Wisconsin
Mega donors fuel record-shattering $45M Wisconsin Supreme Court race – Wisconsin Watch
Studying Time: 7 minutes
Days earlier than the Wisconsin Supreme Courtroom election a serious union representing transit staff wrote an $18,000 examine to Milwaukee County Circuit Choose Janet Protasiewicz’s marketing campaign.
For the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents bus drivers and mechanics, it was an enormous donation in contrast with their earlier donation to a Wisconsin Supreme Courtroom candidate in 2018 for simply $250.
“There’s loads on the road with the Supreme Courtroom race right here,” stated Donnell Shorter, head of the ATU Native 998 in Milwaukee.
However that $18,000 is a drop within the bucket in contrast with the contributions of some dozen ultra-wealthy donors.
Latest filings present a complete of 41 particular person donors wrote Protasiewicz’s marketing campaign checks for the statutory most of $20,000. Former Justice Daniel Kelly’s marketing campaign obtained at the least 21 such donations over the identical interval.
The disparity between rich donors and contributions raised by working Wisconsinites doesn’t sit proper with Shorter.
“I symbolize mainly 1,600 individuals,” Shorter stated. “Their voices gained’t be heard as loudly as that one billionaire, that one celeb.”
Each campaigns have boasted record-shattering fundraising from their political allies, however a Wisconsin Watch evaluation reveals the lion’s share of marketing campaign money is coming from particular curiosity teams and a comparatively small variety of deep-pocket donors throughout the political spectrum.
Information present Protasiewicz obtained almost 25,000 particular person donations for $50 or much less, totaling $568,549. That’s nonetheless lower than the $820,000 donated by the highest 41 donors to her marketing campaign together with $20,000 checks from Hollywood director Steven Spielberg and his spouse, actress Kate Capshaw.
Kelly’s marketing campaign has persistently trailed in particular person donations giant and small. His marketing campaign obtained 3,803 particular person donations of $50 or much less totaling $139,620. That’s solely a 3rd of the quantity from his high 21 donors who wrote $20,000 checks.
And people are simply donations on to the candidate marketing campaign funds. A number of the most marketing campaign donors have additionally given $1 million or extra to political motion committees or political events to flood the web and airwaves with marketing campaign advertisements. And more cash has flowed into the marketing campaign through so-called “subject advocacy” teams that aren’t required to reveal their donors, also known as “darkish cash.”
Kelly leads in help when all spending is counted.
Political trackers estimate the Wisconsin Supreme Courtroom spending is on tempo to interrupt $45 million, demolishing the earlier document $10 million spent within the 2020 excessive courtroom contest. The earlier nationwide document was $15 million within the 2004 Illinois Supreme Courtroom election.
The infusion of supersized checks from each philanthropists and industrialists has good governance teams aghast.
“There’s simply an obscene sum of money on each side of this factor, which raises some severe questions for our democracy,” stated Matt Rothschild, government director of the Wisconsin Democracy Marketing campaign. “The voices of common Wisconsinites are being drowned out, so we don’t have an equal say as to who’s having affect over our elections.”
Out-of-state donors dig deep for liberal trigger
Protasiewicz’s marketing campaign has benefited from donors equivalent to Oklahoma power heirs Lynn and Stacy Schusterman, who every donated $20,000 and likewise a mixed $1 million to the state Democratic Occasion.
In response to Wisconsin marketing campaign finance data, Manhattan dance college director Hana Ginsburg Tirosh wrote a $20,000 examine to Protasiewicz’s marketing campaign. She and her Wall Avenue dealer husband Raz Tirosh made headlines for buying actress Susan Saranadon’s $7.9 million Manhattan loft in 2020.
Raz Tirosh’s agency, Jane Avenue, was known as “the highest Wall Avenue agency nobody’s heard of,” in line with a 2021 Monetary Instances profile, having traded $17 trillion in belongings in 2020 alone.
No less than three of his colleagues at Jane Avenue — Sandor Lehoczky, Ron Minsky and James McClave, and their companions — additionally gave max marketing campaign contributions, rising the money haul from households tied to the agency to $120,000.
That very same day, simply 5 days earlier than the February main, a pair of $20,000 donations additionally arrived from San Francisco courtesy of Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson and his doctor spouse Erica.
