Hijacking Campaign 2023 | Independent Expenditures | Issue Ads | Candidates | Campaign 2023
Posted: February 18, 2023
Updated: March 26, 2024
Spring: Oath • Spending
Special: Oath • Spending
This independent disbursement committee is run by Wisconsin Family Action, a conservative group that opposes gay marriage and domestic partnerships. Between disclosed independent expenditures and undisclosed issue ads, this group spent over $1.26 million between 2010 and 2022 to support Republican and conservative candidates for legislative and statewide offices in Wisconsin.
Supreme Court (Spring)
Four candidates – two conservatives and two liberals – vied for an open 10-year seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2023. The four faced off in a Feb. 21 primary where the top two finishers moved on to the April 4 general election to replace retiring conservative Justice Patience Roggensack.
The winner of the election would determine the ideological balance of the court, which was controlled 4-3 by conservatives at the time of the election. The winners in the primary were former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly, a conservative, and Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal. Kelly, an appointee to the court in 2016 by former GOP Governor Scott Walker, lost the seat in the 2020 election.
Protasiewicz won the election and joined the court the following August giving liberals a 4-3 majority on the court.
Wisconsin Family action reported spending about $6,200 on texts and phone calls to support Kelly in the primary.
The group spent about a further $249,000 for text, phone calls and online advertisements to support Kelly in the general election.
Special
A special election primary to fill the vacant 8th State Senate District in suburban Milwaukee was held at the same time as the primary for the high court. The GOP primary was contested by three candidates including two sitting members of the State Assembly, Rep. Dan Knodl and Rep. Janel Brandtjen. Brandtjen, an Assembly Republican from Menomonee Falls since 2014, is a supporter of Trump and his false claims that the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost, was stolen. Knodl won the primary and went on to defeat Democrat Jodi Habush Sinykin in the April 4 election. There was no Democratic primary.
The day after the special election primary, the committee reported it had spent about $44 for texts to support Brandtjen.
Last active election: 2022
This organization is registered with the Wisconsin Ethics Commission as an independent expenditure committee following the January 2010 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. FEC.