Memory Lane: Walker, M&I and the Museum Bailout

Scott Walker's extreme agenda against the middle-class brought a national focus on the special interests that helped fund his deceptive campaign for governor. Many people are paying particular attention to the top executives at M&I Bank that gave Walker tens of thousands of dollars. M&I finds itself at the center of protests, boycotts, and online activism. While they have repeatedly issued the same talking points, activists are refusing to suspend reality to accept their spin.

Most people are citing the big campaign donations by top M&I executives to Walker's most recent campaign, however the relationship goes back further. Given all of this attention, it might be useful to take a quick walk down memory lane.

Although some executives at M&I bank contributed more modestly to Walker earlier, it seems that the big money and fundraisers didn't really kick into full gear until 2005. The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign's database shows some of the following contributions:

• At least 6 contributions in all of the years before 2005 (starting with 1993 which is when Walker was first elected to the state legislature)
• At least 51 contributions during 2005
• At least 136 contributions from 2006 through Walker's 2010 campaign for governor.
  

The year 2005 was also when the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel exposed a financial crisis at Milwaukee's Public Museum. They found that executives at the museum were withdrawing large amounts from its endowment fund just to keep the operating budget going. At the time that the paper identified the crisis the endowment fund had been nearly depleted. According to MJS reports the endowment money was invested by the M&I Trust Co. and was withdrawn from accounts at the M&I Bank. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel also reported here that a top executive was on the museum board at the time:

Mark Furlong, president of the M&I Corp., was a member of the Milwaukee Public Museum Board during the time of Gaouette's alleged actions. Furlong has since left the museum board. He did not return a call seeking comment Wednesday.

Even though the museum had been partially privatized in 1992, Milwaukee County still owned the property and the collections that were in it. So the county still helped subsidize it. In 2005 after the crisis was revealed, Milwaukee County further agreed to guarantee $5 million in short-term museum loans. In 2007 then-County Executive Scott Walker approved a $39 million taxpayer funded bailout plan for the museum. At the time Supervisor John Weishan, one of the opponents of the bailout, said that "this is a bailout of a private group. It's not a bailout of our museum." Under the plan M&I and the other bank involved agreed to more manageable terms but Milwaukee County did much of the heavy lifting including locking into some of these long-term obligations:

• The county was to spend $3.5 million a year for 10 years on operating subsidies, or about $9.6 million more than taxpayers would have paid under the previous lease terms.
• In addition the county would give the museum another $4 million over five years starting in 2008 to pay for deferred maintenance on the building, or $400,000 more than the county spent on average for the previous five years.
  

Because of this deal the museum avoided bankruptcy but some observers also looked at it as a taxpayer funded bailout of the major creditors, which included M&I Bank.

UPDATE: Here is an interesting look at Scott Walker, M&I and the Wisconsin Bankers Association

Reality Check for Walker Boosters at M&I Bank

Don Walker,reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, highlighted some of the efforts to boycott Scott Walker's business boosters. He also provides reaction from some of the companies that have been targeted. Perhaps the most absurd reaction came from the M&I Bank spokesperson who said the following:

"Individual employees may choose, at their own discretion and based on their political beliefs, to make contributions to political campaigns. Donors are typically required to identify their employer. Each campaign - Scott Walker and Tom Barrett - received voluntary contributions from individual M&I employees."

I suppose it is possible that this spokesperson is fairly new, given that M&I was recently sold to a Canadian bank. But absent that possibility this response is laughable and it is totally divorced from reality. Don't be fooled by the spin, instead look at the facts.

1. Top executives at M&I Bank have long been boosters of Scott Walker's destructive brand of politics. These were not simply bank tellers or other front line workers giving contributions. Instead it was a cadre of big executives and bosses at M&I that helped finance Walker's campaigns.

2. These top executives often gave thousands of dollars at a time. The biggest example is former M&I Chief Executive Dennis Kuester and his wife who gave $20,000 to Walker during the 2010 campaign alone. Before the 2010 campaign the couple gave at least $5,600 to advance Walker's political ambitions. While this is by far the biggest example it is certainly not the only one. Mark Furlong, the executive that took over for Kuester at M&I gave $3,000 to Walker in the run up to the November 2010 election. So is this tradition of giving to Walker something that is passed down from executive to executive?

3. When the top executives of M&I weren't giving to Walker in massive amounts, others at the bank were giving in what appears to have been coordinated bundles. For example a total of 6 people from M&I Bank gave to Walker on March 25, 2009. A total of 15 gave to Walker on December 12, 2008. A total of 14 gave to Walker on August 22, 2007. Were these coordinated fundraisers hosted by M&I people or are we supposed to believe that they all just happened to repeatedly give on the same exact dates?

4. To pretend that there was any parity in M&I giving to Walker as compared to Mayor Tom Barrett is absurd and highly misleading. For example Dennis Kuester gave $400 to Barrett while giving the aforementioned $20,000 to Walker. According to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign's database, Mark Furlong gave $0 to Tom Barrett during the 2010 campaign while giving the aforementioned $3,000 to Walker. In fact if you were to search the database you will find that M&I Bank employees have given approximately 68 times to Mayor Barrett since 2001 (usually in much smaller amounts than they have given to Walker). During that same time they have given approximately 185 times to Scott Walker.

Given these facts and this longtime financing of Scott Walker's extreme brand of politics, it should be no suprise to M&I Bank that they now find themselves on several boycott lists.