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Brian Burke stepped from the courtroom into bright lights and a phalanx of reporters shouting questions. It was like one of those television courtroom dramas where the media appear as an insensate mob, thrusting microphones and clicking cameras, creating a humiliating gauntlet through which the hapless defendant must pass.

“No comment,” pleaded Burke, as he shuffled his way through a thick knot of inquisitors that first day of last July. But his attorney, Robert Friebert of Milwaukee, did field questions and would continue doing so even after he and Burke left the Madison courthouse and strode briskly down the street, TV crews in tow. Friebert was indignant and unequivocal.

“Sen. Burke did not engage in any improprieties,” he insisted, calling the 18 felony counts just issued against his client “gross overkill.” There was no “pay to play,” in which legislative favors are traded for campaign donations. Friebert said the Dane County prosecutor who brought the charges had a serious conflict. And he reiterated the breathtakingly audacious argument he had just broached in court: that Burke could not be arrested or subjected to criminal proceedings while the Legislature was in session.

As one of the reporters in this unseemly throng, I took notes but kept my focus on Burke. People, when they describe him, almost invariably use the word “boyish”; he’s the kind of guy who inspires joking references to Dorian Gray. On this day, however, Burke looked every bit his age, 44, and seemed inexpressibly weary and sad. The camera lights shone on the thin film of tears that welled up in his eyes.

How on earth had it come to this? One moment Burke was among Wisconsin’s most powerful and respected politicians, considered a near shoo-in for the job of state attorney general. And then suddenly he was disgraced, facing a maximum though unlikely sentence of 100 years in prison for “misconduct in public office” and other alleged crimes. His quest for the state’s top law enforcement job had to be abandoned and his political career can now be described in a word: over. Even his ability to practice law, something he’d like to do, is in doubt since a felony conviction could lead to license revocation.

Burke, who represented Milwaukee in the state Senate for 14 years and co-chaired the Legislature’s mighty Joint Finance Committee, was the first and perhaps most surprising target of criminal charges stemming from a John Doe probe that began in the summer of 2001. For several months, he stood alone as the poster boy of the so-called caucus scandal. He was eventually joined by a veritable who’s who of the Legislature’s most influential players. There was one more Democrat: (former) Senate Majority Leader Chuck Chvala, 20 felonies, including three counts of extortion; and three Republicans: (former) Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen, three felonies, one misdemeanor; Assembly Majority Leader Steve Foti, one felony; (former) Assistant Majority Leader Bonnie Ladwig, one misdemeanor. Also caught up in the dragnet have been aides to Burke, Chvala and Foti.

In many respects, Burke still stands apart. The charges against him have little to do with the now-defunct state caucuses, partisan branches of the Legislature that committed wholesale violations of rules against campaign work by state employees. In fact, much of the conduct for which Burke is facing criminal charges occurred after a series of articles in the Wisconsin State Journal focused attention on the caucuses and prompted prosecutors in Madison and Milwaukee to launch the John Doe probe.

Moreover, Burke’s alleged conduct is at once more petty and less comprehensible than that of his fellows. He’s charged with eight felonies for claiming $88 per diem payments to which he was not entitled. And while Chvala, Jensen, Foti and others allegedly broke laws in their zeal to augment the power of their parties, Burke stands accused of crimes prompted strictly by personal self-interest and to cover up past wrongdoing.

There is another respect in which Burke differs from his fellow lawmaker-defendants. While all of them have declared their innocence and vowed a vigorous defense, Burke has gone further, declaring his outrage.

“Let me say this as clearly as possible: I haven’t done anything wrong,” Burke told a hushed Senate chamber in early July. “I haven’t broken the law.” He bitterly accused Dane County District Attorney Brian Blanchard, who brought the charges, of seeking “to destroy my family to further his own interests.” Burke even claimed that Blanchard, whom he branded a lawbreaker and liar, had targeted him “because of my well-earned reputation for honestly serving the people of Wisconsin.” He concluded by expressing his belief that “good will ultimately triumph over evil.”

Yet Burke and his attorneys, despite their professed determination to clear his name, have trotted out defenses that seem designed to delay his day in court. Take, for instance, his claim that being a lawmaker makes him immune from arrest. A trial judge in early August and a state appellate court in late October staunchly rejected this highly dubious contention, which has undoubtedly cost a fortune to press in the courts. Burke’s lawyers then waited the full 30 days allowed to petition for state Supreme Court review, even though the protection they claimed would last only a few more weeks, through the end of the legislative session in January.

Irrespective of its legal merits, Burke’s immunity claim effectively stalled the case until after the November election, in which Blanchard faced a popular Republican challenger who had decidedly less enthusiasm for the John Doe probe. As it turned out, voters re-elected Blanchard, in part because of media and public support for his pursuit of Capitol misconduct. There was something else: By advancing this argument, Burke managed to delay, if not avoid, the ordeal of being processed – fingerprinted, photographed and assigned a booking number – like all other criminal defendants, including his legislative colleagues.

