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Wisc Inst for Law & Liberty will

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i declare main 1/20

oops 3x

NO MERRI

TFA 9 25 ryan walters teacher unions attack

kanye?

see state scotus fuckery

Exxon lawsuit AG Claude Walker

voter suppression GAB/WEC

see WILL

see walker

see macIver

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whAT ROLE IN 2020 ELECTION?

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off bs

~ ballot curing, mask mandate vax?

https://will-law.org/

8 22

JAMES T. BARRY III

CHAIRMAN OF THE WILL BOARD,

PRESIDENT AND CEO, THE BARRY COMPANY

MICHAEL H. WHITE

CHAIRMAN OF RITE-HITE HOLDING CORPORATION

MICHAEL GREBE

FORMER PRESIDENT AND CEO, LYNDE AND HARRY BRADLEY FOUNDATION

CHRISTOPHER WOLFE

PROFESSOR OF POLITICS, UNIVERSITY OF DALLAS

RICK ESENBERG

PRESIDENT, WISCONSIN INSTITUTE FOR LAW & LIBERTY

our story blank?!

ABOUT US

Who We Are

Board of Directors

Staff

LAW

Individual Liberties

Constitutional Government

Economic Freedom

Education Reform

Equal Protection

POLICY

K-12 Education

Free Markets

Health Care

Regulatory Reform

Opportunity

CONTACT

Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty

330 E. Kilbourn Ave

Suite 725

Milwaukee, WI 53202

Phone: 414-727-WILL(9455)

Fax: 414-727-6385

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sw 8 22 see older anno below

Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.[1] It is a conservative, libertarian, public interest law firm backed with millions in grants from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.[2] WILL is a member of the State Policy Network, a web of right-wing “think tanks” and tax-exempt organizations in 49 states, Washington, D.C., Canada, and the United Kingdom.[3]

News and Controversies

WILL Challenged Multiple Public Health Orders to Prevent Spread of COVID-19 in 2020

WILL took multiple legal actions against Wisconsin COVID-19 pandemic shutdown orders in 2020. In August, it filed a "petition on behalf of the Wisconsin Council of Religious & Independent Schools, School Choice Wisconsin Action, several Christian schools and parents."[4] In November, it filed a petition "asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to stop a shutdown order issued by the Racine Health Department on Nov. 12"[5] and filed another petition asking "the state Supreme Court on Monday to immediately block Dane County’s ban on indoor gatherings".[6]

The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in September that "Dane County health officials cannot prohibit private schools from holding in-person classes until the state Supreme Court makes a formal decision on the matter"[7] and blocked the City of Racine in November from "closing all public and private schools in an effort to reduce the spread of COVID-19."[8]

On December 8, 2020, the Wisconsin Supreme Court heard arguments in a consolidation of lawsuits related to pandemic school closure challenges. WILL founder Rick Esenberg was one of three attorneys who argued against school closures.[9][10]

WILL Sues Wisconsin Election Commission to Purge 209,000 from Voter Rolls

The Center for Media and Democracy reported that,

"On October 16, 2019, WILL filed a legal complaint against the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) arguing that the Commission is required by law to remove more than 200,000 voters flagged as “movers” by the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC). ERIC, a project of Pew Charitable Trusts used by 28 states and the District of Columbia, uses official data, such as motor vehicle registrations and U.S. Postal Service addresses, to help states identify people eligible for voter registration and to keep voter rolls up to date.Based on ERIC’s 'mover' database, WEC began sending out postcards in October 2017 to flagged voters directing them to confirm their address or reregister in order to stay on the voter rolls. As a result of that mailing, WEC deactivated 335,701 voters in January 2018. However, flaws in the data and process created significant problems in the 2018 primaries when thousands of voters showed up at the polls, only to find that they were no longer registered. In 2019, WEC concluded that problems with the ERIC database resulted in an error rate of at least 14 percent, causing 46,475 voters to be deactivated even though they never moved.WEC sent out another 234,000 postcards to voters identified by ERIC’s 'mover' database in October 2019, and 209,000 did not respond. However, given the error rate on the 2018 list, WEC decided to wait until after the 2020 elections to deactivate those voters.WILL claims that state law dictates that voters must be purged from the rolls 30 days after failing to respond to a WEC verification mailing based on 'reliable information' that they have moved. WEC contends that because ERIC’s 'mover' database is not reliable, they have discretion on how and when to proceed, and have decided to give voters until the spring of 2021 to confirm or update their information.On December 13, 2019, a lower court judge agreed with WILL and ordered WEC to remove the 209,000 voters from the rolls. On Monday, WEC commissioners were found in contempt for not complying with the Judge’s order. However, the Supreme Court voted narrowly to not take the case on an expedited basis, bumping it instead to an appeals court which granted a stay on the purge order on Tuesday, making it unlikely that anyone will be removed from the rolls before the April primary."[11]