The Protasiewicz marketing campaign didn’t straight handle whether or not the mixed $200,000 in most donations had been someway coordinated in a 24-hour span in mid-February.
Marketing campaign spokesperson Sam Roecker stated Protasiewicz didn’t journey out-of-state to solicit the funds. He stated it’s no shock the race is receiving nationwide consideration. As of the March 27 pre-election submitting deadline, her marketing campaign has raised greater than $15 million.
“It’s extensively recognized that Wisconsin’s Supreme Courtroom got here one vote in need of overturning the 2020 election,” Roecker wrote in an announcement. “So there’s curiosity throughout the nation in ensuring Choose Janet Protasiewicz, the pro-democracy and pro-rule-of-law candidate, is elected over an excessive right-wing activist like Dan Kelly.”
Committees do heavy lifting for Kelly camp
Earlier than the first, Kelly’s marketing campaign reported a pair of $20,000 donations — from Leonard Leo, co-chair of the conservative Federalist Society and Beloit industrialist Diane Hendricks, a top-tier Republican Occasion patron, who not too long ago gave $200,000 to the Wisconsin GOP. However subsequent marketing campaign data present a flurry of exercise with at the least 21 people writing $20,000 checks to the marketing campaign.
They embrace Michael White, chair and proprietor of main Milwaukee industrial producer Ceremony-Hite, who penned an notorious e-mail warning his 1,400 staff of “private penalties” if President Barack Obama was re-elected in 2012.
Northwestern Mutual chair and CEO John Schlifske and his spouse Kim additionally contributed a mixed $40,000.
The household homeowners of Sargento Meals, the Plymouth-based cheese large, additionally gave generously to the Kelly marketing campaign, with retired government Louis Gentine and his spouse Michelle shelling out $20,000 every along with the $100,000 he gave to the Wisconsin GOP. His son, Sargento CEO Louie Gentine, adopted swimsuit three days later with a most donation of his personal.
For Kelly, different in-state pursuits embrace Wisconsin Producers & Commerce, the state’s largest enterprise foyer. Actual property pursuits have additionally contributed about $37,000 from their membership and a Realtors’ PAC.
Protasiewicz seems to carry a lopsided benefit in direct donations. However that’s not the entire story, cautioned Douglas Keith of the Brennan Middle for Justice, which tracks cash in politics.
That’s as a result of Kelly’s core mega donors have funneled thousands and thousands into committees operating assault advertisements in opposition to his opponent. Wisconsin Democracy Marketing campaign estimates $13.7 million has been spent supporting Kelly or attacking his opponents. Protasiewicz’s allies have spent almost $11.2 million on her behalf.
“Dan Kelly is elevating considerably much less cash than Janet Protasiewicz,” Keith stated. “However Dan Kelly additionally has gotten considerably extra exterior cash help.”
Illinois billionaire Richard “Dick” Uihlein has funneled at the least $4 million into the Truthful Courts America PAC that he controls.
The PAC spent at the least $5.4 million on promoting attacking Kelly’s opponents together with throughout the main. And it’s solely one among a number of committees that has spent thousands and thousands in advocacy and assault promoting within the Wisconsin race. His spouse, Elizabeth Uihlein, gave $500,000 to the Wisconsin Republican Occasion throughout the marketing campaign.
Whereas donors face caps on direct donations to campaigns, PACs can obtain limitless contributions. And critics say they usually blur guidelines designed to create a firewall between a candidate’s marketing campaign and committees elevating limitless money.
“They’ll do no matter they need,” Keith stated. “However the restrict on them is that they will’t coordinate with the candidates, as a result of then it turns into not unbiased spending, it turns into a contribution to the candidate.”
In follow that’s usually a wink-and-a-nod association between a candidate and rich backers, Keith stated.
“I see candidates not elevating the sum of money you’d count on them to lift,” Keith stated of direct donations, “which suggests to me that they’ve a purpose to assume that they don’t want to lift as a lot cash as candidates prior to now have raised.”
Even so, Kelly’s marketing campaign has tried to single out his opponent as beholden to exterior pursuits.