This much can be said for sure about Brian Burke, based on his years of public service and his months as an accused felon: He is not a common criminal. There is a reasonable basis for him to take umbrage at the charges lodged against him. They may indeed amount to overkill and in other ways be unfair. But it also says something about Burke’s character – and that of the scandal-wracked Legislature as a whole – that he resolutely refuses to acknowledge how his own choices have been the agent of his undoing.

Contrasting Images
Burke agrees, immediately and with some enthusiasm, to be interviewed for this article. While my letter urged him to take some time to think it over, he calls me within minutes of its receipt. He suggests we do at least two interviews, one in Milwaukee and one in Madison. He mentions that this particular day – August 7 – happens to be his 20th wedding anniversary. I find myself telling him about my own anniversary later that month. By the end of our short conversation, we’ve also traded information about the deaths of our fathers – his in 1986, mine a year before that – and our connection to Milwaukee parochial high schools: His two oldest daughters attend Pius; I graduated from Messmer.

A few weeks later, when I see Burke at a Madison court hearing regarding the conflict allegations against Blanchard (the judge, after hearing from a parade of witnesses, gives the Dane County prosecutor a green light to proceed), he flashes back to our earlier talk. “Messmer!” he announces. He also comments on how young I look. It’s hard not to like the guy.

But our interviews never take place. Burke does not return my follow-up calls. Eventually I hear from Andrea Rowe, a member of Burke’s Capitol staff. She wants additional information about “what aspects of the story” are of interest and indicates that the senator’s attorneys have advised him against cooperating. “Brian loves to speak to the press,” says Rowe, formerly a WUWM radio reporter and communications director for the state Democratic Party. “Now he’s in a strange position where he can’t speak.”

Actually, he can and has – not just in his statements from the Senate floor but also, just before charges were filed, in an interview for a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story headlined, “Burke Says He Did Nothing Wrong.” He also released a statement prior to the hearing involving Blanchard, who admitted receiving minor help from the Senate Democratic Caucus during his 2000 campaign. (For this reason, Blanchard ceded primary responsibility for probing this caucus to Milwaukee District Attorney E. Michael McCann.) Burke’s statement offered more wild speculation about Blanchard’s motives, saying he clearly “used the power of his office to overcharge me, thereby allowing him to claim that his own admitted misconduct was not very serious.”

(Ultimately, the State Elections Board ruled that Blanchard had violated the law but deemed his infraction insufficiently serious to impose a penalty. Burke responded by issuing yet another statement, in December, claiming that Blanchard had “significantly greater” improper assistance from state employees than he has acknowledged.)

I assure Rowe that I know some subjects must be off-limits. But in order to present a full portrait, I want to at least talk to Burke about his career and achievements, maybe even have him show me some areas in Milwaukee where his work has made a difference. Rowe thinks this is a good idea.

“Just driving through Milwaukee, there’s so many things to point out that he’s had a hand in,” she tells me. “His departure from the Legislature is going to leave a huge void.” (Former state Rep. Tim Carpenter has been elected to Burke’s Senate seat.)

Rowe also grasps Burke’s appeal as the subject of journalistic inquiry: “For 14 years, he’s had this clean-cut, Boy Scout image – and then you have this image that you see in the press and the criminal complaint. And as we all know, the truth is probably somewhere in between.”

For instance, the criminal complaint describes Burke’s efforts to solicit contributions during meetings with lobbyists. Counters Rowe: “He used to make lobbyists mad because he’d vote opposite of what they wanted.”

In fact, some say the accusations against Burke are a kind of payback from players who saw him as an impediment to their favored causes. The criminal counts alleging improper efforts by Burke and his aides to snare money for his attorney general campaign involve law firms and interest groups that usually align with Republicans.

Rowe, who began working in Burke’s office “a week before he was subpoenaed” in March 2002, says she never knew what was going on. It was during this time that Burke, according to the criminal complaint, ordered an aide to complete a purging of computerized records regarding meetings with lobbyists. “There was a lot of whispering and a lot of closed doors,” recalls Rowe. “That could be for any number of reasons.”

Two weeks later, Rowe and I talk again. And while Burke “really appreciates the offer” to talk, he’s decided to pass. “He wants to concentrate right now on fulfilling his duties.” In fact, there’s little reason to believe that Burke finished out his term preoccupied with legislative work.

Records show that Burke received per diem payments for showing up in Madison on legislative business just 25 days between April 1 and October 30, 2002. (This includes September 17, the day he spent five hours watching Blanchard’s conflict-of-interest hearing.) During this same period in 2001, Burke signed per diem claims for 122 days, including 10 for which he is now facing felony charges. For this time frame in 2000, which, like 2002, was an election year with fewer floor sessions, Burke logged 85 days. Also indicative of his level of engagement is that postings of press releases and news articles on his office’s Web page stop abruptly around the time he abandoned his quest for state attorney general and said he would not seek re-election to his Senate seat.