WILL Produces Flawed Badgercare Study with Center for Research on the Wisconsin Economy

Center for Research on the Wisconsin Economy (CROWE) and WILL published a paper claiming expanding Medicaid in the state (BadgerCare) would cost taxpayers a whopping $600 million. Wisconsin Republican State Senators Dave Craig, Duey Stroebel, and Chris Kapenga held a news conference to unveil the study. Conservative media groups such as the MacIver Institute circulated the report.[12]

Numerous experts called out the study: “This study has several methodological and analytical flaws that substantially compromise the validity of its conclusions,” Donna Friedsam, health policy programs director of UW-Madison’s Population Health Institute, told the Wisconsin State Journal[13]; “Incredibly sloppy & dishonest work with pathetic attempts at empirical estimation.This is so below your abilities @Bellmanequation Makes me sad that program with [a] reputation for careful policy work @WIeconomics is associated with this garbage. Numerous inaccuracies in [the] report,” Tim Classen, Loyola University of Chicago economist tweeted.[14] UW Health Policy published a rebuttal by Professors and researchers from the UW Madison Population Health Institute claiming that "that the contents do not justify the authors’ conclusion."[15]

Defense of Marquette Professor

In 2018, WILL represented a Marquette University professor, John McAdams who "criticized a graduate student by name on his personal blog over how she handled a classroom discussion that turned to gay marriage."[16] WILL defended the "post attacking Cheryl Abbate" stating that "Marquette's actions violated his right to academic freedom as a professor.[17]

Marquette University disagreed, stating that “A tenured professor put a graduate student’s name and contact information on the internet so that people could go after her...That’s not academic freedom, that’s cyberbullying."[16]

WILL won the case, meaning Marquette had to re-instate him as a professor.[16]

Lawsuit with Wisconsin Superintendent

Wisconsin State Superintendent and one of the 2018 Democratic gubernatorial candidates Tony Evers was sued by WILL. The organization argued that in his capacity as head of the Department of Public Instruction, "Evers has been writing school regulations without approval from Walker or his administration in violation of state law." According to the Wisconsin State Journal, Evers argued that law doesn’t apply to him based on a 2016 Supreme Court ruling which found he, as the superintendent, can act independently of the Republican-controlled executive branch.[18]

In a subsequent, but related lawsuit, WILL and Evers butted head over who could represent the Democrat in court. According to Wisconsin Public Radio, both incumbent Governor Scott Walker and WILL argued that Wisconsin's Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel should represent the Department of Public Instruction and Evers. The court decided that Evers could be represented by lawyers from the Department of Public Instruction and Evers and that allowing Schimel to represent Evers would be giving the Attorney General "breathtaking power."[19]

WILL Founds The Center for Competitive Federalism with Cash From Bradley Foundation

In July 2016, WILL launched an initiative to protect the rights of states and limit the power of the federal government.[20] According to its website, the Center for Competitive Federalism (CCF) will "engage in strategic litigation and public education to advance the “competitive” federalism established by the Constitution – a system in which the authority of both the states and federal government is carefully delineated and circumscribed and which is informed by the need to protect the liberty of persons and not the prerogatives of government."[21] CCF's director is Mario Loyola, former contributing editor at the National Review and former senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, also a member of the State Policy Network.[21] The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation provided millions of dollars in funding for the CCF.[20]

Scott Ross of One Wisconsin Now argues that the Bradley Foundation does not represent citizens of the State of Wisconsin and will use CCF as a tool for its political agenda, "They'll write more seven-figure checks from this right-wing slush fund to sue on behalf of Scott Walker's radical social agenda, failed economic agenda and to attack Walker's political opponents."[20]

Court Cases

Challenges Wisconsin Contribution Limits to Political Action Committees

WILL represented the CRG Network when it sued the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (GAB) in federal court on June 23, 2014[22] to end enforcement of a Wisconsin campaign finance law limiting total contributions to candidates by political action committees.[23] U.S. District Judge Rudolph Randa sided with CRG, issuing a temporary injunction on September 5, 2014 that prohibited enforcement of the law.[24] As of May 2015, the GAB had ceased enforcing aggregate PAC limits and a final decision on the case was still pending.[25]

