Were Contracts Awarded for Cash or is it Just a Coincidence?
Since the Adelman Travel investigation began last year, a been handful of news stories have highlighted campaign contributions to Governor Doyle from employees of other state contract recipients.
My preliminary analysis of Doyle’s campaign finance reports uncovered several sizeable contributions from the employees of other state contract recipients. In addition, I found higher contributions totals than previously reported for some of the companies.
Berbee Information Network Corporation: Berbee employees have donated a total of $12.500 to Doyle since 2004. The company won a no-bid contract for $185, 700 in September of 2004 to do computer security work. In November of that year, Berbee won another $129,000 contract for network security consulting.
BearingPoint: Employees of this Virginia based technology consulting firm donated a total of $13,000 to Doyle with all but $1,000 donated in October or December of 2005. I have yet to find a contract between BearingPoint and the State of Wisconsin, but I did find a link between BearingPoint and Oracle Corporation. I also found this site advertising two consulting positions in Madison, Wisconsin. Perhaps BearingPoint is a subcontractor under the Oracle contract.
Charter Communications: Shortly after Charter won a no bid telecommunications contract in 2003, Doyle received a $5,000 contribution from the company’s Colorado based President. A subsidiary of Charter was given a three year extension on a $367,000 contract for distance learning. Doyle received an additional $2,000 in contributions from Charter employees in 2004 for a total of $7,000.
Crowe Chizek: Employees of this Indianna firm have made contributions to Doyle totaling $19,500 . The first contribution was made in June of 2004, not long after Crowe Chizek signed a contract with DOA to provide consultants for the state server consolidation process. Additional contributions were made in June and December of 2005. According to a September 2005 organization chart for the “Shared Information Services Implementation Project Team:”, several of the staff assignments were filled by Crowe Chizek consultants.
Equis Corporation: This Illinois company won a bid and was awarded a contract for $572,000 on April 4, 2004 to build a portfolio of state properties that could be sold as surplus or sold and leaseback to the state. The contract was amended by DOA Deputy Secretary Gina Frank Reese on 12/22/04. The amendment agrees to pay Equis a 25% commission on the gross proceeds of any sale brokered by Equis.
Equis Corporation employees have made a total of $22,500 and are currently listed as co-brokers on the sale of DOA’s Thornton Avenue building.
Deloitte Touche/Deloitte Consulting: Employees made $11,400 worth of contributions to Doyle. All but one of the checks was written in August 2005. Deloitte provides auditing and consulting services and holds a gaming contractor certificate with the DOA Division of Gaming, Office of Indian Gaming and Regulatory Compliance.
Foley & Lardner: Former DOA Secretary and Doyle Campaign Chair Marc Marrotta’s firm received a $50,000 no bid contract with the Department of Commerce on November 4, 2004. Foley & Lardner employees have made a total of $166,540 to Doyle’s campaign, $66,000 from the firm’s conduit account.
IBM Corporation: Employees of IBM have given a total of $16,500 this election cycle. In February AP reported:
IBM won more no-bid contracts awarded from the state's three largest agencies than any other company over the past three years, according to the AP's review. The work was largely related to hardware maintenance and software purchases.
Around the time the company won those contracts, salesmen Daniel Meixelsperger and Mark Ronnie made a series of donations to Doyle's campaign totaling $11,100. Some of the donations were made within weeks of the company winning the no-bid contracts.
Mead & Hunt: Mead & Hunt received a no bid contract on $79,618 on June 30,, 2004. Employees of the Company have donated a total of $4,000.
Oracle Corporation: The State of Wisconsin entered into a $29 million dollar no bid contract with Oracle on May 11, 2005. Since that time, Oracle employees have contributed a total of $4,500 to Governor Doyle’s campaign. Doyle received a $500 contribution from an Oracle sales representative in 2003 for a total of $5,000.
Oracle software was also chosen for the state's email conversation project, but officials decided to dump the Oracle package and go back to Microsoft. Oracle Corporation was just awarded the $10 million dollar IBIS contract
SBC Global: SBC employees have donated a total of $21,735 since Doyle was elected in November of 2002. SBC employees made $10,375 in contributions between December 7, 2004 and February 11, 2005. A DOA memo dated March 3, 2005 announced that SBC won the contract to provide statewide network services.
6 Comments:
Adelman Travel
Since Deb's M.O. is to only expose the wrongdoings of Democrats (while at the same time defending felonious activities of fellow Republicans), you may find this bit of information interesting.
For example, [in 1999] executives of a Fond du Lac construction company gave Thompson $37,000 in campaign donations in a single day. The contributions came within two weeks of the company, C.D. Smith Construction, getting a no-bid contract to build a $29.5 million prison from the State Building Commission, which Thompson chaired.
The influence of special interest money leaves a trail in every corner of state government. We reviewed more than 5,100 state Commerce Department grants, low-interest loans and tax credits awarded between 1999 and September 2004 and found that recipients of state aid who did not make campaign contributions received awards averaging less than $130,000 while those who made donations received awards averaging more than $1 million.
Read more here.
Doyle still did (and does) it, right?
Congratulations, you have successfully tried to make the "which came first" circular argument. Would one have occurred without the other? Do me a favor and read what I had to say about this about a month ago. I wrote it as satire, you wrote it in all seriousness.
I find it ironic that those people who were thrilled to see Scott Jensen prosecuted and accused him of using the "Dems did it too" defense are now the same people who come to Doyle's defense and say "the Republicans did it too." You can't have it both ways. All shenanigans (by whichever party) should be uncovered and brought to the public's attention.
I think that everyone knows how Doyle operates. I think that state contractors know Doyle's reputation for being vindictive too. So, I think the money is more or less given out of fear than anything else.
No pay? No play.
But both parties will complain about what the other is doing even though they've done it themselves in the past. That's because politicians are hypocrites. The small government Republican Tommy Thompson was at the helm (with a GOP majority in the Legislature) when state government grew at record levels. And the clean government James Doyle is now coming under scrutiny for questionable ethics. Is anyone surprised? Come on. Grow up.
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