Negative Advertising - Got Questions?

This is in regard to your interest in the issue advocacy mailing you received concerning my legislative record during my first term in the Wisconsin State Assembly. I would like to start out by setting the record straight about the vote in the piece of mail you received. The vote that is cited is October Special Session Senate Bill 1. That bill was a 1,625 page document that outlined the entire 2-year 57 billion dollar state budget. A so called “issue advocacy group,” aka special interest group, from Michigan has pinpointed 2 lines in that bill referring to illegal immigrants. They have now sent out mail to nearly everyone in our district saying I support various entitlements to illegal immigrants. Nothing could be further from the truth.

It is true that I did vote for SB-1 and I will tell you why. At the time that SB-1 was proposed there had been a month’s long stalemate about the state budget. There was partisan bickering going on between the Senate and the Republican leadership in the Assembly. The budget was 100 days late when this vote was taken; local governments all over our area were having lots of financial trouble as a result. Local governments and school districts were calling my office and letting me know that if the State Legislature didn’t pass a budget soon there would be serious problems: roads not being taken care of, major cuts to local services like fire, police, garbage, to name just a few. Also if the budget stalemate took too much longer, huge property tax increases were very likely. I wasn’t about to sit by and let our local governments and local tax payers pony up the dough for political bickering in Madison.

Something needed to be done to protect the tax payers so I voted yes in hopes of ending the budget crisis. Now this group has turned a vote I took to save property tax payers millions of dollars into something completely untrue for political purposes.

You might be wondering why this group has decided to get involved in “issue advocacy” against me. Well the group that sent these mailings is named “All Children Matter”. They are a Michigan based big dollar special interest group. The big issue they support is tax payer funding for private schools in big cities like Milwaukee. Well, I have always opposed sending money that should be spent on good public schools in rural areas, to places like Milwaukee. The first
budget proposal from the Republican Majority would have cut state money to schools in our area by about one million ($1,000,000.00) dollars. That would have resulted in a one million dollar ($1,000,000.00) property tax increase for people in our local communities. I voted against their proposal and now they are spreading lies and half-truths about my positions.

Additionally, I co-authored a bill that would have made these outside groups play by the same rules that all candidates need to follow. If my bill had become law this group, All Children Matter, would have contribution limits, so that all of their money couldn’t come from just a few ultra-wealthy supporters. They also would be legally required to publicly say who is paying for these mailings. As it is now, they get to operate in the shadows and don’t need to tell the public
anything about who supports them or why. It is obvious that they don’t want my vote or my bill to stop them from sucking money away from our rural communities into private schools in Milwaukee.

It is interesting to note that All Children Matter was fined $5.2 million dollars in Ohio for illegally funneling money to Republican candidates in 2006. All Children Matter is also currently under investigation by the Government Accountability Board here in Wisconsin for sending illegal literature to voters in Racine County in 2006. All Children Matter has given over $130,000 to Republican legislative candidates in Wisconsin, most of whom oppose reforming the rules that govern these groups, and that support tax payer funding for private schools.

I hope this clears up both my record and gives you an understanding why these groups have decided to distort my legislative record for their own political gain. Thanks again for your interest in getting to the truth about these deceptive mailings.

Rep. Phil Garthwaite, 49th Assembly District
Garthwaite For Assembly
P.O. box 178
Platteville, WI 53818
phil2010@philgarthwaite.com
philgarthwaite.com