CRG's lawsuit was filed by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL)[26] and the suit was reportedly funded by Citizens for Self-Governance, an organization founded by Eric O'Keefe, who also sits on its board.[27] At the time, O'Keefe's Wisconsin Club for Growth was at the center for a John Doe investigation into possible illegal campaign coordination related to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.[28] One of O'Keefe's main complaints about the John Doe investigation, as described by his lawyer, David Rivkin, is that it was "chilling" free speech and the ability of political organizations to raise and spend money in Wisconsin.[28]

Support for Act 10

In February 2013, WILL helped 3 teachers file an amicus curiae brief defending Governor Scott Walker's union-busting reforms.[29]

WILL also filed a lawsuit against the Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC) for allegedly violating Act 10 by approving a labor agreement. The plaintiff in the lawsuit has been teaching at MATC since 1984. She said, "I'm appalled that my union would flout the law and negotiate an illegal contract." [30]

McCutcheon, et al. v. FEC

Shaun McCutcheon and the Republican National Committee (RNC) filed a lawsuit challenging the Federal Election Commission's biennial limit on individual contributions contending the limit is unconstitutionally low and not supported by a sufficient governmental interest.[31] WILL filed an *amicus curiae* brief in support of the plaintiff-appellants. The Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari and will hear the case during the Fall 2013 session.[32]

Ties to the Bradley Foundation

WILL's President and General Counsel Esenberg Speaks at First Bradley Forum at ALEC States & Nation

vid  2018

Rick Esenberg spoke at the first ever Bradley Foundation Forum at the the 2018 ALEC States & Nation meeting on December 4, 2018. Ramesh Ponnuru of the National Review, Tarren Bragdon of the Foundation for Government Accountability and Henry Olsen of the Ethics and Public Policy Center also spoke on the panel.[33]

Former Bradley President and CEO on WILL Board of Directors

As of January 2020, Micheal Grebe, former President and CEO of the Bradley Foundation, sits on the Board of Directors at WILL.[34]

Grant Information

Between 2011 and 2018 the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty received $5,910,710 from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and $416,000 from the Bradley Impact Fund. Together, this makes up 52% of WILL's total revenue between 2011 and 2018.[11]

Bradley detailed the most recent grants in internal documents examined by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). Below is a description of the grant prepared by CMD. The quoted text was written by Bradley staff.

2015-2016: (Barder Fund): $1,155,355 over three years to create a “Center for Competitive Federalism” to work with others in Bradley’s Wisconsin Network, including WPRI, to cast federal programs as overly burdensome to the states.

2015: $500,000 to support general operations. Bradley calls WILL its MVP of the Wisconsin Network. “Nearly all of the organizations of the conservative infrastructure come to WILL for advice… In the (four) years since its inception (WILL) had made itself the indispensable partner to nearly every member of the Wisconsin Network, and has been a voice in nearly every public controversy over property rights, free speech and limited government in Wisconsin…WILL has taken the lead in the fight against the Milwaukee Street Car, sued Milwaukee County Board for open meetings violations, sued against the Kenosha Unified School Board for violating Act 10, filed an amicus brief in McCutcheon v FEC, filed suit against the Government Accountability Board (GAB), partnered with the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation to rebuff union challenges to Act 10 and represented a UWM student whose dissertation criticizing MPS was used to bar her graduation. WILL has worked with School Choice Wisconsin, Media Trackers, the MacIver Institute, American Majority and Education Action Group.”

2014: $500,000 to support general operations. WILL “has grown from 2 to 5 attorneys plus an unpaid legal fellow, MU Law School approved WILL’s participation in its internship program…It is estimated that for the cost of $1.4 million roughly $4.3 million in legal services were provided.”

Bradley Files

In 2017, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), publishers of SourceWatch, launched a series of articles on the Milwaukee-based Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, exposing the inner-workings of one of America's largest right-wing foundations. 56,000 previously undisclosed documents laid bare the Bradley Foundation's highly politicized agenda. CMD detailed Bradley's efforts to map and measure right wing infrastructure nationwide, including by dismantling and defunding unions to impact state elections; bankrolling discredited spin doctor Richard Berman and his many front groups; and more.

Find the series here at ExposedbyCMD.org.

