Progressive Thinking

Our friend Matt Rothschild does his last column of an illustrious career.

MADISON - If you want to know why private schools are getting such an influx of your tax dollars, just follow the money.

As Mike Buelow, our research director, reported here, three of the biggest backers of vouchers have spent $67 million in our elections since 2010 to buy the politicians they need:

School Voucher Backers Win Big with Evers, GOP Agreement

The wealthy and the powerful also got their servants in the Republican legislature to give them a big tax break, as I noted here:

GOP Budget Rewards the Rich

The flattening of our income tax code and the siphoning off of public money for private schools would appall our progressive forebearers in Wisconsin, who, 100 years ago, fought so hard for progressive taxation and public education.

And they’d also be appalled at all the outside money that’s still contaminating our politics today.

As Fighting Bob La Follette, one of my heroes, once wrote: “Democracy is a life, and involves continual struggle. It is only as those of every generation who love democracy resist with all their might the encroachments of its enemies that the ideals of representative government can even be nearly approximated.”

I know you’re a lover of democracy, as I am. And I know there are many people, one or two generations behind me, who are involved – creatively and energetically – in this struggle.

They give me hope.

And you give me hope.

And Law Forward gives me hope.

And Civic Media gives me hope.

And Justice-Elect Protasiewicz gives me hope.

Hope that we can make more real the ideals of representative democracy.

And so it is with optimism and gratitude – to you, to the amazing staff at the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, to our board of directors, and to all of our supporters and all of our coalition partners – that I bid you adieu.

I’m retiring at the end of this week.

The search is under way, in earnest, for my successor, and I know there are several excellent candidates in that pool.

I have no doubt, whatsoever, that the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign will flourish in the years ahead.

And I’ll be cheering it on – and you on -- from the sidelines.

Thank you for reading these emails from me.

Thank you for supporting the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.

And most of all, thank you for doing your part in the struggle for our democracy.

Wishing you all the best in the years ahead!

Best,

Matt Rothschild
Executive Director
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Matt finally gets to testify on State's revenue-sharing bill.

MADISON - Last week, I went to a hearing at the State Capitol on the revenue-sharing bill.

I got there a good fifteen minutes before the hearing was to start, and I was one of the first to fill out the form that I wanted to testify about the bill.

The meeting started at 9:00 a.m. By 10:00 a.m., the sponsors of the bill had testified. By 11:00 a.m., a lot of local officials had already testified. By noon, still more. By 1:00 p.m., there were only a few people left to testify. By 1:45 p.m., there was only one person left to testify: Me!

If Committee Chair Dan Knodl thought he could wait me out, he was dead wrong. Here’s the testimony I waited so long to give:

Don’t Abridge Our Right to Petition Our Government!

Speaking of Knodl, we’ve completed our first count of the cost of the special election he won in April when he narrowly defeated Jodi Habush Sinykin. If you want to find out who the big donors in that one were, just click here:

Special Legislative Election Cost Nearly $3M

And here’s a tasty little item! The Milwaukee businessman who’s running the GOP Convention there next summer actually donated the max to Joe Biden last time around:

WI GOP Donor Heading 2024 Presidential Convention Also Gave to Biden

I hope you like these offerings, and I hope you have a nice weekend!

Best,

Matt Rothschild
Executive Director
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MADISON - If you’ve got an absentee ballot, it’s too late to safely put it in the mail.

The best thing to do it is to deliver it to your clerk’s office this week, or certainly by Election Day next Tuesday.

I just delivered mine today!

And if you’re a voter with a disability, please remember that you have the right to get assistance in the delivery of your absentee ballot.

For everyone voting with an absentee ballot, make sure you sign your name and fill in the date, and make sure that your witness signs the form and fills in their address completely.

If you’re not voting absentee by mail, you can still vote early (absentee in-person) this week. Check with your local clerk’s office about their hours.

And remember, if you’re not registered to vote, you can still register and vote at your polling place on Election Day, April 4. Bring your driver’s license or passport or other valid government ID, and if you’re registering, bring proof of residence, such as a utility bill.

This is a crucial election so please vote, and bring two friends or family members with you!

Thanks for your civic activism!

Best,

Matt Rothschild
Executive Director
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The flood of money continues, as outside groups have spent $18.1 million on reported independent expenditures and secret phony issue ads in the Supreme Court race, more than three-and-a-half times the previous record.

MADISON - Two weeks away from the April 4 elections, candidate and group spending in the race for Wisconsin Supreme Court stands at more than $20.2 million – smashing state and national records for spending in a judicial contest.

Outside group spending for Daniel Kelly now exceeds that for Janet Protasiewicz by $4.2 million.