“Janet Protasiewicz is D.C. liberals’ taste of the week as a result of they know she can be probably the most overtly partisan judicial activist Wisconsin has ever seen,” Kelly marketing campaign spokesperson Ben Voekel wrote in an announcement to Wisconsin Watch. “Whereas (she) depends on out-of-state mega donors and state occasion bosses to fund her marketing campaign, Justice Kelly is proud to have the help of grassroots activists throughout the state of Wisconsin.”
‘Billionaires on the left, billionaires on the best’
Observers like Rothschild lament that the race is being run on money from a comparatively small cadre of donors on either side.
“It appears prefer it’s boiling right down to a race to see whether or not (state Democratic Occasion chair) Ben Wikler can velocity dial billionaires sooner than Richard Uihlein can switch cash into his misnamed Truthful Courts PAC,” Rothschild stated. “And that’s not how our democracy is meant to perform.”
Wisconsin Producers & Commerce, a conservative pro-business group, has spent greater than $5.8 million by means of its public advocacy arm on political advertisements, in line with the Brennan Middle’s monitoring. As a result of it runs “subject advertisements” that don’t explicitly advocate for or assault a candidate, they aren’t required to register as a marketing campaign group or disclose their funding.
A Higher Wisconsin Collectively Political Fund, a coalition of labor unions and progressive social advocacy teams, has spent greater than $5 million on advert buys attacking Kelly’s stance on abortion and different points.
That’s how organized labor will get across the $18,000 spending cap on direct contributions to Supreme Courtroom candidates. Main nationwide unions like American Federation of Lecturers have contributed $500,000, whereas the Worldwide Union of Working Engineers PAC has forked over $300,000 to A Higher Wisconsin Collectively.
The Monona-based political fund has additionally obtained at the least 1 / 4 million {dollars} from Lynde Uihlein, a extra liberal cousin of Richard Uihlein, whose household’s wealth might be traced again to the Schlitz beer dynasty. That’s on high of the $400,000 Lynde Uihlein gave to the state Democratic Occasion.
Simply south of the border, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker — a billionaire from a distinguished resort chain dynasty — not too long ago donated $20,000 on to the Protasiewicz marketing campaign and reduce a $1 million examine to the Wisconsin’s Democratic Occasion.
The nominally nonpartisan race is flush with occasion money. Filings present the state’s Democratic Occasion has spent greater than $9.3 million to help Protasiewicz’s marketing campaign. She pledged to recuse herself from any instances delivered to the excessive courtroom by Democrats. Kelly’s marketing campaign has obtained greater than $578,000 from the state Republican Occasion and varied county committees.
A change of state legislation in 2015 eliminated caps on donations to events and allowed events to make limitless contributions to candidates.
Wisconsin Watch reached out to greater than a dozen ultra-wealthy donors who reduce $20,000 checks to the Protasiewicz or Kelly campaigns.
Solely a handful replied. None had been prepared to remark.
The nonprofit Wisconsin Watch (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with WPR, PBS Wisconsin, different information media and the College of Wisconsin-Madison College of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, printed, posted or disseminated by Wisconsin Watch don’t essentially replicate the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its associates.
Republish our articles at no cost, on-line or in print, underneath a Inventive Commons license.
Illinois police shooting Wisconsin, new video
An Illinois police officer who fatally shot a suspect in Wisconsin in March will not be charged, the Rock County District Attorney’s Office announced on Friday.
BELOIT, Wis. – An Illinois police officer who fatally shot a suspect in Wisconsin in March will not be charged, the Rock County District Attorney’s Office announced on Friday.
The fatal shooting happened on Saturday morning, March 16 – one of two officer-involved shootings involving the same suspect.
Authorities said the first shooting happened on Illinois Route 251, just south of the Wisconsin border, during a traffic stop of a carjacking suspect around 9:10 a.m. that morning.
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The suspect fled police, and a pursuit made its way into Beloit. There, an officer with the Roscoe, Illinois Police Department ultimately rammed the fleeing vehicle and fired their weapon. Video captured the impact and the gunfire.
The suspect was taken to a hospital and later died. The Roscoe officer was taken to a hospital for treatment of minor injuries.
Bodycam from Illinois police shooting in Beloit (March 16, 2024)
While Beloit officers assisted in the chase, the police department said they were not involved in the shooting.
Officers with the Beloit and Roscoe police departments were equipped with body-worn cameras.