Ties to ALEC

WILL Presents Paper at ALEC's Fall 2016 Meeting

WILL President Rick Esenberg, WILL Senior Fellow and Center for Competitive Federalism Director Mario Loyola, and Federal Litigator Jake Curtis presented a paper written by Loyola entitled, A Common Cause: Uniting the States Against Federal Overreach, at the American Legislative Exchange Council fall meeting in November 2016.[35]

WILL Signs onto Letter with ALEC in Support of CEI

WILL signed onto a letter with ALEC and many other Koch-backed groups and SPN members hosted on the ALEC website expressing support of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). [36] The letter addressed to CEI's President Kent Lassman offers support to the "think tank" in face of a subpoena from U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General (AG) Claude Walker filed in May 2016 asking for all of CEI's communication on climate change between 1997 and 2007.[36] AG Walker withdrew his subpoena.

Politico reported that,

"Walker argued that the withdrawn subpoena would help the case against Exxon by clearing space for the Justice Department — which has not yet confirmed an official inquiry into the company’s climate record — 'to focus on its ongoing investigation, without the distraction of this procedural litigation.'"[37]

About ALEC
ALEC is a corporate bill mill. It is not just a lobby or a front group; it is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, corporations hand state legislators their wishlists to benefit their bottom line. Corporations fund almost all of ALEC's operations. They pay for a seat on ALEC task forces where corporate lobbyists and special interest reps vote with elected officials to approve “model” bills. Learn more at the Center for Media and Democracy's ALECexposed.org, and check out breaking news on our ExposedbyCMD.org site.

Ties to the State Policy Network

WILL is a member of SPN and has received close to $100,000 in contributions from the right-wing group. SPN is a web of right-wing “think tanks” and tax-exempt organizations in 50 states, Washington, D.C., Canada, and the United Kingdom. As of January 2022, SPN's membership totals 166. Today's SPN is the tip of the spear of far-right, nationally funded policy agenda in the states that undergirds extremists in the Republican Party. SPN Executive Director Tracie Sharp told the Wall Street Journal in 2017 that the revenue of the combined groups was some $80 million, but a 2019 analysis of SPN's main members IRS filings by the Center for Media and Democracy shows that the combined revenue is over $120 million.[38] Although SPN's member organizations claim to be nonpartisan and independent, the Center for Media and Democracy's in-depth investigation, "EXPOSED: The State Policy Network -- The Powerful Right-Wing Network Helping to Hijack State Politics and Government," reveals that SPN and its member think tanks are major drivers of the right-wing, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)-backed corporate agenda in state houses nationwide, with deep ties to the Koch brothers and the national right-wing network of funders.[39]

In response to CMD's report, SPN Executive Director Tracie Sharp told national and statehouse reporters that SPN affiliates are "fiercely independent." Later the same week, however, The New Yorker's Jane Mayer caught Sharp in a contradiction. In her article, "Is IKEA the New Model for the Conservative Movement?," the Pulitzer-nominated reporter revealed that, in a recent meeting behind closed doors with the heads of SPN affiliates around the country, Sharp "compared the organization’s model to that of the giant global chain IKEA." She reportedly said that SPN "would provide 'the raw materials,' along with the 'services' needed to assemble the products. Rather than acting like passive customers who buy finished products, she wanted each state group to show the enterprise and creativity needed to assemble the parts in their home states. 'Pick what you need,' she said, 'and customize it for what works best for you.'" Not only that, but Sharp "also acknowledged privately to the members that the organization's often anonymous donors frequently shape the agenda. 'The grants are driven by donor intent,' she told the gathered think-tank heads. She added that, often, 'the donors have a very specific idea of what they want to happen.'"[40]

A set of coordinated fundraising proposals obtained and released by The Guardian in early December 2013 confirm many of these SPN members' intent to change state laws and policies, referring to "advancing model legislation" and "candidate briefings." These activities "arguably cross the line into lobbying," The Guardian notes.[41]

Contributions to Wisconsin Supreme Court Justices

WILL employees contribute to the campaigns of Wisconsin Supreme Court justices, which hear cases argued by WILL lawyers. As of January 2020, below is a summary of those contributions:

Funding

The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty is not required to disclose its funders. Its major foundation funders, however, can be found through a search of the IRS filings, and through Bradley Foundation internal files. Here are the know funders of WILL:

Core Financials

2020[48]

2019[49]

2018[50]

2017[51]

2016[52]

2015[53]

2014[54]

2013[55]

2012[56]

2011[57]

Personnel

Staff

As of November 2021:[58]

Former Staff

Board of Directors

As of November 2021:[60]

Former Directors

Contact Information

Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty

330 E. Kilbourn Ave., Suite 725

Milwaukee, WI 53202

Phone: (414) 727-WILL(9455)

