An election season riddled with accusations of dirty donations and illegal campaign contributions may be taking its toll on the confidence Wisconsin voters place in their government, according to a recent survey.

In a study sponsored by the Chicago-based Joyce Foundation and released last week, adults in five Midwestern states — Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin — railed against the influence of money in government and expressed skepticism about their leaders' ability to do the right thing.

Mary McConnell, spokeswoman for the Joyce Foundation, said addressing issues such as education, crime and job creation requires "a government that's open and accountable and genuinely serves the public interest."

She said the survey's results are passed on to nonprofit advocacy groups, which use the information to develop reform agendas and deliver the message to candidates and public officials.

A joint statement by three such groups — the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, Wisconsin Common Cause and the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin — said the survey shows that Wisconsinites are "deeply concerned about political corruption," "disturbed by how state government is operating" and eager for change.

Money matters

The influence of money in state politics ranked fourth in the survey among issues that most concern Wisconsin residents, just behind gas prices, health care and taxes.

Mike McCabe, spokesman for the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, said many of the state's campaign finance laws "are no longer worth the paper they're written on."

The majority of residents surveyed supported public financing of campaigns, saying the prominent role of money in running for office prohibits many good candidates from doing so.

Katherine Walsh, assistant professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the perception that only wealthy candidates can win contributes to voter skepticism.

But she said money can also be can indicator of public support.

"People tend to give to candidates who they think are viable," she said.

McCabe said public campaign financing would help level the playing field in a system in which "you pretty much have to be independently wealthy or take out a second mortgage on your soul to compete for office."

He said public financing systems, such as those adopted in Arizona, have allowed people who would not otherwise be able to run for office to do so and given voters more choices in elections.

In a swing state ripe with advertising paid for by national interests, Walsh said it's "very easy to perceive that there's just a ton of money flowing around."

McCabe said the prevalence of outside money in Wisconsin campaigns often leaves voters feeling "there are outside forces … that are essentially determining who gets elected."

Faith 'badly shaken'

Citizens in all five states surveyed by the Joyce Foundation offered a harsh assessment of their government's ability to make the right choices. Sixty-two percent of respondents said they trust their state government to do what is right "only some of the time" or "almost never," and only 8 percent said they almost always trust their government.

Walsh said such low expectations from the public about government are not unusual, but added that perceptions differ greatly between politics in general and specific politicians.

People are very skeptical about government as a whole, but are much more trusting when it comes to their local representative or other politicians with whom they are more familiar, she said.

McCabe called the survey results "a stinging indictment of our current elected officials," whom he said have been slow to promote reform and sometimes overtly resistant to it. He said a once-effective system of campaign finance controls in Wisconsin has been allowed to fall apart.

In a state long known for clean politics, voters' faith in the current crop of elected officials "has been badly shaken," he said.

Hope for change

McCabe said the survey results weren't all bad. Only a third of respondents agreed that "corruption in government will always be a problem, so trying to fix it will not make much difference," a figure he cited as evidence that public drive for reform is far from dead.

People haven't given up hope, he said. "They're not throwing up their hands and saying, 'oh, what's the use.' "

Voting incumbents out of office would send a message that people "want this mess cleaned up," he said.

But while a majority of survey respondents across all five states favored reform, only 28 percent said they would choose a candidate focused on reforming government over a candidate focused on issues such as education, job creation and taxes.

Walsh said a successful run by a reform-oriented candidate "would take both the right person and the right amount of disgust among members of the public."

McCabe said it was unsurprising to see political reform trumped by other issues.

"People think first and foremost about problems that are nearest and dearest to their hearts," he said. "They want to know if they can put food on the table; they want to know if they can get their kids a good education."

Instead, McCabe said he was surprised that people ranked their concerns about political corruption as highly as they did.

"I think what was very striking about the poll's findings is that people have connected the dots" between money and politics, he said.