US REGIONAL & STATE NEWS STATE NEWS WISCONSIN

Dark Money in Wisconsin GOP Primary Divides Republicans

Some Wisconsin Republicans are protesting the influence of dark money in the Aug. 13 primary  election.

A view of the local Republican Party headquarters in Brown County, Wis., on April 4, 2024. Nathan Worcester/The Epoch Times

By Steven Kovac

8/22/2024

Updated: 8/22/2024

Dark money spent in the Aug. 13 GOP primary election has further divided grassroots from establishment Republicans in Wisconsin.

A group of conservative Republican candidates are complaining that their political futures and reputations were harmed by a last-minute infusion of independent expenditures—known as dark money—into their primary election contests.

An independent expenditure is money spent by an independent entity to advocate for or against the election of a candidate, without disclosing the names and addresses of the original donors.

Collaboration with a campaign is against the law.

Defenders of independent expenditures say the TV, radio, online, and direct mail advertising is voter education.

There is no legal limitation on the amount of money entities can spend on an election.

Critics of campaign spending by independent entities say the practice, though legal, lacks transparency and created distrust in the Wisconsin election.

According to the complaining candidates and some county GOP officials from around the state, the biggest independent expenditure actor is the Stronger Wisconsin Fund (SWF).

Ironically, SWF’s website states its mission is to elect conservative candidates.

The SWF registered with the Wisconsin Ethics Commission as an independent expenditure entity on July 12, just about 30 days before the Aug. 13 primary election.

The organization’s address is a box number in a pack-and-ship services store in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

According to its campaign finance report, the SWF raised a total of $450,000 in a single contribution from its one and only donor in early July 2024.

The sole donor was Americans for Security Inc., a 501(c)(4) nonprofit operating in the state from an address that was traced by The Epoch Times to a rented private mailbox in a Staples store in Plover, Wisconsin.

Americans for Security’s stated purpose is to establish economic and national security for the United States, according to its website.

Lindee Brill, the GOP nominee for Wisconsin State Assembly (Dist. 27). Courtesy of Lindee Brill

SWF’s most recent campaign statement showed it spent $445,560 on electioneering in the Badger State thus far in 2024.

The fund spent $338,000 trying to defeat 10 GOP primary candidates that it disfavored, according to SWF’s independent expenditure fund report in which it must disclose whether its funds were to support or oppose candidates.

It also spent $107,000 promoting 15 candidates that it preferred.

The Republican Party of Wisconsin (RPW) sent out mailers supporting nine of the 15 candidates favored by SWF.

Critics also contend that the RPW bylaws may prohibit the state party from picking favorites in the Republican primary races for the state Assembly. The Republican Party of Wisconsin did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.

Wisconsinites for Liberty Fund (WFLF), another independent entity, also received 100 percent of its 2024 funding, $269,000, from Americans for Security Inc. The entity spent $240,000 in support of long-time state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester), according to its expenditure report.

Attack Ads Using Dark Money

Lori Voss (no relation to Robin Vos), a candidate for Assembly District 69 in central Wisconsin, was on the receiving end of a barrage of last-minute attack ads paid for by the SWF.

Voss told The Epoch Times: “I am a strong, pro-life conservative who believes in the American Dream and I have been beaten up so badly by my fellow Republicans. It pains my heart that this is even happening.

“Stronger Wisconsin Fund spent $16,000 on negative, misleading, and false TV and online ads. They told outright lies about me.”

Voss lost her primary election bid to a better-funded opponent, Karen Hurd, 57 percent to 43 percent.

Lindee Brill of Sheboygan County ran in the Republican primary for an open state Assembly seat in District 27. She, too, was the target of a $20,000 negative ad campaign paid for by SWF.

“They lied about me by falsely claiming I would take the right to vote away from military serving overseas. That’s not true,” Brill said.

“All I want to do is bring the people’s voice back into Wisconsin state government and get this state and our country back to what the Founding Fathers intended us to be.”

Brill won her primary 51 percent to 48 percent over Bill Hilbelink.

“Though outspent three-to-one, we took down the establishment machine,” she said.

SWF and Americans for Security did not respond to requests for comment.

James Tesauro, vice-chair of the Sheboygan County GOP and Brill’s campaign manager, said that because of the current campaign finance system, nobody knows the identity of those funding the advertising campaigns against her.

“We have no way of knowing where those dollars came from because it is dark money,” he said.

“Every donation the little guy makes is closely policed, but the big and powerful operate in the shadows with next to no restrictions or accountability.”

GOP activist Adrianne Melby said, “Conservative candidates such as Voss and Brill are not likely to succumb

to intimidation to simply rubber stamp the actions of the Robin Vos-dominated Republican establishment in Madison.”

