If you haven't read Owen's post on a potential scandal involving the Governor of Wisconsin, an abusive union, and pepperonis, you should. I was looking at the comments and most of the respondents are missing the bigger picture.

What bothered me most about this story was not the union/company disagreement. Unions and Companies have disagreed in the past and they will continue to disagree in the future. They have different objectives (to put it simply, the unions want to maximize their pay while the companies want to maximize their profit). There is nothing particularly newsworthy about a union/company disagreement except to those involved.

However, it is newsworthy if the State is getting involved without a compelling interest. I hardly think the State of Wisconsin, much less the United States, would be threatened if a pepperoni plant closed for a while. And, as Owen pointed out, the plant seems to be doing fine without the striking union members. So there is no compelling state interest involved.

However, there is a compelling interest for politicians who want union money for their future political campaigns. And I suspect this is the reason Governor Doyle is allegedly abusing his power. It would be interesting to see how much the local Tyson union has (and will) donate to Doyle.

If politicians were serious about reform, they should ban all political contributions from unions and corporations (I can hear gasps from Democrats and Republicans alike - tough). In accordance with the First Amendment, individuals should be able to contribute as much as they wanted to any candidate. However, all contributions would have to be listed on a public website within 24 hours of the contribution.

Some people argue that many people contribute in order to gain access to candidates. Others argue that people simply donate money to those candidates that share many core beliefs with the donor. In all likelihood, both are true. However, you will never be able to prevent people with money from buying access, at least not in any remotely free society. Thus, I believe the best solution is to keep track of donations. Given the information, the public can make up its own mind if a politician is being bought. It is when this information is hidden (or masked by corporate/union gifts) that corruption may be hidden.