Burke made this announcement May 10, just hours after the release of documents showing that he had passed $9,496 in legal bills from Friebert’s firm on to taxpayers, part of what now totals almost $900,000 in caucus-related legal costs, primarily for lawmakers and their staff. The records confirmed rumors that John Doe investigators interviewed several Burke staffers, including chief of staff Tanya Bjork and former aide Raghu Devaguptapu. They also revealed that agents in late March executed a search warrant on Burke’s Capitol office, seizing computers and documents.

In a statement, Burke said the inclusion of his name on a list of lawmakers under investigation would be a “distraction” in the attorney general’s race but claimed that his main reason for withdrawing was health-related, having to do with a herniated disc in his neck. In what he should have seen as a bad omen, no one believed him.

Champion of the People
Brian Burke lives on 51st street near North Avenue in a four-bedroom, one-bathroom brick house with an assessed value of $132,500. As he made it a point to tell his Senate colleagues, it does not have central air or cable TV. His family’s “new car” is a 1991 Cutlass. Burke’s job as a state senator paid $44,233 a year (plus per diems – $17,512 in 2001). Whatever it was that propelled him into politics, it was not to get rich.

The youngest of seven children in an Irish Catholic family, Burke has credited his parents – his father was an administrator at Milwaukee’s Veterans Administration Hospital, his mother a nurse – and the rhetoric of John F. Kennedy for inclining him toward public service. A graduate of Washington High School and Marquette University, he got his law degree from Georgetown in 1981. He worked as an assistant prosecutor for the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office before being elected to the Milwaukee Common Council in 1984. In the fall of 1988, he ran for the state Senate seat vacated by John Norquist, squeaking through a six-person Democratic primary with 33 percent of the vote. It was the last serious electoral contest he faced.

Michael Murphy had little interest in politics when he agreed to work on Burke’s council campaign. He was a friend of Burke’s wife, Patty – both had been geology majors at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee – and was impressed by Burke’s community ties. Murphy became Burke’s sole staff member and ultimately his successor as alderperson, a position he still holds. Burke was one of just two Common Council members to vote against awarding the city’s cable contract to Time-Warner, because, says Murphy, “he felt the process wasn’t fair.” And as a state senator whose district included much of his old aldermanic area, he remained in contact over issues of concern.

Ald. Murphy calls Burke a “consummate family man” and “great dad” to his three daughters. He also describes Burke as “very private” and “emotional.” It’s the same note sounded by another old friend, Milwaukee lawyer and recurring candidate Matt Flynn. After heaping praise on Burke (“I just like him and I think everybody I know likes him”), Flynn tells how Burke reacted to a perceived betrayal.

Early in the race for attorney general, Flynn decided to endorse Burke’s rival, former U.S. Attorney Peg Lautenschlager, whom he has known for many years and who managed one of his past campaigns. When Burke found out about this, says Flynn, “He was like a wounded puppy. He was very cute about it.” At more than one event, Flynn says Burke would “corner me with wounded eyes,” asking, in so many words, “Matt, how could you?”

Flynn sees this as part of what makes Burke such a rare and wondrous specimen. “A lot of politicians, their responses are fake,” he says. “They’ll tell you what you want to hear.” But not Burke: “He’s one of the few people in politics I’ve ever had an honest conversation with.” Indeed, asserts Flynn, “I’d say he [was] the most honest member of the Legislature.”

As a senator, Burke became a darling of environmentalists for his efforts to protect air and water, preserve green space, promote recycling, oppose mining and reduce pollution. He was a main force behind brownfields remediation that spurred the cleanup and redevelopment of abandoned industrial sites, including the Menomonee Valley, and Smart Growth legislation requiring comprehensive land use plans. Burke consistently made Environment Decade’s Clean 16 list based on his legislative voting record.

He’s also won awards for his work on behalf of sexual assault victims, Vietnam vets, Hispanics, Jews, law enforcement and the military. In 1997, this magazine named him one of the 10 “Best Legislators.”

Spencer Black, who recently stepped down as Assembly minority leader, praises Burke’s record. “I served with him for many years. He was a top-notch legislator – very hard-working, very intelligent, very conscientious. He always seemed very principled to me.”

Stephanie Bloomingdale, a Milwaukee-based staff representative of the Wisconsin Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, agrees: “It’s a shame what’s going on now. He’s always been a champion for working people. He’s taken on the tough fights, even when those positions were unpopular.” For instance, he opposed hospital administrators in supporting a ban on mandatory overtime for nurses. And he battled banks in backing legislation to ensure that workers get paid before other creditors when businesses go belly up.

Burke’s self-image is wrapped up in notions of us vs. them, good vs. evil. His biographical materials boast that as an assistant district attorney in Milwaukee, he “stood up to gang leaders and deadbeat dads alike.” He’s “a champion of consumer rights” and is intent on “cracking down on white-collar crime and corruption.”