Fax: (414) 727-6385

Website: http://www.will-law.org

Email: info@will-law.org

Twitter:https://twitter.com/wilawliberty

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Wisconsin-Institute-for-Law-Liberty-191561687596446/

8 22

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law_and_Liberty

Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) is a nonprofit conservative law firm based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.[1][2] The group was founded by lawyer Rick Esenberg in 2011.[3]

Activities

The organization has defended right-to-work laws.[4]

In 2016, WILL announced the launch of the Center for Competitive Federalism, a national effort to bring lawsuits and conduct research to promote state sovereignty.[5] That same year, the organization filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn Wisconsin's Unfair Sales Act, also known as the minimum markup law, which prevents companies from selling products below cost.[6][7] In 2017, it filed a lawsuit in the Wisconsin Supreme Court Koschkee v. Taylor arguing that the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) issued regulations without the approval of the state's governor and the Wisconsin Department of Administration, thus violating the REINS Act. It was seen as an attempt to limit the power of Governor Tony Evers, then the State Superintendent of Public Instruction.Though Evers's role was nonpartisan, he had announced he would challenge Republican Scott Walker for the governorship.[8] In June 2019, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled 4–2 in favor of WILL, determining that DPI could not make administrative rules without approval of the governor.[9]

In September 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic in Wisconsin, WILL filed lawsuits to stop a face mask mandate in Wisconsin.[10] In March 2021, the conservative-leaning Wisconsin Supreme Court, on a 4–3 vote, struck down the statewide mask mandate, saying that Governor Tony Evers had violated state law by extending his emergency orders, including the mandate, beyond the initial 60-day emergency mandate.[11]

In 2021, WILL sued the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR), on behalf of a Kansas-based group called Hunter Nation Inc. WILL prevailed in the suit, forcing the state to permit the hunting and trapping of wolves in Wisconsin.[12][13][14]

In October 2020, a progressive legal group, Law Forward, was founded in Wisconsin as a counterbalance to WILL.[15]

Wisconsin Elections Commission lawsuit

In 2019, WILL sued the Wisconsin Elections Commission for not removing from the voter rolls 234,000 Wisconsin voters who were flagged as having potentially moved and who did not respond to a mailing. Paul V. Malloy, the presiding circuit court judge in Ozaukee County, Wisconsin, ruled in favor of WILL, purging the voters.[16] The Wisconsin Elections Commission filed suit in federal court to halt the contested purging.[17]

Acting on behalf of the state's Elections Commission, which deadlocked 3-3 on the matter, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul joined the appeal to stay the removals ordered by Malloy.[18] The Elections Commission estimated that the voter verification process would take from one to two years to complete prior to initiating any action to remove those former voters, the accuracy of whose registrations still remained unresolved.[19] On January 2, 2020, WILL said it asked the circuit court to hold the Elections Commission in contempt, fining it up to $12,000 daily, until it advanced Malloy's order.[20] The Wisconsin Supreme Court heard the case about the purging of the voter rolls on October 4, 2020, but was not expected to make a decision before the November election.[21]

The Democratic Party argued that the purge targeted voters living in areas favoring Democrats.[17] On January 12, 2020, Malloy found the three Democrats on the stalemated six-member Elections Commission to be in contempt of court, ordering them each to pay a fine of $250 daily until they complied with his order. Malloy urged speedy implementation of his order, saying, "We're deadlocked, time is running and time is clearly of the essence."[22] The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel examined the list of voters subject to being purged because they were presumed to have moved and found that about 55 percent of those registrants had been domiciled in municipalities that had been won by Hillary Clinton in the 2016 general election. Those were mainly from Wisconsin's largest cities, Milwaukee and Madison, as well as other college towns.[23]

In 2016, Trump had carried Wisconsin by fewer than 23,000 votes. After the contempt order was issued by Malloy, a stay issued later that day by the state Supreme Court upheld his purge mandate.[23] That finding was subsequently reversed by an appeals court, but WILL appealed its decision to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.[24]

In the April 7, 2020, election, voters ousted incumbent Daniel Kelly, a conservative Supreme Court justice, who had been appointed by Governor Scott Walker. Kelly had been thought to be a possible swing vote in the Court's deciding the case.[25]

 In April 2021, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in a 5-2 ruling that the Wisconsin Election Commission should not remove from its rolls voters flagged as possibly having moved, as local municipal elections officials rather than the state election commission should be tasked with removing voter registrations. Of the 69,000 people flagged by the elections commission as being "likely movers", none voted in the 2020 presidential election. No voters were removed from the voter rolls while the legal fight was pending.[26]

2020 election fraud investigation

This group spent ten months investigating Donald Trump's claims of widespread election fraud in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. WILL found no evidence of widespread fraud.The group found, for instance, 130 cases of ex-felons voting, and 42 ballots from potentially deceased voters, but not in numbers that could have affected the election results, or that could be described as an intentional effort to subvert the election. WILL found "no evidence of significant problems with voting machines," and despite Trump's repeated claims that machines from the firm Dominion Voting Systems were used by Democrats to steal the election, the group found that Democrats actually performed worse than expected in precincts that used the Dominion machines. 

