Corporate Campaign Cash Sets Record

100 Dollar Bill. Photo by Dave Reid.

Corporate contributions to Wisconsin’s parties and their legislative campaign committees set a new record in 2022, the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign reported Thursday, with Republicans out-collecting Democrats.

Combined corporate donations totaled $2.29 million, the campaign finance watchdog group reported, a 36% increase over 2018, when the last record was set for corporate political contributions: $1.68 million.

All corporate political giving was outlawed in Wisconsin elections until 2016, when Republican Gov. Scott Walker and a GOP-majority Legislature enacted legislation permitting it, part of a broader relaxation of the state’s campaign finance laws.

The law now states that corporate donations to parties and party committees must be segregated and cannot be used to fund campaigns or pay for express advocacy. But Matt Rothschild, the Democracy Campaign’s executive director, says that the restriction means little because corporate money, which is supposed to fund office operations and similar expenses, frees up other donations to go toward campaigns.

The Wisconsin Republican Party and the party’s Assembly and Senate campaign committees received $1.81 million in 2022. Nearly $1.6 million of that was divided between the two legislative campaign committees, with the party collecting the remaining $230,000.

The Democratic Party and the Democrats’ Assembly and Senate campaign committees took in $482,930 — a little more than 25% of what the GOP and the GOP committees collected, according to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign’s calculations. That includes $279,000 that went to the Democratic legislative committees and $204,930 to the Democratic Party organization.

“The corporate contributions came from about 200 sources,” the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign stated in its summary of corporate contributions. “The sources were businesses, tribes, unions, and trade associations representing health care, tourism, manufacturing, finance, natural resources, insurance, energy, and other powerful special interests.”

The largest donors gave to both parties and both parties’ legislative committees, although not necessarily equally.

Top givers included Forest County Potawatomi Community and the Oneida Tribe of Indians of Wisconsin; the Wisconsin Association of Health Plans; WEC Energy Group, owner of electrical utilities We Energies and Wisconsin Public Service; the Wisconsin Association of Justice, representing plaintiffs’ lawyers; and the Wisconsin Bankers Association.

Corporate campaign cash sets a new state record, watchdog reports was originally published by the Wisconsin Examiner.