About 30 outside electioneering groups have spent $18.1 million on reported independent expenditures and secret phony issue ads in the race, more than three-and-a-half times the previous record. Groups backing Kelly or opposing Protasiewicz have doled out $9.9 million. Groups backing Protasiewicz or opposing Kelly have spent $5.7 million. (About $2.5 million in group spending was directed at the two candidates who lost in the primary.)

The top-spending groups behind Protasiewicz were:

A Better Wisconsin Together Political Fund, $5 million on television and online ads and mailings;

Wisconsin Conservation Voters, $785,836 on campaign literature and brochures and payroll expenses;

Organizing Empowerment PAC, $532,500 on phone and other voter mobilization activities;

Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin, $476,755 on radio and digital ads, canvassing, and mailings;

One for All Committee, $450,000 on videos and online advertising.

The top-spending groups behind Kelly were:

Fair Courts America, $4.6 million on television and radio ads and mailings;

Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC), $3.1 million on broadcast advertising;

American Principles Project PAC, $795,894 on digital ads;

Wisconsin Alliance for Reform, $600,000 on television ads;

Americans for Prosperity, $374,531 on online advertising, mailings, and canvassing.

Both WMC and the Alliance for Reform spent most of their money on television ads. In two instances – here and here – the groups used the same television ads, which accused Protasiewicz of handing down a light sentence for a man convicted of kidnapping and raping a 15-year-old girl.

The most recent reports filed by the candidates showed they spent a total of $2.12 since they entered the race last year, through Feb. 6. Spending was led by Protasiewicz who has doled out $1.37 million, which is nearly six times the $237,719 spent by Kelly.

Whoever wins will determine the ideological balance of the court, which is currently controlled 4-3 by conservatives. Protasiewicz, who is viewed as a liberal, and Kelly, a former conservative Supreme Court justice, are vying to replace a retiring conservative justice.

Protasiewicz and Kelly moved on to the April ballot because they were the top finishers in the Feb. 21 primary, knocking off two other candidates who had spent a combined $507,699 through Feb. 6.

The next batch of fundraising and spending reports by the candidates are due March 27 and will likely show that several million dollars more in candidate spending. (Other news outlets, such as WisPolitics, have reported higher figures than the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. Our numbers are based only on figures already reported to the state by candidates and independent expenditure groups or that we could estimate from so-called “issue advocacy” groups.)

But spending to date has already surpassed the record $10 million spent in 2020 on a Wisconsin Supreme Court race as well as the national record of $15 million spent on an Illinois judicial race in 2004.

For more information about all of the groups involved in the 2023 Wisconsin Supreme Court race, please visit the Democracy Campaign’s Hijacking Campaign 2023 feature. For more information about candidate fundraising and spending and their top contributors, please go here.

MADISON - I hope your week is going well. Here are a couple of great articles that my colleague Iuscely Flores has written for us in the past few days.

The first is essentially the text of a brief talk she gave in Milwaukee at a press conference on the need to make legislators retain all of their records:

Wisconsin Democracy Campaign Supports New Sunshine Law

And the second is a story she wrote after attending an inspiring event in the Wisconsin Capitol:

State Reps Hong and Shelton Reintroduce Economic Justice Bill of Rights

For my part, I’ve been giving talks to several groups recently about all the money in our Wisconsin Supreme Court race and how we got in this predicament. Here’s one version of it:

Recusal and the Wisconsin Supreme Court

And if you’re free this Saturday, please attend the Wisconsin Grassroots Festival. My colleague Carlene Bechen will be giving a talk during the morning breakout session about fair voting maps as a path toward representative government, how every issue that faces Wisconsin is impacted by the heavily gerrymandered voting district maps, and what we can do to end gerrymandering. The festival starts at 9:00 a.m. and is at Wisconsin Heights High School, 10173 US Highway 14.

Have a nice weekend!

Best,

Matt Rothschild
Executive Director
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MADISON - I hope your week’s gone well.

I was pleased to see that the great pro-democracy law firm, Law Forward, is trying to get Michael Gableman’s law license revoked. I wrote about that here:

Thank You, Law Forward, for Pursuing Gableman

And I was also heartened by a piece of legislation to honor César Chavez. My colleague Iuscely Flores wrote about it, and about the struggle for the rights of undocumented workers here in Wisconsin:

Proclaiming March 31st as César Chavez Day In Wisconsin

As you may have heard by now, next Tuesday is The Big Share, the annual spring online fundraising event sponsored by Community Shares of Wisconsin, which we’re proud to be a part of. 

I'm hoping you'll donate to the

Best,

Matt Rothschild
Executive Director
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To date, 16 groups have reported spending $5.63 million, breaking the previous record $5.03 million set in the 2020 Wisconsin Supreme Court race.

MADISON - Special interest groups have already set a spending record for outside electioneering activities in a Wisconsin Supreme Court race, topping $5.6 million as of Wednesday morning.

Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Janet Protasiewicz and former Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly were the top finishers in Tuesday’s four-way primary. The pair will go on to face off on April 4 for a 10-year seat on the high court.

To date, 16 groups have reported spending $5.63 million, breaking the previous record $5.03 million set in the 2020 Wisconsin Supreme Court race. In that contest, Kelly, who was appointed in 2016 to fill the unexpired term of a retiring justice, had to run for election to keep the seat. Kelly lost to Jill Karofsky.

This time around, outside groups supporting Kelly outspent those for Protasiewicz by more than five to one.

Four groups have spent $2.59 million on outside activities, like mailings and broadcast and digital advertising, to support Kelly. Five groups have spent about $493,250 to support Protasiewicz. The remaining seven groups have spent $2.55 million to oppose or support the other two candidates, Waukesha County Circuit Judge Jennifer Dorow and Dane County Circuit Judge Everett Mitchell, who did not make it through Tuesday’s primary.

In addition to group spending, the four candidates in the race spent a combined $1.76 million through Feb. 6, according to their most recent campaign finance reports.

Both the groups and the candidates have reported spending a combined $7.39 million. The record for candidate and group spending in a Wisconsin Supreme Court race is $10 million set in 2020.

Candidate spending through Feb. 6 was led by Protasiewicz, who has doled out $1.18 million, more than double that of the other three candidates combined.

Protasiewicz is viewed as the liberal in the race and Kelly is a conservative. If Kelly wins, he will preserve the 4-3 conservative bloc on the court because the retiring justice, Patience Roggensack, is a conservative.

Two of the 16 outside special interest groups have spent the bulk of the $5.63 million doled out as of Wednesday morning.

They were:

Fair Courts America, $2.37 million. This is a Downers Grove, Ill. group funded by rightwing billionaire Richard Uihlein. The group has sponsored radio and television advertising to back Kelly;

A Better Wisconsin Together Political Fund, $2.15 million. This Monona-based independent expenditure committee was created to support Democrats and left-leaning candidates for statewide office and the legislature. The group sponsored online and television advertising to oppose Dorow.

For more details about all of the outside electioneering groups, visit our Hijacking Campaign 2023 feature. For candidate fundraising and spending information, visit our Campaign 2023 – Supreme Court feature.

MADISON - On Tuesday, there was a press conference in the Senate Parlor in the State Capitol on the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, and I made a few brief comments. Here’s basically what I said, though I’m an inveterate ad libber:

Freedom Is on the Ballot for Wisconsin Supreme Court

That evening, President Biden gave his State of the Union address, which I admired for its defense of democracy, voting rights, and equal protection. Here’s what I wrote about it:

Biden Stands Up for Democracy in State of the Union

The staff’s been busy this week chronicling all the money from last November’s election.

To see who the biggest corporate donors were to the political parties, check out this post:

State Parties, Legislative Campaign Committees Accepted Record Corporate Contributions in 2022

And we also tracked all the money in the legislative races, with 12 of them topping the $1 million mark, as you’ll see here:

Candidates, Groups Spent $41.1M in 2022 Legislative Elections

If you’re free on Saturday afternoon in Milwaukee, by the way, I’ll be on the Vel Phillips Forum panel at Turner Hall: "Wisconsin Supreme Court Election 2023: What’s at stake for Wisconsin Voters? If you’re there, please say hi.

Best,

Matt Rothschild
Executive Director
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Matt Rothschild of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign continues his report on money in politics with the Secretary of State race.

MADISON - Candidates and special interest groups spent a record $1.16 million in the race for Wisconsin secretary of state in 2022, a Wisconsin Democracy Campaign review shows.

The race drew seven candidates, including three Republicans, two Democrats, and two minor party candidates, who spent a combined $872,324. The leading spender was Republican challenger Amy Loudenbeck, who dropped $501,356. She survived the GOP primary to face incumbent Democrat Doug La Follette, who spent $229,689 and won reelection.

Five groups spent a total of $288,824 in the race.

One group, Election Integrity PAC, spent $192,868 to support one of the Republican candidates who lost in the Aug. 9 primary to Loudenbeck.

The four remaining groups – Voces de la Frontera, Blue Sky Waukesha, NextGen Climate Action, and BLOC PAC – spent a total of $95,956 to support La Follette or his Democratic primary opponent.

Spending in the 2022 contest eclipsed spending by candidates and groups in previous secretary of state races by a lot. In 2018, the four candidates spent a total of $26,782 with no spending by outside groups. In 2014, eight candidates spent a combined $122,126 with no outside spending. And in 2010, the candidates spent $1,126 and one electioneering group dropped $71.

Allies of former President Trump, who has falsely claimed the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him due to voter fraud, sought to put pro-Trump supporters in key election posts running up to the 2024 presidential election. Trump has announced he will be a presidential candidate in 2024.