The group found no evidence of "ballot dumping," another common accusation from Trump. In the few cases where some state rules were not correctly followed, little to no evidence showed that voters who cast those ballots "did anything intentionally wrong" and they were likely just following election officials' advice, and thus this is not cause for throwing out those ballots or a basis to "infer fraud."[27]

References

  1. ^ "Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty's file". PolitiFact. Retrieved 14 September 2016.
  2. ^ "Appeals court denies DNR request to stop Wisconsin wolf hunt". Associated Press. February 19, 2021. the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty
  3. ^ Elbow, Steven (May 19, 2013). "Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty takes on 'cause lawyering' from the right". The Capital Times. Retrieved 14 September 2016.
  4. ^ Russell, Jason (June 23, 2016). "Scott Walker's union reforms didn't harm Wisconsin schools". The Washington Examiner. Retrieved 14 October 2016.
  5. ^ Henschel, Haley (July 11, 2016). "Conservative legal group announces states' rights initiative". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Retrieved 14 October 2016.
  6. ^ Johnson, Shawn (August 23, 2016). "Conservative Group Sues To Overturn Minimum Markup Law". Wisconsin Public Radio. National Public Radio. Retrieved 14 October 2016.
  7. ^ Cassens Weiss, Debra (August 24, 2016). "Suit challenges Wisconsin's minimum markup law". American Bar Association Journal. Retrieved 14 October 2016.
  8. ^ Yackee, Susan Webb (2019). "The Politics of Rulemaking in the United States". Annual Review of Political Science. 22: 37–55. doi:10.1146/annurev-polisci-050817-092302.
  9. ^ Forward, Joe (25 June 2019). "Supreme Court Reverses Course on Governor's Power Over School Rulemaking". State Bar of Wisconsin. Retrieved 15 September 2020.
  10. ^ "Conservative law firm seeks to end Wisconsin mask order". Channel3000.com. 2020-09-28. Retrieved 2020-09-28.
  11. ^ Richmond, Todd (2021-04-20). "Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down governor's mask mandate". Associated Press. Retrieved 28 June 2021.
  12. ^ "Hunting group sues to force Wisconsin wolf season". Associated Press. 2021-02-02. Retrieved 2021-07-05.
  13. ^ Chris Hubbuch (February 3, 2021). "Hunting group sues Wisconsin DNR over refusal to set immediate wolf hunt". Wisconsin State Journal.
  14. ^ "Appeals court denies DNR request to stop Wisconsin wolf hunt". Associated Press. February 19, 2021.
  15. ^ Scott Bauer, Liberal legal group formed ahead of election in Wisconsin, Associated Press (October 22, 2020).
  16. ^ Wisconsin judge orders removal of 234,000 voters from state registry, FOX6Now, Amy Dupont, December 13, 2019. Retrieved August 24, 2020.
  17. ^ :{Jump up to::(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^a b(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law_and_Liberty#cite_ref-NYT_17-1) Wisconsin Judge Says State Must Purge 200,000 Voter Registrations, Journal Sentinel, December 13, 2013. Retrieved November 21, 2020.
  18. ^ Effort to stop removal of 234K voter registrations heads to federal court, while attorney general tries to stall purge in state court, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Bruce Vielmetti and Molly Beck, December 17, 2019. Retrieved August 24, 2020.
  19. ^ Nearly 900 Lincoln County voters affected, Tomahawk Leader, Jalen Maki, December 27, 2019. Retrieved August 24, 2020.
  20. ^ Vetterkind, Riley (2 January 2020). "Conservative legal group alleges Elections Commission in contempt of court". Wisconsin State Journal. Retrieved 2020-08-24.
  21. ^ WisEye Morning Minute: Supreme Court Hears Voter Roll Purge Case, WPR, September 29, 2020. Retrieved November 20, 2020.
  22. ^ Wisconsin Elections Officials Held in Contempt for Refusing to Purge Voters, New York Times, January 13, 2020. Retrieved August 24, 2020.
  23. ^ :{Jump up to::(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^a b(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law_and_Liberty#cite_ref-purge_23-1) Wisconsin Elections Officials Held in Contempt for Refusing to Purge Voters, New York Times, Mitch Smith, January 13, 2020. Retrieved August 24, 2020.
  24. ^ State Court of Appeals reverses Wisconsin voter purge, The Daily Cardinal, Amani Omari, March 2, 2020. Retrieved August 24, 2020.
  25. ^ Upset Victory in Wisconsin Supreme Court Race Gives Democrats a Lift, New York Times, April 13, 2020. Retrieved August 24, 2020.
  26. ^ Bauer, Scott (2021-04-09). "Wisconsin Supreme Court says don't purge voters from rolls". PBS NewsHour. Associated Press. Retrieved 28 June 2021.
  27. ^ Wisconsin Conservative Group Finds ‘No Evidence Of Widespread Fraud’ In 2020 Election, Forbes, December 7, 2021. Retrieved December 8, 2021.

