Sunday, March 11, 2007

Clifford Was/Is Paid Agent of the Wisconsin State Journal

Jessica McBride makes an excellent point regarding the Wisconsin State Journal’s undisclosed conflict of interest in the race for State Supreme Court.

(Linda) Clifford also reports representing BayCare Health, Beloit College, Earth Advantage, Enbridge Energy, IoGenetics, Midwest Natural Gas, The Onion, ERCO Worldwide, UW Medical Foundation, Mercy Health System, the Wisconsin State Journal, the Wisconsin Industrial Energy Group, among others.

This is the paper that’s led the charge against Annette Ziegler for… conflicts of interest involving small claims cases.

Shouldn’t the paper have disclosed that IT has had a financial tie to Ziegler’s opponent? At the very least, readers should have been told about this tie.

Clifford’s ethics statement lists “Wisconsin State Journal (Lee Enterprises, Inc.)” under the category of “agent, representative, or spokesperson.” The affiliation is from 2006, so it’s also recent.

(8) Comments
Posted by Owen at 0948 hrs
Politics + Politics - Wisconsin

  1. Yes, the paper should have mentioned the connection.  Clifford seems to have covered her butt on that.  However, I don’t know if that would diminish the impact of the story.  If the story grows legs and walks, I’m sure that point would be left in the dust anyway.

    Philosophically, I take issue with the way political discourses run.  It seems like minor issues are used as a jumping point to imply something more sinister than it really is, and unfortunately that sways the uninformed.  We already know that capable leaders are dissuaded from running for office because they just don’t want themselves or their families to be subjected to all the garbage that is bound to get thrown at them.  What I see here are two candidates that basically are being questioned for “breathing” - I mean, in both cases, the connections and interactions were in the normal course of doing their jobs - I don’t see anything sinister in that.  Will future elections be restricted to people with no professional experience?  Like the saying goes, you need to break some eggs to make an omelet.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 11, 2007 at 1233 hrs


  2. This is an odd sign of desperation from a campaign that did so well in the primary.  The newspaper isn’t running for office.  This only points up that Clifford did disclose the connection, and not even in a case that came to court, so it wasn’t a conflict of interest for her —unlike Ziegler’s “gut check” decision to not disclose conflicts of interest in more than 160 cases (last count I saw) that came to court.  This attack is going nowhere, but it suggests that more desperate attempts may be coming—and, again, that’s just odd from a campaign that looked like it couldn’t lose but may be losing its focus at a crucial time.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 11, 2007 at 1252 hrs


  3. I will stand by my comments on the Flemming-Troha connection from last Sunday.  WSJ has a vested interest in this case and has an ethical duty to stand-down on this election.  They can report the facts, but cannot investigate either candidate or make an endorsement.  Every piece they write should start and end with a boldface disclaimer that Clifford was their employee.

    They cannot be Clifford’s employer and be impartial regarding her election, too.

    Posted by Headless Blogger on March 11, 2007 at 1319 hrs


  4. Isn’t the Capitol Times also by the WSJ or it’s parent company?  If so, shouldn’t they also make the disclosure?

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 11, 2007 at 1807 hrs


  5. The story about Ziegler not following judicial ethics already has legs and is running wild.  Now we find out that she had received a memo advising that all judges should recuse themselves from cases where the judge holds $20 K or more of the stock in the company that is a party to the lawsuit.  She didn’t recuse herself and ruled for the companies in which she held stock.  The memo came from the Judicial Conduct Advisory Committee.  This story has been dribbling out with more disasterous details for Ziegler for over a week. 

    Also, out of one side of her mouth, she says many of those cases in which she had conflicts (either because of her huge stock holdings in the company or her husband’s position on the Board of the West Bend Savings Bank) and didn’t recuse herself involved non-contested matters that only required the use of a clerk.  Then in her latest defense, she says she didn’t want to shirk her work.  Was there work for her to do on the cases or not?  If so, she certainly should have recused herself.  If not, there was no work to shirk!!

    Posted by Kinda Cranky on March 12, 2007 at 0046 hrs


  6. Curiouser and curiouser;

    http://thewheelerreport.com/releases/Mar07/mar9/0309cliffordzieglerloan.pdf

    “I hear the train a comin’ It’s rollin’ ‘round the bend” - Johnny Cash

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 12, 2007 at 0620 hrs


  7. Looked at “thewheelerreport.com” link.  Wow, she argued a case before the Supreme Court - that’s a big hat to fill!  As to the question about loans, maybe the person who researched all the cases files can start going around to various courthouses or use Landshark and see where the money went. 

    In 2002 J.J. Ziegler (Annette’s spouse) borrowed $2,460,000 from Ohio National Life Insurance company to develop a shopping center on East Washington in West Bend.  He (and developer T. Bence) also developed land on Canal Street in Milwaukee and Ridgewood Drive in Menomonee Falls.  I assume they have other holdings (the paper referred to a development in Slinger) - they appear to be developers of property that costs a lot.

    Maybe the money went for the W. Canal Street project.  Link to www.renewthevalley.org: “Governor Jim Doyle, Mayor Tom Barrett and MVP joined Ziegler/Bence to break ground on the new Canal Street Commerce Center February 5.”  Sounds like this is some kind of “feel-good” effort to revitalize the Menomonee Valley - improve the ecology of the area, create more jobs for people in the City of Milwaukee, etc.

    None of this addresses the $3.1 Million question, but I imagine that there are people smart enough to figure it out, but the answer probably is too logical and already known (like for development activities, probably not to buy cattle futures), so having it hang out there unanswered has more sinister implications and serves a higher political purpose.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 12, 2007 at 1411 hrs


  8. “Shouldn’t the paper have disclosed that IT has had a financial tie to Ziegler’s opponent? At the very least, readers should have been told about this tie.”

    Shouldn’t YOU have made some inquiry about what it is that Clifford does for the Wisconsin State Journal? 

    She is an expert on the state’s open meetings/open records law and her work for the WSJ consists of prosecuting lawsuits against units of government which violate these laws.  That’s the type of activity which a purist such as yourself should support and even applaud.  But no—smear without doing either any investigating or even thinking!

    Congratulations, Owen, you’ve stepped in it yet again!

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 12, 2007 at 2111 hrs


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