Secretary of State races in Wisconsin and throughout the country drew more candidates and outside spending in 2022 than most previous elections because that office oversees or certifies election results in numerous states, but not Wisconsin.

During the campaign, Loudenbeck said she would welcome the office having a larger role in administering elections in Wisconsin.

In Wisconsin these days, just about every race for every position is breaking a record in campaign spending. Matt Rothschild of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign reports on the race for Wisconsin attorney general.

MADISON - Outside electioneering groups outspent the candidates in last fall’s record $14 million race for Wisconsin attorney general, a Wisconsin Democracy Campaign review found.

Nineteen special interest groups doled out $7.58 million (see Table below), including $4.18 million to support Republican candidates in the primary and general election and $3.4 million to back incumbent Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul, who won reelection.

The five candidates – Kaul and four Republicans – spent a combined $6.42 million with Kaul leading the pack at $4.8 million. Kaul’s final ballot opponent, Eric Toney, spent $962,884. The three other GOP candidates spent a combined $661,013 before Toney sidelined them in the Aug. 9 primary.

The total spent by groups and candidates in the 2022 attorney general’s race came to $13,996,086, which beat the previous record in 2018 by just $949.

The top-spending outside groups in the race were:

Republican Attorneys General Association, in Washington, D.C., which spent $3.11 million through a state political action committee called Wisconsin Freedom PAC . The group spent its money on television and online ads and mailings that accused Kaul of being soft on crime and cutting funds for new officer training and the State Crime Lab;

Democratic Attorneys General Association, in Washington, D.C., which spent $1.9 million through an independent expenditure committee called DAGA People’s Lawyer Project . The sponsored television and online advertising that said Toney would prosecute doctors and nurses for performing abortions and supported making the procedure a felony with no exceptions for rape or incest;

Americans for Prosperity, a Koch-backed state group which spent nearly $550,000 on canvassing, mailings, and digital and radio advertising to support Adam Jarchow, one of the GOP candidates Toney defeated in the primary.

To learn how much was spent by all of the outside groups involved in Wisconsin’s 2022 race for attorney general, please see the table below. For more information about the groups and their electioneering activities, check out their profiles in our Hijacking Campaign 2022 feature.

Table
Spending by Outside Special Interest Groups in the 2022 Attorney General’s Race

MADISON - Saturday marks the thirteenth anniversary of the notorious Citizens United decision, which opened the floodgates to big and dark money in our politics.

That decision by the U.S. Supreme Court allows corporations, other groups, and super-rich individuals to spend unlimited amounts to tell you who to vote for or not for, so long as they don’t coordinate with the candidates.

Citizens United was the obstetrician that delivered us SuperPACs, but they’re not babies anymore. They’re monsters.

And along with a few other Supreme Court decisions, especially the McCutcheon decision of 2014, which said the government could put no aggregate limit on the amount that rich folks could spend in our elections, Citizens United has turned our politics into a playground for billionaires.

Just look at the recent midterms.

According to a report by Americans for Tax Fairness, billionaires had already “pumped an unprecedented $881 million into the federal midterm elections [five weeks before the election], distorting our democracy by drowning out the voices of regular Americans. That’s already much more money than billionaires contributed during the entire length of the 2018 midterm election cycle, the previous record.”

The report noted that Republican billionaires are outspending Democratic ones: “GOP forces are enjoying a 3-2 advantage in billionaire donations.”

Even if they weren’t, that’s not the point.

The point is this: Our politics shouldn’t be a tug of war between billionaires on the right and billionaires on the left. In a real democracy, we’d all have an equal tug on that rope.

But we don’t because of the gross maldistribution of wealth in this country.

And we don’t because of Citizens United and a raft of other bad decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court dating back to the nineteenth century on corporate personhood.

Here in Wisconsin, we can see the nasty consequences of Citizens United.

In 2010, outside spending in our fall elections for governor and the legislature and other non-federal races came to just under $20 million. Last year, it soared to over $90 million, with a lot of this money coming from out of state.

This outside spending, blessed by Citizens United, makes a mockery of the ideal that we all have an equal voice in our democracy. And the money that comes from out of state undercuts the ideal of local self-governance.

The problem of big and dark money in our politics in Wisconsin got worse in 2015 when the Republican-dominated state legislature (thanks, largely, to gerrymandering) rewrote our campaign finance law. The new law, signed by Scott Walker, tore down the de facto $10,000 limit on how much individuals could give to those political parties. So now billionaires from across the country are writing enormous checks to the Democratic and Republican parties here.

We do not have self-rule when the super-rich can spend unlimited amounts of money in our political arena.

We must overturn Citizens United and all its ugly relatives.

