A direct link between campaign contributions and favoritism is the Holy Grail of campaign finance reporting. In the 1997 series "Money and Influence," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporters Steve Schultze and Daniel Bice connected campaign contributions to preferential treatment by Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson. The two reporters examined records from eight state agencies, state contracts, campaign contributions and expenditures, and Thompson's phone records.
The eight-month investigation revealed a startling correlation between those who gave money to Thompson's campaign and those who got lucrative state contracts. In one instance, Schultze and Bice found that Ron Van Den Heuvel, a Wisconsin businessman, donated $10,000 to Thompson's campaign fund the day before a state agency awarded him $24 million in tax-free bond financing to build a paper-manufacturing plant.
Van Den Heuvel says a Thompson fundraiser asked him for the donation. The newspaper's inquiry forced Thompson to return the contribution. Shultze and Bice stated the Van Den Heuvel affair was not an isolated incident, describing donors and well-connected firms enjoying a close and mutually beneficial relationship with the Thompson administration. Readers can investigate this claim by downloading Wisconsin campaign finance data from the CFIC or by searching the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign website.