External links

Categories: 

omg

https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2021/08/23/conservative-think-tank-end-wisconsin-elections-commission/

looks legit

 conservative think tank — run by a former staffer for then-Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald and connected to former Gov. Scott Walker — has called for abolishing the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) and moving the administration of state elections to the elected secretary of state. 

The think tank, the Institute for Reforming Government, called for the change to state election law in a news release Monday morning. 

“It is time to abolish WEC and implement good government accountability when it comes to Wisconsin’s elections and work to restore confidence among Wisconsin residents,” Chris Reader, executive vice president of IRG, said in a statement. “When unelected bureaucrats oversee Wisconsin’s elections it can lead to the erosion of faith and confidence in our electoral system. Thirty-three other states have elected officials overseeing the election process, providing a good measure of accountability by empowering people across ideological spectrums to provide a check on who manages elections. This is a good government measure that will benefit all Wisconsinites.”

The think tank’s president is CJ Szafir, who previously worked on Fitzgerald’s staff and served as the executive vice president for the right wing legal outfit, the **Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty**. Walker is named on the think tank’s website as its former national honorary chairman. 

According to the think tank’s most recently available :{tax records:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:, it paid Walker’s consulting firm, the Walker Group, more than $164,000 in 2019. 

The call comes as Republicans continue an effort to delegitimize state election administration in the wake of the 2020 presidential election and former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the election was stolen. 

This weekend, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) :{met with Trump:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:to discuss an ongoing investigation into the election led by former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman. Gableman recently traveled to South Dakota for a conspiracy theory-laden convention, run by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, where lies were spread about  the 2020 election. 

Gableman was joined by a state lawmaker and Robert Spindell, a member of the Elections Commission who has frequently spread conspiracy theories about last year’s election as well. 

The conservative group’s call to disband the Wisconsin Elections Commission — made up of six members, three appointed by Democrats and three by Republicans — comes just six years after Republicans themselves created the commission.  Rep. Janel Brandtjen (R-Menomonee Falls), who chairs the Assembly Campaigns and Elections Commission, has continued an effort to hold a “forensic audit” of the 2020 election — similar to the widely derided audit held in Arizona. 

Fitzgerald, now a member of Congress, and Walker were behind the creation of the WEC in 2015 after they disbanded the Government Accountability Board (GAB) over some similar complaints to the present complaints about the WEC. The GAB was made up of members appointed by a panel of appellate judges and was responsible for administration of the state’s election, ethics and campaign finance laws. 

Republicans disbanded the GAB after it began investigating Walker for violations of campaign finance laws through so-called John Doe investigations. 

GOP leaders, including Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, :{directly cited:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}: those investigations as the reason for the disbanding of the GAB and the creation of two new commissions to take its place — the Wisconsin Elections Commission and Wisconsin Ethics Commission. 

:{

The legislation that created the WEC was introduced by then-Rep. Dean Knudson (R-Hudson). Knudson is now a member of the WEC and its former chair. 

The current Wisconsin secretary of state is Democrat Doug La Follette. The office is largely responsible for maintaining government records, as Republicans took nearly all of the other responsibilities — and most of the staff — away from the office they now want to run elections under Walker, moving La Follette to a storage room in the Capitol basement. In 2015, a different right wing think tank, the MacIver Institute, called for :{abolishing the position:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:.

The Institute for Reforming Government did not respond to a request for comment.