And the best way to do that is to amend the U.S. Constitution and proclaim, finally, that corporations aren’t persons and money isn’t speech.

Here in Wisconsin, the grassroots group Wisconsin United to Amend has been working prodigiously over the last decade getting one local community after another to pass referendums or resolutions in favor of such an amendment. At last count, 169 communities have signed on.

It will take more work, here in Wisconsin and around the country, to get this done.

But it must be done if we are to have a genuine democracy.

Judicial races in Wisconsin are supposed to be nonpartisan, but over the last 15 years they have become increasingly partisan. Read how the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce tilted the scales.

MADISON - Judicial races in Wisconsin are supposed to be nonpartisan. Technically, they still are. And ideally, that’s the way they should be.

Our judges and justices should be above partisanship. They should be impartial arbiters of the law, not beholden to one party or another -- or one ideology or another.

But over the last 15 years, this ideal has fallen by the wayside, as our judicial elections, especially for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, have become increasingly partisan.

This stems largely from a decision by Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce to start throwing huge amounts of money into the races for Wisconsin Supreme Court, and then for liberal groups to respond in kind.

The push by Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce was part of a coordinated move by big business groups around the country to throw themselves into state court races. It also reflected the decades-long strategy by the Koch Brothers and other rightwing forces to take over every lever of political power.

“State Supreme Court elections attracted record sums from business interests,” noted a 2007 report from the Brennan Institute and two other groups.

Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor put it bluntly that year:

“In too many states, judicial elections are becoming political prizefights where partisans and special interests seek to install judges who will answer to them instead of the law and the constitution.”

It wasn’t always this way in Wisconsin. For many years, the Wisconsin Supreme Court had a tremendous national reputation, and outside money played little, if any, role in who got on the court.

For instance, in 2003, in the race between Pat Roggensack and Ed Brunner, outside groups spent all of $27,200 on independent expenditures.

But look what happened in 2007, when Linda Clifford challenged Annette Ziegler. In this one, outside groups spent $3.1 million – more than 100 times what they spent in 2003. Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce itself shelled out $2.2 million for Ziegler, and the rightwing Club for Growth spent $400,000 for her. The liberal Greater Wisconsin Committee spent $400,000 for Clifford.

Then in 2008, outside groups spent $4.8 million when a guy named Michael Gableman challenged Louis Butler, the first African American ever to serve on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The Gableman campaign ran hideously racist ads against Butler and was aided by $1.8 million in expenditures by Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce. The Greater Wisconsin Committee countered with $1.5 million, and Club for Growth poured in $500,000.

The 2009 race between Shirley Abrahamson and Randy Koschnick was an anomaly, with outside groups spending only $577,000. (Abrahamson had raised a lot of money on her own and seemed unbeatable, so the outside groups stayed away, by and large.)

In 2011, in the throes of the anti-Walker protests, the outside groups jumped back in, spending $4.5 million in the race between David Prosser and challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg. Here, the Greater Wisconsin Committee spent $1.7 million for Kloppenburg, with Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce spending $1.1 million for Prosser.

In 2013, things calmed down a bit, with outside groups spending $1.2 million in the race between Pat Roggensack and Ed Fallone. Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce spent $500,000 in this one for Roggensack. Club for Growth spent $350,000 for her. And the Wisconsin Realtors Association spent $207,000 for her.

The 2015 race between Ann Walsh Bradley and James Daley was another anomaly, with only $171,000 in outside spending, with all but $2,000 of that was from the Greater Wisconsin Committee in favor of Ann Walsh Bradley. (Like Abrahamson in 2009, Bradley had raised a lot of money on her own and most outside groups held their fire.)

In 2016, JoAnne Kloppenburg challenged Rebecca Bradley, and outside groups spent $3.43 million. Here, the leading rightwing spender was the Wisconsin Alliance for Reform, which spent $2.6 million on behalf of Rebecca Bradley. The Greater Wisconsin Committee spent $710,000 for Kloppenburg.

In 2018, outside groups spent $2.8 million in the race between Rebecca Dallet and challenger Michael Screnock. Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce spent $1.2 million on behalf of Screnock. The Greater Wisconsin Committee spent $940,000 on behalf of Dallet.

In 2019, outside groups spent $4.5 million in the race between Brian Hagedorn and challenger Lisa Neubauer. In this one, the Greater Wisconsin Committee spent $2.3 million, with the Republican State Leadership Committee spending $1.25 million.

Then in 2020, outside spending reached a record high of $5 million in the race between Jill Karofsky and incumbent Dan Kelly. The liberal group A Better Wisconsin Together spent $1.9 million. Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce spent $1.1 million. The Republican State Leadership Committee spent $897,000. And the Koch Brothers’ group, Americans for Prosperity, spent $479,000.

