Dark Money Targets Supreme Court Race
Secretive Wisconsin Alliance for Reform will do ads, has connections to GOP, Koch Brothers.
Koch Brothers
This is a conservative phony issue ad group created in 2015 by former GOP legislative and state Republican Party staffers Luke Fuller and Chris Martin to support GOP and conservative candidates for legislative and statewide offices.
The Alliance describes itself as an anti-tax and pro-economic growth and small government organization whose members, which it does not identify, are individuals and community leaders. The group has used a Madison post office box and a Milwaukee phone number as its only contact information. The Alliance’s website was initially registered by Lorri Pickens, a former director at Americans for Prosperity (AFP), which is funded by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch to spend money on Republican and conservative candidates for state and federal offices around the country.
The Alliance’s decision to sponsor issue ads means that it can secretly raise and spend unlimited amounts of money on its outside electioneering activities. The group got involved in the 2016 spring and fall elections by sponsoring mailings and numerous broadcast ads in judicial and legislative races. The Alliance was the biggest spender in the 2016 Wisconsin Supreme Court race where it backed conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley and attacked her opponent, Appeals Court Judge JoAnne Kloppenburg, for her some of her legal decisions. The Alliance spent an estimated $2.3 million to back Bradley, who won the race.
During the 2018 Wisconsin Supreme Court race, the group purchased about $22,000 in ad time at television stations in Eau Claire and La Crosse about two weeks before the February 20th primary. The race features Sauk County Circuit Judge Michael Screnock, Madison lawyer Tim Burns, and Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Rebecca Dallet. Screnock has drawn support from conservatives.
The top two finishers in the primary will go on to the April 3 general election to face off for a 10-year seat on the high court formerly held by Justice Michael Gableman. Gableman, who decided not to seek reelection, is part of the Supreme Court’s 5-2 conservative majority.
Campaign Cash
-
Outside Groups Spent Record $28.8 Million on State Supreme Court Race
May 7th, 2023 by Erik Gunn
-
Top 20 Donors to State Political Parties
Apr 4th, 2023 by Peter Cameron and Hina Suzuki
-
$38 Million Spent on High Court Race
Mar 29th, 2023 by Erik Gunn
Career Politician Scott Walker and republicans sold Wisconsin off to the highest bidder y’all! We need to Dump Walker and all republicans so we can get all this Dark Money out of our once clean politics and take our state back from the mega-rich, the corporations and big money out of state donors that fund these republican charlatans campaigns. It’s make or break time y’all. November 2018 can’t come fast enough.
Dump Walker 2018
Dump all republicans 2018
Time to get that money flowing to The Honorable Michael Screnock! This state is moving ahead at a marvelous pace, and we can’t turn back from the Republican Revolution transforming Wisconsin into an economic and technological powerhouse for the next century!!
@WashCoRepub, Nobody believes you lying, cheating, scheming corrupt republicans anymore!
-$7.50 corporate welfare taxpayer subsidized factory jobs with no benefits won’t cut it anymore.
– Stealing our votes by republican gerrymandering won’t cut it anymore.
-Changing the laws to allow unlimited Dark Money into the state won’t cut it anymore.
-Career Politician Walker and republicans mooching off the government for decades while blaming the poor, the meek, disadvantaged and powerless won’t cut it anymore.
Republicans are scared as hell because they know the jig is up. Their corruption and scheming has been EXPOSED. That’s why Walker is panicking and canceled anymore special elections after republicans got pounded by democrats in District 10. Big Blue Wave coming in November!
Dump Walker 2018!
Terry, the days of. Public unions bossing the tax payer around is over. None of the candidates on the Democratic side are running on Act 10. Free at last. Free at last.
@Troll, Once again, stay on topic. This Dark Money has absolutely nothing to do with Act 10. Stay on topic Troll.
You want to know who is doing all the “bossing around” in Wisconsin these days? Follow the money! It’s the mega rich out of state donors that fund Career Politician Scott Walker’s and other republican’s political careers! Republicans and Walker are bought and paid for corporatist shills!
Dump Walker 2018
Thank you for admitting Act 10 is a success. Have a Koch it tastes better than Soros.
Koch brother are 15th on the list of big players, most of those aboveare Lefties.
@WCD, wrong. Cite your sources our GTFO.
DUMP WALKER 2018
DUMP ALL REPUBLICANS 2018
@Troll, Yet again, syay on subjecy. Act 10 has nothing to do with Walker selling out the state to the highest bidder. Nobody admitted anything. Stop sniffing so much Koch!
Dump Walker 2018!
Republicans are poised to pass a bill allowing developers to fill in the state’s wetlands without so much as a permit! Being called a ‘worst in a generation bill.’ Surely this will lead the state to the promised land!
What are these cretins thinking? They’d sell their first born child to make a quick buck! The electorate is not asking for this. It’s not solving any problem. 7 years of these same terrible bills no one is asking for except dark money corporate plutocrats.
I’m with Terry. Dump all vile, short-sighted, corrupt Republicans in 2018 and take back our natural heritage being sold for a quick buck.
@Adam, yes! Get your friends and families onboard as well if you can. We must take our state back from these corporate pirates, looters and profiteers. They raped all the land around me already, totally destroyed the once beautiful natural habitat and now they want to double down and open up mines! These republican madmen must be stopped in the November 2018 mid-term elections.
Dump Walker 2018