Posted: April 1, 2019
Updated: July 1, 2022

(The totals in this profile have been revised to include figures from additional SEIU PACs that were not included in the original posting of this profile. An updated version of this profile was posted in July 2022.)

After several years of mostly funneling money to other special interest groups, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) directly spent more than any other union on outside electioneering activities in last November’s general election.

March 29, 2019

Outside electioneering groups have spent nearly $2.8 million to oppose or support the candidates in next Tuesday’s Wisconsin Supreme Court election.

March 26, 2019

Labor union political action committees (PACs) and state and local Republican Party committees contributed about $300,000 since early February to the two candidates who will face off in next Tuesday’s election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

March 21, 2019

Special interest groups have spent about $1.3 million on outside electioneering activities in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race.

March 19, 2019

A state judge has quashed a state permit granted by former Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s administration that allowed a major GOP contributor to build a golf course along Lake Michigan.

March 13, 2019

Owners and employees of two Wisconsin businesses cited in an annual pollution report for being among the top chemical waste dumpers in 2017 contributed about $11,700 to mostly Republican legislative and statewide candidates.

March 8, 2019

Less than a month before the April 2 elections, six special interest groups are spending more than $400,000 on outside electioneering activities in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race.

March 6, 2019

Nearly 800 Wisconsin contributors gave a record $10.3 million in 2018 to political nonprofit groups that sponsor electioneering activities to influence state and federal elections.

March 6, 2019

Spending by candidates and special interest smear groups in the 2018 fall legislative races hit a record $35.8 million, according to a Wisconsin Democracy Campaign analysis.

March 1, 2019

Marlene Ricketts lives in Omaha, Neb., but she is throwing some of her money around in Wisconsin. In fact, she is tied for first for making the single largest campaign contribution in Wisconsin in 2018.

February 26, 2019

Assembly and Senate Republican leaders say they’ll oppose a plan by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers to freeze enrollment in the state’s school voucher programs, whose supporters spend millions of dollars to elect state GOP candidates.

February 20, 2019

Two appeals court judges vying for an open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court raised more than $400,000 combined during the first five weeks of the year.

Sen. Larson Unveils a “Campaign Integrity Package” at a press conference Feb. 14, at 11:00 a.m., in the Senate Parlor

February 14, 2019

MADISON—At a press conference this Valentine’s Day, Sen. Chris Larson of Milwaukee is unveiling nine bills that address Wisconsin’s broken campaign finance system.

February 8, 2019

Here is a look at donors who gave $100,000 checks or more to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin or the Republican Party of Wisconsin last year.

February 5, 2019

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers says he wants to close a loophole that big box stores and other companies use to lower their tax assessment and force homeowners to pay higher property taxes.

February 4, 2019

The state Democratic and Republican parties and four legislative fundraising committees accepted nearly $1.7 million in corporate contributions in 2018, a Wisconsin Democracy Campaign preliminary review found.

February 1, 2019

This new outside electioneering group, which shares the same Milwaukee address as a political consultant and aide to two former Democratic governors, spent more than $700,000 on Wisconsin legislative races last fall.

January 24, 2019

Spending by the candidates and outside electioneering groups who smeared them in the 2018 governor’s race set a record of more than $93 million, a Wisconsin Democracy Campaign analysis shows.

January 24, 2019

The 2018 Wisconsin attorney general’s race cost a record $14 million, with outside electioneering groups sharply outspending the candidates, a Wisconsin Democracy Campaign review shows.

Posted: January 17, 2019
Updated: March 1, 2019

Madison — On Tuesday, January 22, Rep. Lisa Subeck (D-Madison) and Sen. Dave Hansen (D-Green Bay) will be holding a press conference to unveil their resolutions (AJR11 and SJR9) that would give Wisconsinites a chance to weigh in on the role of big money in elections. The resolutions propose a statewide advisory referendum urging our elected officials to amend the U.S. Constitution to overturn Citizens United v. FEC and related Supreme Court rulings, and to declare that only flesh-and-blood human beings have constitutional rights.

January 16, 2019

Two appeals court judges vying for an open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court in April raised a combined $641,000 in the last half of 2018, and many of their largest contributors were longtime partisan donors.

January 14, 2019

Renewed efforts to criminalize first-offense drunk driving in Wisconsin face tough prospects despite support from a bipartisan group of state legislators and a new Democratic governor.

January 9, 2019

Matt Rothschild’s testimony for today’s hearing on “Marsy’s Law,” a victims’ rights resolution that the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign opposes, as it would violate the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The resolution passed in the last session of the legislature, and if it passes in this session, it would then go to statewide referendum to amend Wisconsin’s constitution. The Wisconsin resolution is part of a nationwide effort spearheaded by the billionaire Henry Nicholas, who has spent $72 million in six other states so far to amend their constitutions, according to Forbes. In the last legislative session in Wisconsin, a lobbying group calling itself Marsy’s Law for Wisconsin, LLC, spent a whopping $864,710 on the resolution here.

January 9, 2019

One Wisconsinite made it into the top 100 donors in federal races in the last election cycle, and that’s Diane Hendricks of ABC Supply in Beloit.

January 8, 2019

Senior executives of the two companies building a controversial powerline in southwestern Wisconsin have been greasing the skids in Madison.