We can expect the April 2023 race to once again break a record, as Pat Roggensack is retiring, leaving three liberals on the court and three conservatives. So whoever replaces her in that race will determine the ideological balance on the court.

That noise you hear is the avalanche of outside money that is about to pour down on Wisconsin.

Audio Commentary

Your weekly message from Matt Rothschild at the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.

MADISON - Our great research director, Mike Buelow, put together a report this week on the record-shattering amount of outside money we saw here in Wisconsin in non-federal races. The amount was 50% higher than in 2018 and 5 times as much as in 2010, the year of the disastrous Citizens United decision. That’s not a coincidence!

Mike’s report has gotten a lot of media attention in Wisconsin, including from the Associated Press and Wisconsin Public Radio. You can read the report for yourself here:

Record $93M in Spending by Outside Groups in 2022

By the way, Latina Equal Pay Day was this week, and our terrific racial equity and economic justice advocate, Iuscely Flores, took this opportunity to lay out the various biases that people of color face in the workplace, as you’ll see here:

On Latina Equal Pay Day, Stop Bias in the Workplace

Saturday is International Human Rights Day, and I’ll be at Turner Hall in Milwaukee on a panel discussing how elections affect our human rights. If you’re in the area and are free at 10:00 a.m., it’d be great to see you there! Or register at shorturl.at/gEHIW to attend virtually, or watch on the Equal Rights Commission--MKE's Facebook page.

In any event, I hope you have a nice weekend.

Best,

Matt Rothschild
Executive Director
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Report finds spending by special interest groups in this fall’s legislative races in Wisconsin and for the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, and treasurer shattered the old record by 50 percent.

MADISON - Spending by special interest groups in this fall’s legislative races in Wisconsin and for the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, and treasurer shattered the old record by 50 percent, a preliminary review by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign found.

The $93.01 million spent in 2022 by outside groups crushed the previous record $61.86 million set in 2018 for mid-term fall races that also featured both legislative and statewide contests in Wisconsin. And the 2022 spending figure was 154 percent higher than the $36.63 million spent by outside groups in 2014 and nearly five times higher than the $18.9 million spent on Wisconsin legislative and statewide races in 2010. (See chart below.)

None of these spending figures includes outside group spending in federal races for the U.S. House or U.S. Senate.

The lion’s share of the outside money in 2022 – $78.9 million – was spent on the governor’s race.

Six dozen special interest groups threw their money around to praise or smear candidates.

Thirty-five groups spent $48.25 million to benefit Republicans, 36 groups spent $44.06 million to benefit Democrats, and one group spent $686,660 to bolster the independent candidate for governor.

These electioneering groups fall into two categories – express advocacy groups and phony issue ad groups. Express advocacy groups, which make independent expenditures, must report their spending to the state. That’s because their broadcast and online advertising, mailings and other electioneering activities use the magic words “vote for” or “vote against” or their equivalents.

Phony issue ad groups, which can also raise and spend unlimited amounts of money on elections, do not have to report their spending because of federal court decisions and lax campaign finance laws. These groups smear or praise candidates but without explicitly telling viewers who to vote for or against.

The top-spending groups, which doled out all or most of their money in the governor’s race, were:

Democratic Governors Association spent an estimated $20.1 million using a phony issue ad group called the Alliance for Common Sense which blanketed the airwaves with television ads attacking GOP candidate for governor Tim Michels on education, abortion, guns, and media reports about sexual harassment complaints filed by female employees of his construction company;

Republican Governors Association spent an estimated $15.3 million using three entities – Right Direction Wisconsin PAC, ACC Wisconsin 2022 PAC, and State Solutions – mostly on television ads throughout the state that attacked Evers on crime and tax issues from July until Election Day;

A Better Wisconsin Together spent an estimated $6.8 million using an express advocacy group and an issue ad group with nearly the same name, making it particularly difficult to track spending by the issue ad group because it can keep its spending secret. All told, A Better Wisconsin Together spent money on television and digital advertising in 23 legislative races to support Democratic candidates, as well as the contests for governor to back Evers and attorney general to support incumbent Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul;

Americans for Prosperity spent $6.53 million on a host of electioneering activities, including canvassing, mailings, door hangers, and digital and radio ads to support Michels, GOP attorney general candidate Adam Jarchow, and Republican candidates in 19 legislative races;

Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC) spent an estimated $4.52 million using an issue ad group and an express advocacy group . Most of WMC’s issue ad spending was for television advertising that backed Republicans and smeared Democrats in the race for governor and two legislative contests. The group’s ads in the governor’s race attacked Evers on education, crime, and tax issues, and also blamed the incumbent for inflation. Early in the year, WMC spent about $25,000 on a digital ad to support GOP candidate for governor Rebecca Kleefisch, who lost to Michels in the August primary.

