Hijacking Campaign 2018 | Independent Expenditures | Issue Ads | Candidates | Offices | Campaign 2018
Posted: July 23, 2018
Updated: June 28, 2021
This is a new unregistered committee controlled by the Washington D.C.-based Service Employees International Union - SEIU. The committee, which does not have to report the source or amount of its fundraising to the state, made independent expenditures in Wisconsin elections on behalf of Democratic candidates.
The committee filed paperwork with the state in July showing it sponsored electioneering activities on behalf of Mahlon Mitchell, who is one of eight active Democratic candidates for governor seeking the party's nomination in the Aug. 14 primary to face Republican Gov. Scott Walker in November. Mitchell, president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin and the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor in the 2012 recall, lost the nomination to State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Evers.
At the end of September it first reported spending on behalf of the Democratic candidates for governor and lieutenant governor, Tony Evers and Mandela Barnes.
In late October it reported additonal spending on behalf of Evers and Barnes and in opposition to Walker.
There were two other SEIU affiliated committees involved in Wisconsin's 2018 elections: SEIU Healthcare Wisconsin and SEIU WI State Council.
Between 2002 and 2014, numerous SEIU political action committees made about $964,600 in independent expenditures in Wisconsin state elections for governor, attorney general, and the legislature. In addition, the union funneled at least $920,000 in 2012 to a corporation called We Are Wisconsin Political Fund, which was a coalition of national labor unions formed to defeat Walker in a June 2012 recall election.
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.