State Businesses Supported Group Pushing Capitol Rally
$279,000 donated to Republican Attorneys General Association pushing ‘Stop the Steal’ rally.
Tear gas outside the United States Capitol on 6 January 2021. Photo by Tyler Merbler from USA, (CC BY 2.0), via Wikimedia Commons
Wisconsin businesses and individuals contributed about $279,000 over the past three years to a Republican electioneering group that helped organize a protest that turned into a deadly mob attack at the U.S. Capitol last week.
An arm of the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) called the Rule of Law Defense Fund (RLDF) made robocalls urging listeners to attend a “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6 along with the time and location of the protest.
RAGA is a Washington, D.C.-based group, which raises and spends unlimited amounts from special interests to help elect state GOP attorneys general throughout the country. The group was active in the 2018 Wisconsin state elections, doling out more than $2.8 million on electioneering activities to attack Democratic candidate Josh Kaul. Kaul defeated incumbent Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel in that race.
Between January 2018 and late November 2020, RAGA received about $279,000 from about two dozen Wisconsin contributors.
The top contributors were:
MillerCoors (now Molson Coors), of Milwaukee, $75,000
Foley & Lardner, of Milwaukee, $60,950
Wisconsin Realtors Association, of Madison, $50,000
Kwik Trip, of La Crosse, $25,000
Klondike Properties, of Monroe, $20,000
Michael Best Strategies, of Madison, $15,875
Dairy Business Association, of Green Bay, $10,000
Forest County Potawatomi Community, of Crandon, $10,000
Kinnard Farms, of Casco, $2,500
Heller Farm Inc., of Alma Center, $2,000
Norm-e-Lane Inc., of Chili, $1,000
Pagel’s Ponderosa Dairy, of Kewaunee, $1,000
Shiloh Dairy, of Greenleaf, $1,000
RAGA operates as a 527 group, so named for the U.S. Internal Revenue Service rules that regulate them. These entities can raise and spend unlimited amounts from any source on electioneering activities like broadcast ads and mailings to smear or praise Democratic and Republican candidates in state and federal elections.
Update January 17: The Wisconsin Realtors Association contacted Urban Milwaukee to offer this response to the story:
“In June of 2018, the WRA made a $50,000 contribution to the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA). In 2018, RAGA was actively engaged in supporting attorney general candidates, like Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel, whom the WRA had endorsed due to his excellent record on issues important to the real estate industry.
“WRA’s contribution was not in any way related to any activities that took place before or after the 2018 election cycle, including the protests in Washington, D.C. earlier this month.”
If you think stories like this are important, become a member of Urban Milwaukee and help support real, independent journalism. Plus you get some cool added benefits.
More about the Chaos at the Capitol
- Hayward, WI Man Sentenced for Jan. 6 Attack - Frank Zufall - Jul 17th, 2024
- Police Officer Who Survived Jan. 6 Has a Warning for America - Erik Gunn - Apr 10th, 2024
- 3 Years After Jan. 6 Insurrection Where Do Wisconsin Cases Stand? - Sarah Lehr - Jan 7th, 2024
- Wisconsin Man Arrested for Assaulting Law Enforcement During Jan. 6 Capitol Breach - U.S. Department of Justice - Sep 7th, 2023
- State’s Top Elections Official Interviewed By Jan. 6 Investigators - Anya van Wagtendonk - Jul 19th, 2023
- Op Ed: Kaul Should Charge Ron Johnson, 10 Fake Electors - Matt Rothschild - Jan 8th, 2023
- WisDems Chair Ben Wikler Statement on the Anniversary of 1/6 - Democratic Party of Wisconsin - Jan 6th, 2023
- Congresswoman Gwen Moore Statement on Two-Year Anniversary of January 6th - U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore - Jan 6th, 2023
- Wisconsin GOP Chair Expressed Concern About Fake Electors Plan, Then Joined In - Shawn Johnson - Dec 23rd, 2022
- Report Calls For Criminally Charging State’s Fake Electors - Henry Redman - Dec 19th, 2022
Read more about Chaos at the Capitol here
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
Not sure what the point of these type of recent “shame the donors” articles is… However, I do have a question for the author at the very bottom of my comment….
To provide a little context….It is probably somewhat important to point out that during this same 3 year period, for instance, the top name on the donor list (Molson / Miller) contributed almost $9 million to the bank accounts of a very large # of the elected representatives in Congress.
These astronomically higher dollar amounts are unmentioned in this article, yet they the essentially direct bribes paid to elected officials (aka: 100% legal campaign contributions). They represent a much larger problem in our government.
When you do your next “shame the donor” piece, please seek out comments from our elected reps in Congress…. However I doubt you’d get anyone in Congress to respond because Molson /Miller, like most large corporations, simply write checks to members of both parties…. in in the same timeframe as your article, please note that Republican and Democrats all happily cashed checks from Molson / Miller, including these fine Democrats from Wisconsin:
Tammy Baldwin
Ron Kind
Marc Pocan
Gwen Moore
And a quick look at a 2 other names on the RAGA donor list… They happen to be some of Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin’s top donors for 2020…
Foley Lardner = $43k
Michael Best = $49k
And Gwen Moore cashed a huge check without any concerns last year…. That was a $15,400 contribution in the 2020 cycle to Ms Moore from another RAGA top donor, Potowotami.
I could keep going, but….
My question to the author is… if you’re gonna write this article, why don’t you have the guts to go all in? Why did you avoid calling out the WI politicians on both sides that are also cashing MUCH LARGER checks from these exact same donors?
As already pointed out in the above comment, I too felt the article needed a fuller description of the corporate giving patterns. A chart would be helpful comparing, for instance, the amount of donations to republicans and Democrats. I know large corporations give to both parties—it only makes sense—but it would help me get angry if, say, Miller Coors gave in a disproportionate amount to a right-wing entity that enabled and encouraged an attempted coup.
Corporate allegiance to “profit above all else” is at the heart of corrupting our system of governance.
Until Big Business is constrained from continuing to make obscene and unbridled contributions aimed at distorting democratic principles, our citizenry has little hope of restoring any sense of fairness to our “representative” democracy.
The demise of McCain-Feingold was a clear demonstration of Corporate America’s power to corrupt any attempt to reform
it’s malfeasance. Until we summon the societal will to disenfranchise the robber-barons, we can’t expect any better than we have.
Ward’s do the both sides defense which is stupid since Democrats aren’t supporting sedition. Pathetic.
Do you work for WiLL?