To see how much was spent by all of the outside groups involved in Wisconsin’s 2022 fall legislative and statewide races, please see the table below. For more information about the groups and their electioneering activities, please visit our Hijacking Campaign 2022 feature and click on their names.

A final report on the total cost of this year’s legislative and statewide elections will be issued early next year after the groups and candidates file amendments and year-end fundraising and spending reports.

Table
Spending by Electioneering Groups in the 2022 Fall Elections

Matt Rothschild of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign is thankful for 3 things in 2022 as far as the pro-democracy prospects go here in Wisconsin.

MADISON - On this Thanksgiving weekend, I’ve got three things to be thankful for, as far as the pro-democracy prospects go here in Wisconsin.

First, I’m thankful that Gov. Evers is still our governor, and that his veto pen still works. Robin Vos’s veto-proof majority failed to materialize in the Assembly, so Evers can still do what he does best: Blocking bills that would curb our freedom to vote, or blocking bills that would destroy our public schools, or damage our public lands, or deprive women of their most basic freedom to make their own decisions regarding their health care.

Second, I’m thankful for Law Forward, the great pro-democracy law firm that’s been around for a just a couple years but is already changing the legal landscape in Wisconsin in our favor. This group, founded by Jeff Mandell and Doug Poland and initially just with the amazing Mel Barnes as staff counsel, acts not only as a much-needed counterweight to the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty. It also pushes for fair maps, defends our freedom to vote, and demands accountability for those who violate our democracy. More than any other group in Wisconsin, Law Forward has demanded that the false electors in Wisconsin be investigated, and the firm has filed a civil suit against them, as well -- the first of its kind in the nation.

And third, I’m thankful for Civic Media, the new progressive radio network that is buying up stations all across Wisconsin not only to counter the dominance of rightwing radio but also to build civil dialogue at the local level, both of which we’ve been desperately needing. Growing out of “Devil Radio,” the flagship station in Madison founded by the irrepressible Michael Crute, it is now expanding rapidly, with the vision and resources of Sage Weil. Now with stations not only in Madison and Waukesha, but also in Amery, Richland Center, Wisconsin Rapids, and Wausau, with more to come, Civic Media is changing the sound of talk radio in Wisconsin, and it’s changing the politics of our state for the better.

So I’m thankful, this Thanksgiving weekend, and I hope you are, too.

Best,

Matt Rothschild
Executive Director
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MADISON - In Wisconsin’s recent elections, we saw the ugly results of gerrymandering.

Gov. Evers won by 90,000 votes but still the Republicans gained more seats in the Legislature, coming within a whisker of a veto-proof majority.

And it’s not just because Democrats congregate in Milwaukee and Dane County, like Republicans like to claim.

Take a look at the Evers victory map. He won up in the northwest, taking Douglas, Bayfield, and Ashland counties by about 57 percent each.

And guess what? Those Democratic voters of Douglas, Bayfield, and Ashland counties now have zero representation in the State Legislature.

No State Senator, no Assembly person.

Why?

Because Robin Vos drew the maps not to abide by the county lines but to distort the districts by bringing in Republican voters from nearby red counties.

When he testified about the maps last fall, Vos admitted he “used partisanship” in drawing them. Basically, he confessed to the crime of gerrymandering.

But he bragged that it was legal, so we got to make it illegal.

There’s a huge grassroots effort in Wisconsin to ban gerrymandering. Already, 56 of our 72 counties have passed resolutions and referendums urging the Legislature to outlaw it.

And there’s a huge Wisconsin Supreme Court race coming up in April that will determine the ideological balance of the court. If a justice is elected who believes that gerrymandering undermines the will of the people, as guaranteed in our Wisconsin Constitution, then it’s possible that the Court could ban it.

Please go to fairmapswi.com to follow this issue and to see how you can help.

MADISON - Obscene amounts of money have been flooding into the race for governor here in Wisconsin.

This money has shattered the old record, with more than a staggering $100 million being spent here on this race. Here’s our post on it:

Spending in Wisconsin Gov Race Smashes Record

For the details on the biggest donors to the campaigns of Gov. Evers and Tim Michels, see these items:

See Evers’s Largest Contributors
See Michels’s Largest Contributors

And for a glimpse at the biggest spenders by the outside “independent expenditure” groups, see this posting:

Outside Spending Hits Horrifying New High

Enough already! We need to put a limit on all this spending because it’s not only splattering our screens with mud, it’s drowning out our voices.

Here at the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, we’ll press forward on this crucial issue of campaign finance reform.

You can count on that!

