March 3, 2003
Report: Both parties got soft money from Wisconsin tribes
The Associated Press 

MADISON, Wis. - Native American tribes from Wisconsin donated more than $770,000 last year to national committees for both Democrats and Republicans, a government watchdog group reported Monday.

Republicans in the state Legislature who oppose new compacts Gov. Jim Doyle is negotiating with 11 tribes have attacked the $725,000 sent to the Democratic National Committee by the Ho-Chunk Nation, the Forest County Potawatomi and the Oneida Nation in the week before the Nov. 5 election.

Doyle has signed a compact agreement with the Potawatomi and has reached a tentative agreement with the Oneida.

The Democratic committee sent more than $1 million to the state party, in part, to help elect Doyle, a Democrat, records from the state Elections board show. Doyle has denied there was any connection between the donations and the negotiations.

But Common Cause in Wisconsin also found the Republican National Committee received $46,250 in contributions from the Oneida and the St. Croix Tribal Council. The RNC sent former Republican Gov. Scott McCallum's campaign $216,179 last year, records show.

The records don't show whether the national party committees included the tribal donations in the money it sent to Wisconsin.

Tribal donations to the Democrats included a $500,000 contribution made by the Ho-Chunk, which Common Cause said was the single largest soft money contribution ever made by a Wisconsin-based entity to a national party committee in history. The group checked Federal Election Commission records, which date back to 1990.

Common Cause executive director Jay Heck said the contributions show the growing influence of American Indian tribes.

"They have joined the elite ranks of several other big-spending state special interest groups in utilizing their campaign spending to influence public policy-making," he said.


On the Net:

Common Cause in Wisconsin: http://commoncause.sitemanager.ims.net/