A view of the Pak Mail store in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Courtesy of Google Earth

Melby and her fellow grassroots activists blame Vos for authoring and passing Act 117 of 2015, a law that they say opened the door to dark money in Wisconsin elections.

Today, campaign filings show that third-party or even fourth-party donors can shuffle money back and forth among their Super PACs and regular PACs and eventually funnel it into independent entities such as the SWF and WFLF, without ever having to report the names and addresses of the original donors.

“The sad reality is that the outcome of Wisconsin elections is often decided by nameless, faceless, power players, many times from out of state, who give millions to advance their own agendas,” Melby said.

She cited several examples of the political hardball played in Wisconsin Republican politics in the Vos era.

One such illustration she shared happened when 24 conservative Republicans either were rejected for membership in the Racine County GOP or had a hard time renewing their memberships, allegedly because they supported Adam Steen, who was running against Robin Vos for a seat in the Assembly.

Vos did not respond to a request for comment.

Follow the Money

Campaign finance records and nonprofit filings provide limited insight into the individuals connected with the SWF, Americans for Security, Americans for Security PAC, and WFLF.

One name that comes up in the records is prominent election law attorney Matthew Fernholz of the law firm Cramer Multhauf LLP of Waukesha, Wisconsin.

Fernholz’s name appears on the SWF campaign finance and registration filing as an additional contact.

The biography portion on Cramer Multhauf’s website states that Fernholz has represented the speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly.

Robin Vos’s campaign finance committee report for the period from April 27 to July 23 shows expenditures paid to Cramer Multhauf of $59,568.

Fernholz did not respond to a request for comment.

Six of the seven Republican candidates who received donations from Vos’s “Friends and Neighbors of Robin Vos” campaign committee were also supported by mailers from the SWF, according to the committee’s campaign finance report.

The Republican Party of Wisconsin donated $63,000 in support of Robin Vos in 2024, according to its campaign finance report, and paid $10,000 to Cramer Multhauf from Nov. 30, 2023, to March 18, 2024, for legal services.

Brandon Rosner of Waukesha is listed as secretary of Americans for Security in the organization’s documents and has a website under the organization’s name.

Rosner did not respond to a request for comment.

Rosner was once the campaign manager of John Gard, a former Assembly speaker and current owner of a lobbying firm.

Gard’s wife, Cathy Zeuske, is recorded in the reports as an agent for Americans for Security.

Gard did not respond to a request for comment and Zeuske could not be reached for comment.

Matthew Karas is listed as the treasurer for WFLF and is listed as an agent for Americans for Security.

A disclaimer found on a political flyer paid for by dark money. Courtesy of Adrianne Melby

Green Bay Press Gazette reported that WFLF, operating from the address of a UPS store in Pewaukee, spent thousands of dollars on campaign flyers criticizing certain candidates for Green Bay city council over an alleged 600 percent rise in the city’s homicide rate.

However, the Green Bay Police Department pointed out that the rate increase stated in the flyers was possibly derived from comparing the one homicide in the city in 2018 with the six murders in 2020, which equates to a 600 percent spike.

Neither Karas nor the WFLF responded to requests for comment.

According to Melby, expenditure reports show that the SWF, the Republican Party of Wisconsin, and Robin Vos all paid Last Mile Marketing of Louisville, Kentucky, for mailers in 2024.

Melby stated, and The Epoch Times independently confirmed, that the address and phone number posted on the above-mentioned expenditure reports involving Last Mile Marketing of Louisville, Kentucky, are those of a UPS store in Louisville.

Each piece of political mail must by law display a disclaimer indicating the name and address of who paid for the production and mailing of the literature.

On campaign mailers sent out to Wisconsin voters by the SWF in the 2024 GOP primary, the disclaimer lists the address of the aforementioned Pak Mail store in Eau Claire.

Melby discovered, and The Epoch Times has independently verified, that the management of the store has not rented a physical box or a virtual mailbox to SWF, and cannot explain why SWF is using the store’s address on its mailings.

“The secretive and untraceable dark money connected to the Republican Party might be legal but it is ruining the election process in Wisconsin,” Melby said. “It is a form of unfair election interference.

“How can grassroots candidates compete with thousands of dollars spent on attack mailers full of lies dropped into their races at the very last minute by individuals whose identities cannot be known?”

Steven Kovac

Reporter

Steven Kovac reports for The Epoch Times from Michigan. He is a general news reporter who has covered topics related to rising consumer prices to election security issues. He can be reached at steven.kovac@epochtimes.us