Election Fraud Preventable, Sen. Grothman doesn't care.

We've seen election fraud, where businesses get employees to contribute to a candidate for them, and that's illegal. But instead of being outraged and over reacting like they did with voter ID, Republican Sen. Glenn Grothman wants to make sure it can happen again. 

GBPressGazette: A legislative committee will take up a bill today that would roll back transparency for those contributing to political campaigns. The measure, sponsored by Sen. Glenn Grothman, would do away with a provision in state election law that requires those who donate more than $100 during a calendar year to reveal their employer. The disclosure law is meant to prevent business owners from secretly donating money to campaigns through their employees. 

We found that to be true a number of times in the past.

Officials have used such campaign reports to build cases against violators, such as William Gardner, the Wisconsin & Southern Railroad CEO who pleaded guilty last April to funneling $62,800 in illegal campaign contributions to Gov. Scott Walker's campaigns.

Seems like a big problem to me...

But ... those same reports were sometimes used to protest or boycott businesses that supported Gov. Scott Walker and other Republicans. "To restore civility and help our business climate, we have to leave businesses off these reports," Grothman said ... the "mean public unions don't care about business, they only care about creating friction." Grothman said he had only "anecdotal" evidence of this being a problem. 

Grothman's fictional problem would actually encourage big business be as inventive as Wisconsin & Southern Railroad was. 

Mike McCabe, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, said Grothman's bill would be a big step back for the state. McCabe's organization tracks money in politics and uses the campaign reports to give a fuller view of the forces behind politicians. "It would be a dagger to the heart of our disclosure laws," he said.

And it looks like the recall elections coming up will be putting a little pressure on Republicans to temper their radical motivation. 

Should the bill make it out of the transportation and elections committee, it would have a tough time getting approval in the state Senate. Republicans hold a slim 17-16 majority in the Senate, and four of them have been targeted for recall.