On criminal justice issues, Burke touts himself as author of “hard-hitting” initiatives to add police, combat gun violence and improve the treatment of crime victims. But he also highlights his advocacy of community policing, drug treatment and addressing the “root causes of crime” – poverty, abuse, failing neighborhoods. “Everybody talks tough,” he’s said, “but we’ve also got to be smart.”

Marla Stephens, director of the appellate division for the State Public Defender’s Office in Milwaukee, says that despite Burke’s background as a prosecutor, he always grasped the importance of adequately funding other players, including her office. And as one of Burke’s constituents, she appreciates his efforts to clean up Menomonee Valley and fund the Hank Aaron State Park Trail. When he was criminally charged, Stephens wrote him to say, “I’ll always remember and respect you for the good work you did.”

Ethical Breakdown
Jay Heck, a former legislative aide and caucus worker, recalls that when Burke took office in early 1989, “It seemed clear to everybody that he was going to have a fairly bright future.” He was soon appointed to a host of key committees, including Joint Finance. Yet Heck “always got the sense that Burke felt he was entitled to more than he was getting. He felt under-appreciated.”

In mid-1996, when Chuck Chvala was named Senate majority leader, he ousted longtime rival Gary George as Joint Finance co-chair, installing Burke instead. The position is among the Legislature’s most important since the committee co-chairs have major input into the budget and can effectively stall any measure that involves state funds. But in time, there were signs that Chvala and Burke were also not the best of buddies.

In 1998, after Heck became head of Common Cause in Wisconsin, he worked with Burke to put together a comprehensive package of campaign-finance reforms. He was optimistic until Chvala pronounced Burke’s bill DOA. Says Heck: “I was shocked at the vehemence with which Chvala told me that the legislation we were working on with Brian Burke was not going to be viable.”

Chvala and George declined to be interviewed, but George had some choice words to say last October when the Senate Dems met to pick new leadership. In arguing, unsuccessfully, that Burke and Chvala should sit out this vote, George tallied up their combined total of 38 felony counts and, as they sat with down-turned faces, delivered a withering rebuke: “The two most powerful members of our caucus have brought shame on the caucus and the Senate as an institution.”

But it’s really not fair to blame the scandal on the small group of people who have been criminally charged. None of them were operating in a vacuum; after all, 19 people were granted immunity in the John Doe probe. What happened was the ethical breakdown of an entire system, including those who failed to exercise appropriate oversight.

One legislative aide explains it using a sports analogy: “Two teams are playing basketball. There’s a hard foul and everyone looks at the ref. He doesn’t call it. Next time down the court – boom! – another hard foul, this time by the other team. No call. From now on, that’s the way the game is played. We used to have good rules and a good ref. We don’t anymore.”

That the state’s legislative caucuses evolved over time into full-fledged political machines was an open secret. In 1996, Isthmus, the Madison paper for which I work, ran a cover story, “Paid Partisans,” in which former caucus staffer Mo Hansen blew the whistle on this activity, loudly and clearly. But no one paid any attention, least of all the agencies charged with enforcing the laws in this area.

“The Ethics Board and Elections Board are completely lame; they haven’t done their job,” says former Burke aide Barry Ashenfelter. “They knew this stuff was going on.”

The abuse was so rampant and so well-known that Madison’s Capital Times was able to steal some of its rival State Journal’s thunder by running an editorial entitled “Clean Up Caucuses” three weeks before the latter began its investigative series (which many in the Capitol and local press knew was in the works). Both legislative parties, the editorial noted, “have for years been fueling their political operations with taxpayer dollars.”

In addition to asleep-at-the-switch regulators, DAs in Dane County were noticeably reluctant to involve themselves in investigations of alleged Capitol misconduct. But Brian Blanchard, a former federal prosecutor with no prior political experience, pledged as a candidate to take such matters seriously, and to many peoples’ great surprise, actually did, launching a John Doe probe within weeks of the State Journal’s series.

Given the “anything goes” culture that had been allowed to fester in the Capitol, it’s not surprising that the targets of this probe, Burke included, feel victimized by a sudden rush to take the rules seriously. Perhaps when he insists, “I haven’t done anything wrong,” what he means is “I haven’t done anything unusual.” And in this, he may be right.

“The Line Just Blurred”
Barry Ashenfelter was fresh out of law school when he joined Burke’s staff in early 1992, filling in for an aide on maternity leave. He ended up staying 10 years, ultimately becoming Burke’s chief of staff. “I like Brian Burke and think he’s a good guy,” attests Ashenfelter, who now works for the Humane Society of Wisconsin. “I really think he did more to improve the public good in the last 15 years than most groups of 100 people do in their entire lifetimes.”

Ashenfelter, who was especially drawn to environmental issues, found that Burke, after a short while, was willing to

give him “free rein to negotiate legislation” in this area. Even more impressive was Burke’s independence because he didn’t need to raise campaign funds.

