'The dog ate my PAC money'

It's hard to predict what the State Elections Board will do Wednesday about the massive amounts of special interest money Congressman Mark Green laundered into his governor's campaign through a legal loophole, which has since been closed.

The board's attorney, George Dunst,has written a memo that says the Green campaign is in compliance with the law:

Dunst said in the memo that the money in question was raised by Green as a member of Congress and therefore not counted under the limit for candidates for governor. The clock on counting contributions for Green's race for governor started on Jan. 1, 2005, Dunst said.

Wisconsin has no law that counts money raised in one campaign as donations received for another when it is carried over, Dunst said.

However, Green didn't move any of the federal money into his governor's account until Jan. 25, 2005 -- after the clock had started. And he didn't carry over the money, he moved it into a brand new state campaign account.

Sometimes the board takes Dunst's advice, and sometimes it goes in entirely the opposite direction.(Some critics, when he disagrees with them, say the "t" in his name should be silent. But when he agrees with them, he's a genius.)

My guess is that this time the board will give Green a pass. He transferred $1.3-million in contributions from his federal House campaign to his state campaign for governor. But a new rule, which took effect last Dec. 1, will forbid others from doing the same thing in the future. Given that he's the last one to use the loophole, the board will probably let it go, even though that will allow him to raise almost twice as much special interest PAC money as Jim Doyle.

Whatever.

The worst thing in Dunst's memo was the suggestion that the board couldn't enforce PAC limits anyway because Green has probably already spent the money. The amount in question is $468,000.

It's an argument politicians use when they don't want to do the right thing and return a tainted contribution. Green and Congressman Paul Ryan both used that song and dance about PAC money they'd gotten from Tom DeLay. But Green eventually found a way to dispose of the dirty $30,000.

As long as Green has more than $468,000 in his account -- which he does -- it's hard to argue that he already spent the money. On June 30, he had $3.1-million in the bank.

I suppose there could be a first-in, first-out theory, which says the first dollar you spend is the first one that you received. But I've never seen that principle argued by Green's campaign or any other.

There may be other, legal reasons to say Green can do what he did. But "I already spent the money" should not be one of them.

It ranks right up there with "The dog ate my homework."