Best,

Matt Rothschild
Executive Director
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MADISON - A coalition partner of ours at a group called American Oversight asked me to send them a statement about the assault on voting rights here in Wisconsin, so this is what I wrote:

The Wisconsin GOP’s Shameful Two Years

This week, we’ve also been tracking the big money in the governor’s race. Here are our two posts on Evers and Michels:

Evers Raises $4.5M+ in About a Month

Michels Raises $5.4M+ in August Mostly from His Own Pocket

A couple things concern me about these reports. For one thing, should Michels just be able to waltz in and buy the governor’s mansion because he has unlimited personal funds?

And as for Evers, do we really want all those out-of-state donors pouring their big money in? What right do they have to influence who should be governor of Wisconsin when they don’t even live here?

These reports highlight the need for comprehensive campaign finance reform so that each of us gets an equal say in who gets elected.

We’re a long way from that right now.

I hope you have a nice weekend (it’ll be nicer if you don’t watch all the ugly campaign ads on your screens!).

Best,

Matt Rothschild
Executive Director
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Gov. Evers is right to call for binding referendums, and how this call echoes one from another progressive Wisconsin governor 111 years ago! - Matt Rothschild

MADISON - On Sept. 21, Gov. Tony Evers made a bold move: He came out in favor of binding referendums, and he called the Legislature back to vote on beginning the process of amending our Wisconsin Constitution to provide for such popular sovereignty.

Noting the motto inscribed in the Capitol that proclaims, “ The will of the people is the law of the land,” Evers pointed out that this is no longer true in Wisconsin – especially on abortion rights.

“Well, right now, today, when it comes to reproductive freedom, the will of the people isn’t the law of the land. And it damn well should be, folks. It really should,” Evers said.

Evers is right about reproductive freedom. In the latest Marquette Law School poll, 63 percent opposed the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and 83 percent of Wisconsinites favored allowing a woman to get an abortion in cases of rape and incest. And that included 70 percent of Republicans. Only 10 percent of Wisconsinites oppose such a provision. Yet with the overturning of Roe, Wisconsin, under the abortion ban passed back in 1849, doesn’t allow exceptions for rape and incest. (Tim Michels, by the way, opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest.)

And it’s not just the issue of reproductive freedom where the will of the people of Wisconsin is being denied. The Marquette Law School poll in August found that 78 percent of Wisconsinites favor paid medical leave for parents of new babies. And 69 percent favor legalizing marijuana (a whopping 83% favored legalizing medical marijuana in a previous Marquette poll).

The vast majority of Wisconsinites also favor banning gerrymandering, with 72 percent approval, according to a 2019 Marquette poll, and 87 percent approval, according to a 2021 poll by YouGov.

When We, the People, aren’t getting what we overwhelmingly want, there’s something seriously wrong with our democracy.

And one way to fix it is by giving us the right of binding referendums, as Evers is proposing.

After all, Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio have it. Why can’t we, here in Wisconsin?

In two cases over the past decade, Michigan and Ohio used it to great effect.

After Scott Walker rammed through Act 10, dealing a crushing blow to public sector unions, Republicans in Ohio passed a copy-cat bill, which was signed into law. But the people of Ohio wouldn’t stand for it, and they overturned it by referendum.

In Michigan, a grassroots activist named Katie Fahey was so appalled by the gerrymandering in her home state that she started a movement on Facebook to ban it, and she and other activists got hundreds of thousands of signatures to place the referendum on the ballot. And in 2018, it passed, and gerrymandering is no longer legal in Michigan.

Evers is not the first governor of Wisconsin to propose giving the people of Wisconsin such power. Back in 1911, Governor Francis McGovern asked the Legislature to amend the Wisconsin Constitution to allow binding referendums. “The great task of the time,” he said, “is how to make and keep government really representative of the people.” Binding referendums “embody but one idea: that of placing the people in actual control of public affairs.”

So here we are, 111 years later, and that remains the great task of our time, because the people of Wisconsin still don’t have actual control of our public affairs, and our government is still not really representative of the people.

We’ve got to change that, and Tony Evers has the right idea to do so.

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MADISON - Our research team just did an interesting study of the top 10 donors to the legislative campaign committees in Wisconsin. See if you can guess who was number 1. Also on the list: a Wal-Mart heir who lives in Arkansas. Here’s our post:

Check Out the Top Contributors to the Wisconsin Legislative Campaign Committees

This week, as you may have heard, a judge down in Waukesha tied the hands of municipal clerks, forbidding them from fixing even the most picayune errors that the witness – not the voter! – made in filling out their address. Here’s what I had to say about that:

Waukesha Judge Sides with Republicans on Petty Disqualifications

I’d also like to share with you what I wrote about Pres. Biden’s speech late last week in Philadelphia:

Three Cheers for Biden in Defending Democracy

Biden and all of us need to keep calling out the anti-democracy forces for what they are. Now’s not the time to pussyfoot around!

I hope you have a nice weekend.

Best,

Matt Rothschild
Executive Director
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