“Until he ran for attorney general, he didn’t care what lobbyists thought,” says Ashenfelter. “His seat was safe.” (Burke faced only token opposition in 1990 and 1994 and none at all in 1998.)

As Joint Finance co-chair, Burke battled road builders and their allies who, says Ashenfelter, “protect the transportation fund like it was the Holy Grail.” Burke and two Republicans, Scott Jensen and John Gard, “were the only ones fighting for more aid to municipalities, more bus service and repair of existing highways.” (This area, explains Ashenfelter, is “not a partisan thing. Most Dems do whatever the road builders want, too.”)

But Ashenfelter goes on to make some disturbing admissions about the gradual erosion and eventual disintegration of the boundary between legislative and political work that occurred in Burke’s office and, no doubt, throughout the Legislature as a whole. “When I first started, I was really careful to take vacation time” or work only evenings and weekends on behalf of legislative candidates, doing things like stuffing envelopes and going door to door.

Ashenfelter says it’s only natural for people who care about legislative issues to engage in such activity because so much hinges on which party is in the majority. All of the other lawmakers now facing criminal charges – Chvala, Jensen, Foti, Ladwig – were purportedly driven by this concern. (Indeed, attorneys representing Jensen and Foti are arguing that in using state staff to work on electoral campaigns to help their side maintain power, they were just doing their job.)

Over time, however, Ashenfelter stopped being scrupulous about keeping campaign and legislative work separate. “The line just blurred,” he says. “It just didn’t seem to matter. It just seemed like nobody cared.” He cites the lack of reaction to the Isthmus article on Mo Hansen: “What was anyone to think?” (Incidentally, Rep. Steve Foti soundly defeated Hansen last fall even though Foti had just been charged with a felony for misconduct in office.)

Ashenfelter, who, according to the criminal complaint, used state equipment to process campaign checks and participated in campaign-related meetings on state property, rationalized his conduct on grounds that he was putting in 50- to 60-hour weeks, so taxpayers were still getting their money’s worth. Besides, he says, “70 percent” of what legislative aides do – from putting out newsletters to arranging public appearances – is “about getting their legislator elected.” He calls it “campaigning in disguise.”

Now, Ashenfelter, who was neither granted immunity nor criminally charged, calls the political work done on state time “a horrible mistake,” admitting, “Everyone knew we were doing wrong.” And while he feels bad for both Burke and Chvala, he thinks the people who make and have the power to change laws ought to live by them. “We all should be held accountable.”

While maintaining that “ultimately, it’s Brian’s fault what happened,” Ashenfelter notes one point when some heavy-handed input from outside the office played a critical role.

In late 2000, as Ashenfelter was preparing to change job duties, Burke needed to hire a new chief of staff. The quest came down to two candidates: Tanya Bjork, an employee of the Assembly Democratic Caucus, and Laura Sutherland, a former assistant attorney general then working for a large Madison law firm. Ashenfelter says Burke made up his mind to hire Sutherland. But then JoAnna Richard, a former caucus supervisor and top aide to then-Attorney General Jim Doyle, torpedoed this pick.

As Sutherland heard the story from Ashenfelter and another insider, “It was pretty strong language – that if Brian hired me, that could have serious implications for his relationship with Doyle,” with whom Sutherland had clashed. (She felt Doyle crossed an ethical line in having one branch of his office oppose an action initiated by another branch after it drew “political heat.”) Burke subsequently changed his mind and hired Bjork.

Ashenfelter thinks Sutherland, now a seminary student, was smarter and more ethical. He says Bjork and Raghu Devagup-tapu, her caucus colleague whom Burke hired soon afterward, “pushed things too far. They used the budget process as a fundraising mechanism for Brian and we had never done that before. I think that’s what irritated so many lobbyists.”

In early 2001, just as Bjork and Devagup-tapu were getting settled in, Ashenfelter went to half-time status while running Burke’s campaign for attorney general out of his home. By August, he quit completely: “I was tired of politics and didn’t want to work on a statewide campaign.” One of his last acts, relates the criminal complaint, was telling a newly hired Senate aide that she would be expected, as part of her job, to do campaign work.

What Burke Knew
Criminal complaints are not neutral documents. They are written in support of a particular point of view: that the person charged has committed a crime and deserves to be punished. As such, they tend to be harsh and one-sided. The complaint against Brian Burke portrays him as heedless and prone to anger. Yet none of its numerous named sources have publicly disputed that it accurately represents the information they gave investigators.

The complaint alleges that despite a clearly articulated rule against using state offices, staff and supplies “for any campaign activity,” Burke had his state Senate aides process contributions, prepare campaign finance reports and write letters to donors. He allegedly got irked over one staffer who declined to do campaign work, saying others were “busting their asses.”

Bjork and Devaguptapu, both of whom were charged with relatively minor offenses, apparently cooperated fully with investigators and are the sole source of information that led to the charges over per diem claims. They also claim Burke hired them explicitly to do campaign work, including fundraising. Burke allegedly told Bjork he wanted to raise big money during the small “window” of opportunity, perhaps six months, created by the state budget process.

