Service Employees Union Spends Big

Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is one of the largest unions in the country with about 2 million members and a large budget and a formidable ground game to influence local, state, and federal elections.

SEIU, which represents public and private sector workers in state and local government, health care, and the property and food service industries, makes direct contributions, sponsors outside electioneering activities, and organizes get-out-the-vote drives on behalf of Democratic candidates.

Nationally, the SEUI has been ramping up its political spending and electioneering activities for years. In Wisconsin, the union has sharply increased its electioneering activities in legislative and statewide contests in recent years.

Since 2010, the union has dropped more than $2.3 million to support Democratic candidates for the legislature and governor and left-leaning candidates in nonpartisan Wisconsin Supreme Court contests. Most of the group’s outlay has occurred since 2018, and made it one of the top spenders on outside electioneering activities in the state.

The SEIU has used seven political action committees (PACs), unregistered express advocacy committees, and a corporation to sponsor disclosed independent expenditures. Unlike other electioneering groups, the SEIU does not hide it election expenditures by using undisclosed phony issue ads.

Here are the races where the SEIU has spent the most:

$718,672 to support Democratic candidates for governor in 2018. Most of the spending supported Tony Evers and his running mate, Mandela Barnes, who defeated incumbent GOP Gov. Scott Walker;

$417,404 to support Dane County Circuit Court Judge Jill Karofsky, who defeated incumbent Justice Dan Kelly for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2020;

$142,046 to support Appeals Judge Lisa Neubauer, who lost to Appeals Judge Brian Hagedorn for an open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2019;

$138,754 to support Democrat Mary Burke, who unsuccessfully challenged Walker’s 2014 reelection bid.

The remaining $911,560 was spent by the union to support Democratic candidates in dozens of legislative races in 2014, 2019, and 2020.

Shortly after the 2018 elections, the SEIU and other groups that back Democrats filed lawsuits in challenging the constitutionality of lame-duck laws enacted by the GOP-controlled legislature and the outgoing Walker to limit the authority of Evers and Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul. Ultimately, the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which was controlled by conservatives, ruled that the lame-duck laws were constitutional.

In addition to outside spending on elections, SEIU PACs made direct contributions to Democratic legislative and statewide candidates and fundraising committees in Wisconsin totaling $760,235 from 2010 through December 2022, including:

$123,500 to 2018 Democratic primary candidate for governor Mahlon Mitchell;

$114,500 to Democratic Governor Tony Evers;

$112,015 to the Assembly Democratic Campaign Committee;

$84,500 to the State Senate Democratic Committee;

$60,000 to 2012 Democratic primary candidate for governor Kathleen Falk.

The SEIU is registered to lobby on state policy and spending issues but spends sharply less on lobbying than electioneering. From 2010 through 2021, SEIU spent about $253,750 on lobbying.

In most of those years, the SEIU identified few or no bills it lobbied. Two of the SEIU’s longtime key federal and state issues have been affordable health care, increasing the minimum wage, and opposing right-to-work proposals.