Dailytakes

Remember the date, September 21, 2006. The date this story appeared in the print edition of The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. I have a hunch this story will stick.

A lawyer for Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle’s campaign repeatedly lobbied three Democratic members of the State Elections Board before they voted with the majority to order Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Green to divest $467,844 in donations from out-of-state political action committees, records show.

Attorney Michael S. Maistelman bluntly told Democratic Party members of the board he contacted why they should publicly sanction or punish the Green campaign, according to documents obtained by the Journal Sentinel under the state’s open records law.

“Even if this ends up in Court it is a PR victory for us since it makes Green spend money and have to defend the use of his Washington DC dirty money,” Maistelman said in a 9:31 a.m. e-mail one day before the vote. He sent the message to Carl Holborn and Kerry Dwyer, board members appointed by Democratic leaders of the Legislature.

Holborn, Dwyer and another Democratic appointee, Robert Kasieta, were part of a five-vote majority that gave Green’s campaign 10 days to divest itself of $467,844 in donations from political action committees not registered in Wisconsin - an order the Green campaign will fight in a Dane County courtroom today.

…

Maistelman declined to be interviewed but told the Journal Sentinel in an e-mail that he was working for the Doyle campaign when he contacted Elections Board members. He noted that it was the non-partisan Wisconsin Democracy Campaign - and not the Doyle campaign - that filed the complaint about Green’s political action committee donations that was upheld by the board.

“I’m an elections lawyer retained in connection with a matter before the Elections Board,” said Maistelman, who campaign finance records show has been paid more than $21,000 by the Doyle campaign since January 2004.

“Of course I had conversations with the board members about the legal issues involved in this case, and the merits of Congressman Green’s arguments, as I’m sure counsel for Green did,” Maistelman said.

…

Maistelman was present on Aug. 30 when the Elections Board took its action against Green’s campaign and talked to some board members before the vote. The same day, he denied that he was there working for the Doyle campaign.

Republicans have said all along Mark Green was set up and that the Elections Board vote was orchestrated and predetermined. I’ve said I believe voters will see it for what it is, a partisan decision made by Doyle cronies.

Will Joe Wineke retract this statement, made on the day of the original vote?

Joe Wineke, chairman of the state Democratic Party, decried the assessments by Republicans, noting that the two GOP board members who voted sided with Green. He said Doyle’s supporters did not predetermine the outcome.

Don’t hold your breath.