Devaguptapu, meanwhile, compiled “call sheets” of potential donors and set up meetings with lobbyists. The complaint identifies five meetings in March and April 2001 in which lobbyists were hit up for contributions to Burke’s attorney general campaign. While it was usually Devaguptapu who did the asking, the complaint says Burke “definitely knew” money was being sought.

During a meeting with lobbyists from the Wisconsin Realtors Association in a state Capitol conference room, Devaguptapu allegedly asked for $25,000. “You’re crazy,” replied the lobbyist, “we’ve never given that kind of money.”

The Realtors, in a statement to Milwaukee Magazine, confirm that such a comment was made and that the Greater Milwaukee Association of Realtors subsequently gave $5,000 to Burke’s campaign. The statement calls the meeting “atypical” in that it took place where prohibited, on state property, and says the amount sought was “disproportionately large and for… an election [attorney general] in which the Realtors historically had not been involved.”

In other cases, Burke allegedly made direct requests, at one meeting going around a room of lobbyists, asking, “What are you going to do to help me become attorney general?”

Burke, according to Bjork, would often overstate the degree to which he was in accord with lobbyists, saying things like, “Yes, I’m with you” even if his traditional positions differed from those of the interest group. At one meeting, she was surprised to hear him support opening the Stanley prison, the ultimate special-interest boondoggle. But Burke, unlike Chvala, is not accused of making explicit promises or threats. The Realtors, in their statement, say “there was no attempt by Sen. Burke or his staff to connect the contribution to a specific legislative action” and that no one felt “threatened or coerced to make a contribution.”

Hence the protestations by Burke and his attorneys that there was no “pay to play.” However, the complaint contends, Burke came awfully close. At a meeting with lobbyists for the Wisconsin Dental Association, he allegedly sought a $10,000 contribution after being asked to introduce an amendment regarding dental care in rural areas. The lobbyists thought this was doable, and he directed an aide to draft the amendment. The group gave him $8,000; Burke offered the amendment, but it did not pass.

The 34-page complaint is sprinkled with intimations that Burke knew what he was doing was illegal. He allegedly instructed his campaign treasurer to record reimbursements to Bjork and Devaguptapu for expenses like gas and stamps in a way that made it look as though they were being paid consulting fees for campaign work. He brushed off warnings about using his state cell phone for campaign-related calls and his office for campaign-related business. And when Bjork urged him to start paying half of one Senate aide’s salary using campaign funds, he pointedly refused, saying this sudden shift would look too suspicious – that is, it would raise questions as to whether this staffer had previously been doing campaign work on state time.

In October 2001, Burke received the first of two subpoenas from the John Doe probe, this one seeking records regarding Devagup-tapu’s activities. He allegedly decided to withhold a document that identified staff “issue areas,” telling Bjork the list “makes Raghu look like a shake-down artist or bag man.” Devaguptapu’s role in his assigned issue areas, the complaint says, was “primarily to seek campaign contributions from lobbyists.”

The following month, Burke allegedly directed Bjork to delete references to meetings with lobbyists from his Capitol office computer. He also told her to change references to “call time” spent contacting potential donors to “constituent time” and to delete campaign-related materials from the computer of two former staffers.

Burke received a second, much broader subpoena in early March 2002. According to the complaint, when Burke saw that a calendar printout generated in response to the subpoena still contained campaign-related entries, he got mad and ordered Bjork to make additional deletions. Investigators later recovered 13 deleted entries from Burke’s seized office computer that did not appear on the printouts he produced under this subpoena. (Amazingly, Burke’s attorneys, in a court filing, argue that the retrieval of these records in this fashion means he cannot be charged with a crime for allegedly ordering their deletion.)

Before leaving Burke’s staff in the fall of 2001, Devaguptapu, who now works for the national Democratic Legislative Campaign in Washington, D.C., produced two memos for his successor. One listed upcoming fundraising events for the Burke campaign, the other was an assessment of various lobbyists. (Sample: “If you can produce for him, he will take care of you.”) The complaint says Burke made handwritten additions to this second memo and discussed it with his new aide, referring to lobbyists who did not contribute as “deadbeats.” He allegedly decided to recreate a clean copy in case it was subpoenaed and “expressed anger” when he suspected, correctly, that the aide had turned over the marked-up list.

There’s more: Upon learning that Deva-guptapu relinquished records regarding lobbyist contacts, Burke allegedly told Bjork, “Why couldn’t he burn those in the fireplace or flush them down the toilet?” And when Bjork was pulling together documents in response to the second subpoena, Burke is said to have instructed her not to include campaign materials, so she tossed more than a dozen campaign-related messages in the recycling bin. At least this action was environmentally correct.

