Bill Would Restrict Credit Card Campaign Contributions

Republican lawmakers are pushing a bill to bar any political party or candidate from accepting online credit card donations unless the contributor provides a verification code and U.S. address.

The bill is part of growing right-wing scrutiny of the Democratic fundraising juggernaut ActBlue, fueled in large part by President Donald Trump. ActBlue has called the allegations politically motivated.

During a public hearing before the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections on Wednesday, questions were raised about how the state could enforce the requirement and whether it would stop potential foreign contributions. The measure’s sponsors, Rep. Dave Murphy, R-Greenville, and Sen. Cory Tomczyk, R-Mosinee, touted their bill as an election integrity measure.

Tomczyk told the committee that campaigning for office can be hectic and sometimes candidates aren’t aware of who is donating to their campaigns or where the money is coming from.

“What does become a problem is when campaigns accept donations from the same person using the same address multiple times, sometimes hundreds of times a day, in small increments, odd increments, all in the same day,” Tomczyk said. “That, while weird, very weird, is not illegal.”

Murphy said the bill would “prevent foreign money from sneaking into our campaigns and stop bad actors from funneling contributions through straw donors, which undermines our campaign finance laws here in Wisconsin.”

Their bill is based on model legislation from the conservative Wisconsin Faith and Freedom Coalition, which has accused ActBlue of processing billions of dollars worth of “unverified contributions.” It would prohibit political committees, conduits and parties from accepting donations made with a credit card unless the donor provides a credit card verification value, or CVV, and a U.S. billing address.

John Pudner, representing a group called Freedom and Family Action, said the idea of requiring credit card verification for campaign contributions used to be a nonpartisan issue. Pudner said that changed in 2020 when Trump embraced the idea.

Wisconsin bill comes amid investigations into ActBlue launched by Steil, Trump

Republicans took notice, and in 2023, U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Janesville, began investigating ActBlue through his role as chair of the House Committee on Administration.

Steil followed up by introducing legislation requiring credit card verification for online donations and sent letters to attorneys general in Republican-led states like Texas, Virginia and Florida. He also subpoenaed ActBlue for additional documents in October 2024.

After retaking the White House, Trump followed up in April with a directive to Attorney General Pam Bondi and the U.S. Treasury Department to investigate ActBlue, citing Steil’s work.

ActBlue responded with a statement claiming that Steil’s investigation and subsequent report was “grossly misleading” and a political venture.

“Rather than a legitimate exercise in legislative oversight, our worst fears have been confirmed — the investigation is being used to serve a separate agenda: fabricating a foundation for a politically motivated criminal probe ordered by the President of the United States,” the statement said.

Pudner said ActBlue has been voluntarily requiring credit card verification numbers for donations this year, but argued the Wisconsin bill is still necessary.

“If we don’t want new platforms to say, ‘Hey, we’ll fill the void, this worked really well,’ we’d just like everyone to have the same baseline verification,” Pudner said. “So that is our hope in this bill.”

Wisconsin group focused on ‘smurfing’ claims says GOP bill doesn’t go far enough

Also speaking in favor of the bill was Julie Seegers, who told the committee she was representing a Wisconsin-based group called Election Watch, which has been accusing state lawmakers of benefiting from what conservatives call “smurfing.”

The term refers to allegations among conservatives that ActBlue and other groups take large campaign donations and funnel them through thousands of individuals without their knowledge, a claim that has not been verified.

Election Watch is led by activist Peter Bernegger, a convicted felon who has filed several legal actions in courts across the state and was warned by Wisconsin State Capitol Police that his behavior toward Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe “could be interpreted as ‘stalking’” under state statute. In 2024, Bernegger was hit with criminal charges for allegedly falsifying a subpoena tied to a lawsuit against the elections commission.

Seegers said the bill requiring CVV codes is a start, but it doesn’t address people or fundraising groups using prepaid gift cards to hide where political donations are coming from.

“You can’t trace those back to a person, a ‘smurf,’ that’s being used,” Seegers said. “You can’t trace it back to their bank, their name, their address.”

Murphy said he’d be willing to discuss ways to “strengthen the bill” with her.

Finance watchdog says lawmakers should focus on independent fundraising instead

The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a campaign finance watchdog, registered as officially neutral on the GOP bill. But Beverly Speer, the group’s operations and policy director, told the committee that while her organization supports transparency and accountability, “this bill will have a limited positive effect.”

Speer said the legislation puts the burden of enforcement on financial institutions, rather than fundraising groups. She said it would likely have no impact on independent, nonprofit political fundraising groups, “that don’t report the source of their income to the state, or in many cases, any government body.”

“For that matter, how will the state go about enforcing such a law?” Speers said. “The bill as written would have minimal impact on direct fraud, does nothing to address the real damage to our elections and democratic institutions from independent expenditures, and other ways foreign money can still flood elections. We hope to see more legislation that shines light on dark money.”

The committee’s vice chair, Rep. Scott Krug, R-Rome, countered and suggested the bill is a step in the right direction. He said lawmakers can deal with the other campaign funding sources in other legislation.

“I would agree,” Speers said. “But given how we never have hearings on any other bill, we have to take this opportunity when we can.”

Listen to the WPR report

Wisconsin GOP bill aims to clamp down on credit card campaign contributions was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.