Follow the Money: See what economic interests your state officials claim

The nonprofit news organization Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism has compiled and posted online the Statements of Economic Interest all state public officials must file each year. The database is searchable by name, party affiliation and district.

State legislators tried to significantly limit access to these documents, including a provision in the state budget that would have required people to go to Madison to inspect or copy these documents instead of requesting that the GAB email or mail the documents to any interested person. Gov. Scott Walker vetoed that provision before signing the budget into law. 

Here’s what the Center had to say about why it is providing this database:

The public is invited to examine the first online archive of top state officials’ 2011 financial disclosure forms, now posted on WisconsinWatch.org, the website for the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism. The 2011 statements filed by Wisconsin state lawmakers and state constitutional officers were obtained from the state Government Accountability Board.

The archive, searchable by party affiliation and district number, is accessible at this link. Available are statements from state legislators, as well as five constitutional officers: governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, treasurer and secretary of state.

In the past, media outlets and others have obtained these statements and made them available online. For instance, in August 2010 the Wisconsin State Journal posted the economic interest statements of all 338 individuals running for state office that year.  

In all, about 2,500 state and local officials are required to file statements disclosing their investments, loans, business partners and income sources. The statements allow the media and public to check for possible conflicts of interest and items of interest, as when they were used in 2008 to help discover that Sen. Rob Cowles, R-Green Bay, owned stock in companies that ran strip clubs and pornographic websites (He later unloaded these investments).