“Reckless and Foolish”
Well before it became a target of the John Doe probe, Burke’s bid for state attorney general was raising eyebrows. In September 2001, the nonpartisan watchdog group Wisconsin Democracy Campaign produced a report called “Hey Bidder, Bidder,…” about the alleged auctioning of state government favors to special interests. Burke was one of four main “auctioneers,” along with Chvala, Jensen and then-Gov. Scott McCallum. The group said Burke “used his position to vigorously seek large special-interest contributions to fuel his run for attorney general, [raising] substantially more – $222,513 – than any other member of the entire Legislature during the half of 2001 when the budget was being considered.”

The report also charged that while Burke had sponsored a campaign finance reform bill, including a ban on fundraising during budget talks, he “subsequently did nothing to move the measure through the legislative process” and “broke a public promise to seek funding” for reform. Grumbles Mike McCabe, WDC’s executive director: “He didn’t even bother to testify on behalf of his own bill at hearings throughout the state.”

More red flags went up in early 2002 when McCabe’s group, in looking over Burke’s campaign finance reports, found “no evidence of any paid staff” for a campaign that by then had raised more than $440,000. No paid manager. No paid consultants. No office. No outside help of any kind except from a firm engaged in direct mail and telemarketing.

“It was pretty obvious to us that there had to have been some state employees involved in running his campaign,” says McCabe, who also noticed the high staff turnover and hiring of former caucus workers Bjork and Devaguptapu. “It looked to me and to a lot of people that his staff was being turned into a campaign organization.”

McCabe shared his concerns and documentation with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which ran an article in which Burke insisted his campaign was completely aboveboard, and with Blanchard and his assistant. Burke, assesses McCabe, “had to have known that what he was doing was running afoul of the law” and that his public filings would be scrutinized. And yet he didn’t even have the good sense to “put a campaign manager on the payroll for appearance’ sake.”

For all candidates, says McCabe, the enormous cost of getting elected creates pressure to cross lines and cut corners. But Burke’s behavior strikes him as even more extreme: “What he did was so reckless and so foolish, it’s a reflection of how strong his ambition was.”

Many observers speculate that Burke was the first lawmaker charged because he was a Democrat and prosecutor Blanchard did not want it to look as though he was only going after Republicans. Blanchard agrees he “prioritized” the Burke investigation over others but says it’s because of “the nature of the job” Burke was seeking. “He was running for the highest law enforcement position in the state and we were getting new information at a time when the campaign for attorney general was under way.”

Another factor was that, as former Assembly Democratic Caucus staffers, Bjork and Devaguptapu were subpoenaed early on to give testimony in the John Doe probe. Burke was implicated, says one insider, when investigators began asking about their present employment, which then consisted largely of doing political work for Burke’s campaign.

All total, Burke raised just over $500,000 for his aborted bid for attorney general, including this year’s receipts. That sounds excessive, especially given that, as of January 2002, Burke had $403,663 on hand compared to Peg Lautenschlager’s $13,613. But by the time Lautenschlager eked out a narrow victory last November, she had apparently raised and spent about $465,000. Granted, much of this money would have flowed to Burke, as it did to her, in the campaign’s final months. But his zeal to get a huge head start no longer appears all that misguided.

Former aide Ashenfelter says Burke was just following advice: “That’s what his friends in Milwaukee told him to do – save all of your money for [ads on] TV.” What friends is he referring to? Ashenfelter says it was attorney Friebert and others at his firm. (Friebert and colleague Jeremy Levinson did not respond to phone messages or an offer to receive questions in writing.)

Ironically, some of these contributions are now going to Friebert and others at his firm. Several weeks before the charges were filed, Burke sent a form letter to contributors, seeking authorization to use their donations for his legal defense (“It would mean a lot to me and my family.”). Within a few weeks, he was able to transfer $100,215 from one pot to the other; records also show that Burke’s campaign on May 2 cut an $8,122 check to Friebert’s firm for “legal representation for custodian of records,” presumably a reference to subpoenaed campaign documents.

More funds may have since been shifted from one pot to the other, but these won’t have to be reported until late January. As of press time, Burke had made no progress on his public promise to repay the nearly $9,500 in legal fees passed on to taxpayers.

Everybody’s Doing It
“I think this whole prosecution is an abuse of prosecutorial discretion,” fumes Burke’s friend Matt Flynn. He chalks it up to a DA who “wants to make a name for himself and is also politically ambitious.” There is no evidence, he says, that votes were bought. “A great many people in both parties” solicit contributions, and the laws against doing so on state property are not consistently enforced, making the charges against Burke selective and unfair.

Some observers think prosecutor Blanchard, perhaps miffed by Burke’s alleged efforts to conceal evidence, engaged in piling on. Burke couldn’t agree more, asserting in one statement: “While I vigorously deny having done anything wrong, even if I had, 18 felony counts represents a wildly over-blown charging decision.”

