Hijacking Campaign 2018 | Independent Expenditures | Issue Ads | Candidates | Offices | Campaign 2018
Posted: June 18, 2018
Updated: June 28, 2021
This is a new unregistered committee created by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) to make independent expenditures in Wisconsin state elections. Like most unions, the SEIU generally supports Democratic candidates through political action committee contributions.
Between January 2010 and December 2017, numerous SEIU PACs contributed about $160,000 to Wisconsin legislative and statewide candidates. During the same period, the group's PACs and a corporation spent $139,161 on independent expenditures to support Democrats.
In mid-June, about five months before the state's fall elections, the committee sponsored billboards and outdoor advertising on behalf of Democratic candidate for governor Mahlon Mitchell. Mitchell, president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin and former Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor in the 2012 recall, was one of eight active candidates vying for the Democratic nomiation for governor. Just before the August 14 Democratic primary the committee reported spending on radio advertisements in the Milwaukee area to promote Mitchell. Mitchell lost the nomination to State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Evers.
There were two other SEIU affiliated committees involved in Wisconsin's 2018 elections: SEIU WI State Council and Service Employees International Union Committee on Political Education.
This organization is an unregistered independent expenditure committee that is required to report any such spending done within 60 days of a primary or an election to the Wisconsin Ethics Commission per Chapter 11, Subchapter X of Wisconsin Statutes.