The Wisconsin Department of Justice’s Division of Criminal Investigation investigated the shooting that took place in Beloit, while the Winnebago-Boone County Integrity Task Force investigated the shooting that happened in Illinois.
From FIRE’s letter sent yesterday to the University of Wisconsin (you can see the citations here); I generally trust FIRE’s factual summaries, but if there is any error in the below, I’ll of course be very glad to correct it:
FIRE is deeply concerned that UW-Madison has suspended two registered student organizations—Anticolonial Scientists and Mecha de UW Madison—amid criticism of chalk messages some group members allegedly wrote at an off-campus event earlier this month. Some of the messages expressed support for terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades, and advocated the use of violence against Israelis and Zionists in the Middle East.
The student groups are currently under interim suspensions, pending investigation, with UW stating that, because “[s]ome chalkings endorsed violence, supported terrorist organizations and/or contained antisemitic comments,” they could qualify as prohibited discriminatory harassment under the university’s RSO Code of Conduct. But that conclusion cannot constitutionally stand. The off-campus chalk messages constitute political speech wholly protected by the First Amendment, which requires UW, as a public institution, to respect the groups’ expressive and associational rights—even if some, many, or most people dislike their message.
There is, more specifically, no First Amendment exception that would remove protection from speech simply because it is deemed “anti-Semitic” or otherwise bigoted based on race or religion. Regardless of the viewpoint expressed, the rule is the same: Government officials cannot circumscribe expression on the basis that others find the ideas offensive or hateful.
This is particularly true at public colleges, where “conflict is not unknown,” and “dissent is expected and, accordingly, so is at least some disharmony.” The First Amendment instead “embraces such heated exchange[s] of views.”
The Supreme Court has long recognized the public’s interest “in having free and unhindered debate on matters of public importance” as “the core value of the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.” And there is simply no question that chalking support for any participants in the Israel/Hamas war—the reverberations of which have been felt globally for many months—constitutes expression on a matter of public concern, which is defined broadly as speech “relating to any matter of political, social, or other concern to the community.”
Nor is there evidence (despite UW’s suggestion) that the students’ political messages, written in chalk at a farmers’ market nearly a mile from campus, would approach the legal bars for either material support for terrorism or discriminatory harassment—even if those same words had been written on UW’s own sidewalks.
The Supreme Court defines discriminatory harassment in the educational context as only those statements which are unwelcome, discriminatory on the basis of protected status, and “so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it can be said to deprive the victim[] of access to the educational opportunities or benefits provided by the school.” The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has likewise clarified that discriminatory harassment “must include something beyond the mere expression of views, words, symbols, or thoughts that some person finds offensive.”
Current events do not change this analysis. Earlier this month, OCR reiterated that “offensiveness of a particular expression as perceived by some students, standing alone, is not a legally sufficient basis to establish a hostile environment under Title VI,” and that “[n]othing in Title VI or regulations implementing it requires or authorizes a school to restrict any rights otherwise protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.” OCR’s letter also emphasized that campuses have options for addressing the impact of hostile speech that avoid offending the First Amendment, including by offering a variety of support services to affected students.
UW’s own discriminatory harassment policies and RSO rules reflect these appropriate limits on its ability to punish core political speech, with the RSO rules clearly stating they “will not be used to impose discipline for the lawful expression of ideas” and that “[t]he right of all students to seek knowledge, debate, and freely express their ideas is fully recognized by the University.” This is surely because, as you know, free expression is a “longstanding priority” at UW-Madison, which has a dedicated mission and a values statement focused on “Free Expression at UW-Madison.” That statement describes “the need for the free exchange of ideas through open dialogue, free inquiry, and healthy and robust debate,” as “inherent” to the university’s educational mission, “captured by our now-famous language about the importance of ‘that fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone truth can be found.’”
Student organizations play an important role in the healthy speech ecosystem that UW’s mission and values seek to foster. In turn, the First Amendment protects these groups’ expressive and associational rights, fostering their ability to organize around causes and to attempt to influence our institutions, communities, and country. Nor can universities subject the speech of students in RSOs to additional, viewpoint-based scrutiny.
Instead, student groups’ speech rights are broad, and they extend to expressing philosophical support for the use of force or violence. As the Supreme Court has held: “What is a threat must be distinguished from what is constitutionally protected speech,” including “political hyperbole,” given our country’s “profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.”
