Luke Timmerman
Copyright Madison Capital Times
Mar 28, 2000
 

A front group for the Madison Area Apartment Association has been smacked with charges that it illegally tried to influence last spring's City Council races with corporate money.

The announcement by District Attorney Diane Nicks on Monday comes nearly a year after the apartment association spent $9,800 in corporate money and used it to dump thousands of last-minute mailers into City Council races.

The group, Citizens for a Reasonable Government, also made numerous phone calls to attack Progressive Dane candidates and to otherwise influence the outcome of several City Council races.

The charges from the Republican district attorney came eight days before the upcoming County Board election, in which the apartment association has a serious stake. The group could be ordered to pay a forfeiture of over $700, including court costs.

Nicks said she rejected the association's argument that it could take corporate money because it was engaging in issue advocacy and that its front group had registered as an independent political committee that has to abide by the law.

"The Legislature has clearly stated that corporate contributions have a corrupting effect on the elections process, and that's why they were made illegal," Nicks said in a statement.

Noah Fiedler, apartment association executive director, conceded his group broke the law, and hoped a settlement could be reached. But he questioned why Nicks filed charges so close to the County Board election. Fiedler said his group was being punished for something that would be legal if the group had just neglected to register.

"It's kind of odd that she sat on this for a whole year and brought charges a week before the spring election," Fiedler said.

The charging decision won't affect how the association approaches this round of elections, Fiedler said. The group will continue to use its conduit to collect individual contributions from groups, but it doesn't plan any massive independent expenditures on mailers or phone calls, Fiedler said.

Progressive Dane co-chair David Austin, who filed the complaint with Nicks in September, remembered how his complaint and a similar one by Helen Marks Dicks weren't taken seriously by the apartment association at first. Now he referred to Nicks' decision as a victory.

"The apartment association broke the law by taking corporate money, and I'm glad the D.A. recognized that," Austin said.

State law allows civil forfeitures of up to triple the amount of the illegal contributions, and Austin said that sort of penalty would send a stronger message than the possible $700 fine. He also suggested the apartment association could donate that much money to charity to atone for its action.

The small fine comes nine months after the apartment association was penalized $600 for filing election reports late.

The apartment association's political conduit missed filing deadlines on Feb. 8 and March 29, instead filing its reports on April 5 - the day before the spring election.

That was a couple of days after the group had dumped thousands of mailers targeting 1999 council candidates Dicks, Kent Palmer, Steve Holtzman, Randy Glysch and Barbara Vedder.

The apartment association had a keen interest in city politics for years, and its influence honed in on county politics last fall. That's when it worked hard to defeat an ordinance that would have banned landlords from discriminating against tenants solely for using federal rent vouchers to help pay their rent. The ordinance amendment failed by a 20-19 vote after a grueling debate lasting past 4 a.m.
 

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