Ellis