Government actors may prohibit non-expressive conduct intended to provide material support, like property or services, to designated foreign terrorist organizations. But the First Amendment’s protection of robust debate prohibits government actors from limiting mere expressive activity or rhetorical support for such groups. That is so even where the net effect of the advocacy is to sway public opinion.
Despite what may be good intentions, UW does its community no service by censoring these controversial messages. Like many universities, UW is a community of people with sharply divergent views on a wide variety of issues. To the extent the chalked messages have informed UW students, faculty, and staff members of the presence of individuals with these views on campus, this should be seen as an opportunity for those who disagree either to engage with them in good faith—or, if they wish, to avoid such engagement. Censoring them will do nothing to change their minds, and will deny all parties the opportunity to learn from one another.
The First Amendment, and UW’s longstanding commitment to its attendant norms, are most relevant on campus at precisely the moments like these, when social and political unrest triggers high emotions, deep divisions, and the temptation to turn to censorship. When a university departs from its core principles at these key moments and resorts to silencing views it deems odious, it sends the message that the university has subordinated both the rights of its students and its mission of liberal education to the political demands of the day.
We therefore urge you in the strongest possible terms, in this difficult season for campus discourse, to stand by the university’s legal and moral obligations to respect students’ core expressive freedoms. This requires promptly reinstating the Anticolonial Scientists and Mecha de UW Madison student organizations, and publicly disavowing any ongoing investigation into their clearly protected political speech.
Given the urgent nature of this matter, we request a substantive response to our inquiry no later than close of business Thursday, May 23, 2024.
The legal analysis sounds quite right to me. Note that, even if the government could forbid chalking in various places (and it’s not clear whether it can), it can’t specially punish chalking that conveys particular views, including advocacy of foreign terrorist organizations and support for violence in foreign conflicts.
Wisconsin
Family of woman murdered, dismembered after date in Wisconsin notified about severed arm found at Waukegan Beach
The family of a 19-year-old woman who was murdered and dismembered after a date in Wisconsin has been notified after a severed arm was discovered at the Waukegan Beach.
The Waukegan Police Department responded around 8 p.m. Saturday to the Waukegan Municipal Beach, 201 East Sea Horse Drive.
A person walking along the beach saw what they believed to be a human arm on the ground.
Officers arrived and found the arm next to a fallen tree trunk at the beach.
The Lake County Coroner’s Office was notified and responded to the scene.
They confirmed the arm belonged to a human. The right arm was “mostly intact” from the shoulder down, according to Lake County Chief Deputy Coroner Steve Newton.
The arm was transported to the coroner’s office where a forensic pathologist conducted an exam of it on Monday.
Newton said a forensic anthropologist has been requested to perform a further study.
The arm is believed to be from a female. The forensic anthropologist will determine the age and gender of the victim, Newton said.
The coroner’s office said they are also working with a police department in a neighboring state on the investigation.
The police department’s crime lab is in the process of collecting DNA specimens from the arm for analysis.
According to FOX6 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the family of Sade Robinson was notified by investigators on Sunday about the discovery of the arm. The DNA testing is still pending.
The Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office said last month that Robinson, 19, was murdered and dismembered around April 2.
A criminal complaint filed by the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office said Maxwell S. Anderson, 33, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, intentionally killed Robinson, mutilated her remains and set fire to her car in an attempt to obscure potential evidence of the killing.
Robinson met up with Anderson for a first date on the evening of April 1 at the Twisted Fisherman restaurant in Milwaukee before she went missing, the complaint said.
The two were seen at the bar inside the restaurant eating and having drinks together before leaving just over an hour later.
The complaint said a severed human leg was later discovered at Warnimont Park in Cudahy, Wisconsin.
A severed human foot was later located in a wooded area near 31st Street and Galena in Milwaukee.
Both body parts were believed to belong to Robinson based on investigators’ analysis, according to the complaint. Other body parts were also discovered in separate locations in Milwaukee.
Anderson was charged with first-degree intentional homicide, mutilating a corpse and arson.
Robinson’s family has continued to search for her remains. “The family is still actively searching and just wants closure and this to be able to move forward quickly,” said Dee-Dee Davis, an activist who has been working with the family, FOX6 reported.
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