December 11, 2014

The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign today announced that veteran journalist Matt Rothschild will replace Mike McCabe as the group’s executive director.

Republican groups got twice as much as Democratic groups

September 10, 2014

Madison – Wisconsin contributors gave $5.3 million between January 2013 and June 2014 to political groups that can raise and spend unlimited amounts on electioneering activities but must disclose the donations to federal tax authorities, a Wisconsin Democracy Campaign review found.

Legislative candidates accepted nearly $4 million between January and June

August 7, 2014

Madison – Legislative candidates and fundraising committees accepted nearly $4 million during the first half of 2014 and incumbents held an $8 to $1 cash advantage over challengers at the end of June, a Wisconsin Democracy Campaign review found.

Walker, partisan divide fueled out-of-state contributions in 2013

July 8, 2014

Madison – Wealthy out-of-state special interests continued to flood Wisconsin with millions of dollars in contributions in 2013 – a trend that began a few years earlier with unprecedented recall elections that drew national attention from big-money donors.

Legislators accepted $2 of every $3 from donors who couldn’t vote for them

June 17, 2014

Madison – Legislators who approved a state budget and dozens of other policy and spending proposals in 2013 that benefited special interests accepted $2 of every $3 in campaign contributions from well-heeled donors who could not vote for them, a Wisconsin Democracy Campaign review found.

Posted: June 4, 2014
Updated: October 8, 2014

The statistics below are based on documents published by the Government Accountability Board (GAB). Updated to reflect board action on June 11. An asterisk (*) indicates a change since the original posting.

Just a handful of high-end donors could bury state and local elections in cash

April 30, 2014

Madison – Wealthy donors could have funneled more than $6 million each to candidates in the 2010 and 2012 state and local elections if the state’s $10,000 aggregate annual limit on campaign contributions had not existed, a Wisconsin Democracy Campaign analysis found.

April 3, 2014

Mike McCabe will be stepping aside as the Democracy Campaign’s director at the end of 2014. At the request of members of WDC’s board of directors, Mike has agreed to stay involved with the organization by joining the board once a new executive director is hired.

Republicans have three times more cash stashed away than Dems

February 26, 2014

Madison – Republican legislative campaign committees started the 2014 election year with nearly three times more cash in their campaign accounts than Democrats, and both parties used mega-fundraising committees to milk special interests for nearly a third of the legislative campaign cash raised in 2013, a Wisconsin Democracy Campaign analysis found.

Citizen groups to Assembly: Bring money-in-politics resolution to a vote

January 21, 2014

On the fourth anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s infamous decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, an alliance of 34 citizen groups called on the state Assembly to vote on a legislative proposal to authorize a statewide referendum in November 2014 on whether the U.S. Constitution should be amended to effectively overturn Citizens United and related decisions that have intensified the influence of money in politics and diminished the voices of ordinary citizens.

Voters, campaign contributors color Wisconsin differently

January 7, 2014

Madison – Wisconsin’s voting patterns may be purple, but its money is distinctly red, according to a Democracy Campaign review of 10 years worth of campaign contributions by zip code.