Of particular concern are the eight separate felony charges, each carrying a maximum $10,000 fine and five years in prison, for allegedly submitting false $88 per diem claims involving a total of 10 days. “If he did it, it’s wrong,” says a Capitol insider who considers these charges among the most bothersome, since they involved personal gain. “But I don’t think $880 in falsified expense reports should be punishable by 40 years.”

Burke’s lawyers have argued in court filings that if the rules regarding per diems were violated – which they don’t concede – the responsibility for enforcement belongs to the Legislature and not the DA’s office. Longtime Senate Chief Clerk Don Schneider is unaware of any other instance in which criminal charges were filed over per diem claims. On the other hand, he also can’t think of any occasion when these were internally enforced: “In the 26 years I’ve been clerk, this is the first time any question has been raised.”

Similarly, Burke’s lawyers contend – and others concur – that no one has ever been criminally charged for seeking contributions on state property. Even if Burke did this, they say, the criminal charges amount to nitpicking. Had he asked lobbyists for money at a coffee shop near the Capitol, it would have been perfectly legal – and, in fact, commonplace.

“Reality is that the entire campaign finance system is based on implicit quid pro quos,” says the Capitol insider. “It happens all the time. The only thing they got Brian Burke on is he didn’t walk across the street to do it.”

And consider what was revealed at the conflict-of-interest hearing about Blanchard’s 2000 campaign. Blanchard made fundraising calls from the offices of his law firm, Quarles & Brady, and even allowed his campaign co-manager (who simultaneously served as treasurer for a half-million-dollar super-PAC controlled by Chvala) to set up shop there, assisted by a campaign “volunteer” who happened to be a law firm employee. All perfectly legal activities.

Brian Brophy, Blanchard’s predecessor as Dane County DA, agrees that the charges amount to overkill. Unless Blanchard’s goal is to send Burke to prison “for many, many years,” says Brophy, now a criminal defense attorney, the charges are inappropriate. “I think that when we talk about filling our jails with nonviolent criminals, certainly Mr. Burke would qualify. Even if the charges levied against him are true, this is someone who has done an enormous amount for the state.”

Lester Pines, the Madison attorney representing Tanya Bjork (who finished out the legislative session as Burke’s chief of staff), has a different perspective. “The Legislature and the courts have over the last three decades made it easier than ever for prosecutors to bring charges” for all manner of offenses, he says. Now that some lawmakers are on the receiving end, it occurs to them that this is unfair. “To that, I say, ‘Duh!’ ”

Recently, Pines had a client “charged with 16 counts of sexual assault arising out of one act of sexual intercourse.” He says similar piling on occurs “every day,” usually involving poor defendants, and “the Legislature has never had any concern about it.”

Going through the Motions
Whatever claim to unjust treatment Burke might make is undercut by his blustery “I haven’t done anything wrong” response and the delay-at-all-costs posture of his attorneys.

In addition to claiming that the state constitution makes Burke immune from criminal prosecution – in essence an assertion that the people who make the laws are entitled to special treatment – Burke’s lawyers have argued that the case should not proceed so long as the John Doe probe is continuing, saying it “impermissibly chilled the willingness of all witnesses to speak with defense investigators.” This claim, unaccompanied by solid proof, was met with a judicial order that “all witnesses and potential witnesses are free to discuss their own information and knowledge regarding this matter with whomever they choose.”

Burke’s attorneys have also filed 15 motions for dismissal, which as of press time had not yet been fully briefed or ruled on. These range from the preposterous to the thought-provoking to the truly troublesome. One contends Burke cannot be charged with misconduct in office since “candidate for attorney general” – the capacity in which he was acting – “is not a public office.” Another says only the Legislature, not the courts or executive branch, can regulate what happens in legislative meetings or between lawmakers and their staff.

Several motions challenge the charges against Burke for allegedly soliciting contributions in public buildings. One claims the statute only makes it illegal to “enter or remain in” a state building for this purpose, while Burke and/or his staff were present for other reasons. Another says no law was broken because no one sought contributions from the lobbyists; they merely asked the lobbyists – allegedly – to seek contributions from their clients.

Perhaps most compelling is the motion declaring the statute “unconstitutionally overbroad” since it flatly asserts that “no person” – not just public officials or state employees – may seek contributions in any state building. As Burke’s lawyers put it: “If, during a private conversation over coffee in the Capitol coffee shop, one friend asks another to contribute to a particular candidate, a crime has occurred.”

What an exquisite irony it would be if Burke’s final contribution to the Legislature he served is the undoing of the law against seeking contributions on state property, especially since his challenge to its constitutionality is underwritten by donations made initially to his campaign for attorney general.

Ashenfelter, Burke’s former aide, thinks the Capitol scandal might yield more positive outcomes: “I hope over time that this will be good for the institution. I know it’s hard right now for Brian and his family. We’re going to look real bad for the next couple of years. But I hope that it causes the state Legislature in the next few sessions to pass really significant, nationally ground-breaking campaign finance and ethics reform laws.”

Bill Lueders is news editor of Isthmus, Madison’s weekly newspaper.