In a tiny two-room office plastered with old political posters, Jay Heck works tirelessly at Common Cause Wisconsin's headquarters nearly every day.
Common Cause Wisconsin, founded in 1970 to stop the Vietnam War, has evolved into an organization centered on combating corruption within the government. The organization has close to 200,000 members nationwide, with over 4,000 members in Wisconsin. Common Cause's critical goal is to hold politicians accountable by monitoring finances.
Executive Director Jay Heck has been working for the past 11 years at Wisconsin's chapter. Heck has a strong background in politics, working for both Democratic and Republican lawmakers, including Gerald Ford's campaign in the late 1980s. After working for a Pennsylvania congressman, Heck said he began to believe that money was keeping government from achieving its true potential.
""My job was to raise money for the next campaign, and I began to see how the amount of money received started to affect my ability to accurately judge a person,"" he said.
Although Heck's everyday work puts him in close contact with lawmakers and lobbyists, Heck is able to maintain a non-partisan view. He has flipped between supporting Democrats and Republicans, but now finds himself happily in the middle.
The close contact with political figures has not sparked a desire within Heck to run for political office.
""I think I can make a difference here,"" Heck said. ""I admire public officials, but I don't know if I could always be diplomatic. I want to lobby for the issues I care about.""
Heck's miniscule office above Cosi—a restaurant on the corner of State and North Henry Streets—and modest manner seem to hide the scale of importance of the work done at Common Cause.
In February, Common Cause helped to pass an ethics reform bill in Wisconsin that has been in the works since 2002. The bill puts limits on how much money can be spent while running for office and would also pull special interest money out of political campaign advertisements.
In the past decade, Common Cause has helped stop many legislators from illegally using campaign money to buy political support.
""We want to level the playing field,"" Heck said. ""We need to work towards bipartisan support and political will to make these differences.""
The most amazing part of the organization is that it runs on practically nothing, Heck said. Despite the organization's success, the office has not moved for 10 years. An annual budget of only $120,000 provides the rent, supplies, organizing funds and salary for the two paid employees.
""We reuse everything we can, our copy machine is from 1992 and our office does smell a lot like a non-profit,"" Heck joked.
Even without elaborate funding, Common Cause is certainly making a difference within the state of Wisconsin. Next year the group hopes to raise citizen awareness about political reform on state university campuses.
""Reform is cyclical,"" Heck said. ""People get involved after a period of scandal. We want to use this opportunity to get college kids interested in government again. Everyone's been turned off by the negativity and we want to change that.""
