Jobs First Coalition Backs Republicans

Jobs First Coalition is a Brookfield-based conservative group that has spent nearly $2.6 million since 2010 on electioneering activities mostly to support Republican legislative candidates in Wisconsin.

Over the years, the group’s electioneering activities have been mostly mailings and television and radio ads and mailings that accuse Democratic legislative candidates of supporting higher taxes and government spending, college tuition breaks for undocumented persons, and the federal Affordable Care Act often nicknamed Obamacare. Here’s a sample of some of the group’s work over the years – here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Since it first surfaced in the 2010 general elections, Jobs First, a 501(4) political nonprofit, has spent nearly $2 million on electioneering through reported independent expenditures made by a corporation and a 527 group called Jobs First Coalition Political Fund, which is registered in Wisconsin as an independent expenditure committee. The group also spent an estimated $615,100 on undisclosed phony issue ads. Here are some of the group’s top-spending races:

• $167,793 to support Republican freshman Rep. Treig Pronschinske, of Mondovi, in the 92nd Assembly race in 2018;
• $153,492 to support Republican Eric Wimberger, of Green Bay, in the 30th Senate race in 2020;
• $143,195 to support Republican Loren Oldenburg, of Viroqua, in the 96th Assembly race in 2018;
• $138,424 to support Republican Rep. Rob Stafsholt, of New Richmond, in the 10th Senate race in 2020;
• $129,044 to support Republican Rep. Todd Novak, of Dodgeville, in the 51st Assembly race in 2016.

Jobs First Coalition was one of about 30 conservative groups under a John Doe investigation into whether Republican Gov. Scott Walker‘s campaign illegally coordinated with issue advocacy groups during the 2011 and 2012 recall elections.  The probe was shut down by a Wisconsin Supreme Court  ruling in July 2015 that found coordination between candidates and issue ad groups was legal, among other things.  The U.S. Supreme Court later refused to hear an appeal of the state Supreme Court’s ruling.

More recently, the Campaign for Accountability, a campaign finance watchdog, filed a complaint in late 2020 with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service that accused Jobs First of failing to report $920,000 in campaign spending in 2016 and 2018 on its annual tax forms to support 13 GOP legislative candidates.

Jobs First Coalition has close ties to former and current GOP legislative leaders. Former Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen, who was disgraced in the caucus scandal of 2001, helped create and raise money for the group. And since 2013, the group’s chief fundraiser has been Michelle Litjens, the wife of Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and a former GOP legislator. IRS records that are available show Litjens raised over $6 million for the group and was paid about $462,650 for her services between 2013 and 2019.

Bob Reddin, a Brookfield alderman and former Milwaukee radio reporter, has been identified in various documents as the group’s executive director or treasurer since 2010. The other leaders of Jobs First include Mary Jo Baas, president; Candee Arndt, vice president; Mike Dean, secretary; and John Gard, former Republican Speaker of the Assembly, a director.

Baas, owner of the political consulting firm Liberty House Consulting, was a longtime Wisconsin Women’s Council member, lobbyist, Republican aide, and GOP campaign worker. She is married to Steve Baas, who is a lobbyist for the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce.

Arndt is a GOP activist and former Republican National Convention at-large delegate. Dean is a Waukesha lawyer and former counsel for the conservative First Freedoms Foundation.

In addition to its direct spending on elections, Jobs First also transferred large amounts of cash to other GOP electioneering groups and rightwing ideological groups between 2013 and 2016, including: $827,500 to the pro-school-voucher American Federation for Children, $345,000 to Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, and $187,000 to the American Majority.