Green gets pass from WDC on DeLay $$$

--Dan Wasserman, Boston Globe, via Cagle.
The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign made some news this week when it highlighted questionable campaign contributions to Wisconsin gubernatorial candidates from Illinois donors who have been accused of wrongdoing of one kind or another, then followed up with letters to the three candidates asking them to return the money.

The letter to Rep. Mark Green's campaign manager, Mark Graul, talks tough:

The people of Wisconsin deserve candidates for governor who set a higher ethical standard and are more discriminating about those with whom the choose to associate. We believe Congressman Green must disassociate himself from all of the donors cited in our report as well as the interests they represent. All of the donations should be returned to the donors immediately.

But WDC makes no mention of nearly $30,000 that Green has accepted from the political action committees of Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Tex., who was forced to step down from his House leadership post after being indicted for mishandling and laundering political contributions. DeLay makes the Illinois donors look like pikers, both in the scale of the misconduct he is charged with and in the amount of money he poured into Green's campaign coffers.

DeLay doesn't live in Illinois. But his money is certainly tainted and should be returned or disposed of. Brian Christianson, a Republican campaign consultant, can't understand why Republicans aren't giving back the DeLay money.

Actually, several of them have. Republican Reps. Jeb Bradley, Heather Wilson, Kenny Hulshof, and Steve LaTourette have cleaned up their campaign accounts to the tune of $52,000 in DeLay PAC money. Some have had to find creative ways to dispose of the money rather than refunding it because of legal complications. But they have all gotten rid of the tainted money.

Mark Green has dissembled and offered a variety of answers and excuses for keeping DeLay's $30,000, one being that he needs the money to beat Jim Doyle." He's also claimed that he only transferred $2,000 of it into his governor's campaign and spent the rest on past House races. That's nothing more than sleight of hand. Green's campaign treasury has benefited to the tune of $30,000 and ought to return the full amount.

One reason he continues to resist is that he hasn't gotten enough political heat about the DeLay money. The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign hasn't helped by giving him a pass.

Other WDC letters: To Scott Walker and to Jim Doyle.