(illustration by DonkeyHotey)
From Michael Isikoff at Yahoo:
John Menard Jr. is widely known as the richest man in Wisconsin. A tough-minded, staunchly conservative 75-year-old billionaire, he owns a highly profitable chain of hardware stores throughout the Midwest. He’s also famously publicity-shy — rarely speaking in public or giving interviews.
So a little more than three years ago, when Menard wanted to back Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker — and help advance his pro-business agenda — he found the perfect way to do so without attracting any attention: He wrote more than $1.5 million in checks to a pro-Walker political advocacy group that pledged to keep its donors secret, three sources directly familiar with the transactions told Yahoo News.
Menard’s previously unreported six-figure contributions to the Wisconsin Club for Growth — a group that spent heavily to defend Walker during a bitter 2012 recall election — seem to have paid off for the businessman and his company. In the past two years, Menard’s company has been awarded up to $1.8 million in special tax credits from a state economic development corporation that Walker chairs, according to state records.
https://www.yahoo.com/...
Menard subsequently received other favors from Walker, according to the article. For example, Walker has greatly scaled back the power of the State's Department of Natural Resources, which had once fined Menard $1.7 million for illegal dumping of hazardous waste.
This dark money is a pox on our democracy. Hopefully, the quid pro quo illustrated in this Walker example will work to eventually reverse Citizens United.
h/t a tweet from @Shoq.
Laura Clawson has more on the story here.