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Wisconsin Supreme Court rules to keep Green Party off the ballot

Patrick Marley

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

MADISON - The Wisconsin Supreme Court kept the Green Party's presidential ticket off the ballot Monday, disappointing party members but ensuring more than a million absentee ballots will be sent to voters Thursday as required by state law.

The ruling also bolsters hopes for Democrats, who feared presidential nominee Joe Biden could lose a small share of his votes to the liberal third party. Republicans had hoped the Green Party would shave just enough votes from Biden's total to give President Donald Trump a victory this fall in a state he narrowly won in 2016.

Justice Brian Hagedorn broke with his fellow conservatives to form a majority with the court's liberals that kept Green Party nominee Howie Hawkins off the ballot.

The majority found Hawkins and his running mate, Milwaukee native Angela Walker, waited too long to bring their legal challenge.

"Even if we would ultimately determine that the petitioners’ claims are meritorious, given their delay in asserting their rights, we would be unable to provide meaningful relief without completely upsetting the election," the majority wrote in its unsigned opinion. 

The state Elections Commission split 3-3 last month on whether to put Hawkins and Walker on the ballot. The Republican members of the commission backed putting Hawkins on the ballot but the Democratic members opposed doing so because Walker had listed two addresses on her campaign paperwork.

Walker said she listed two addresses because she moved while the Green Party collected signatures to get on the ballot. She and Hawkins this month asked the Supreme Court to put them on the ballot, contending the state Elections Commission hadn't followed the law.

"We were screwed," Hawkins said in a statement. "Partisan hacks should not be running elections for their own parties."

The justices on Thursday issued a 4-3 order telling election officials not to send absentee ballots while they decided whether to take the case.

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That order was issued by conservatives who control the court. The court's liberals dissented. 

But in a second 4-3 decision, the court on Monday vacated its earlier order and determined ballots could be mailed now. This time, the majority consisted of Hagedorn and the court's liberals, Justices Ann Walsh Bradley, Rebecca Dallet and Jill Karofsky.

In dissent were three conservatives, Chief Justice PatienceRoggensack and Justices Rebecca Bradley and Annette Ziegler. (The Bradleys are not related.)

Roggensack called the Elections Commission "lawless" for keeping Hawkins and Walker off the ballot.

"This lawsuit is not about the Green Party sleeping on its rights," she wrote in an opinion joined by the other dissenters. "It is about the treatment that independent candidates from a small political party received from the Commission, who repeatedly refused to follow the law relative to nomination papers."

In a separate dissent, Ziegler wrote that keeping a worthy candidate off the ballot is "the ultimate voter suppression."

The majority "deprives the Wisconsin people of a voice and strips them of one of the most fundamental tenets of this republic:  the right to express one's will at the ballot box," Ziegler wrote.

The majority decided not to take the case because of looming deadlines. Clerks are required under state law to mail absentee ballots to those who have requested them by Thursday. A separate federal law sets a Saturday deadline for mailing absentee ballots to military and overseas voters.

The majority concluded some ballots may have already been sent, and found that confusion would reign if clerks had to send those voters a second ballot with the names of additional candidates.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Friday identified clerks across the state who together had prepared hundreds of thousands of absentee mailings. But none of the clerks reached by the newspaper said they had actually mailed any ballots yet.

Clerks will mail more than a million absentee ballots on Thursday and then send others as they receive requests from voters. Absentee voting this fall is expected to set a record because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Claire Woodall-Vogg, executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, expressed relief Monday that she would not have to reprint ballots.

"I’m just glad that they made a decision today and recognized the expediency that election administrators and voters need, that they didn’t delay any further," she said.

The case had significant implications for this fall's presidential race. Both Republicans and Democrats believe Hawkins could have siphoned off some of Biden's support, hurting his chances of beating Trump in Wisconsin.

Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 by fewer than 23,000 votes in Wisconsin. That year Green Party nominee Jill Stein received about 31,000 votes in the state.

Hawkins' legal team has links to Republicans. One of his aides asked Robert Spindell, a Republican on the Elections Commission, for advice last month on who to hire as an attorney, according to emails between Spindell and Hawkins aide Kevin Zeese.

Hawkins' lead attorney, Andrew Phillips of von Briesen & Roper, was hired last year by Republicans on the Legislature's budget committee to help them sort out a long-running dispute with Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul over how to handle court settlements. 

Another attorney on the case, Jacob Curtis, has worked for Republican former Gov. Scott Walker, Republican state Sen. Duey Stroebel of Saukville and the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty.

Phillips also represents the Wisconsin Counties Association, and most counties didn't want the Green Party ticket added to the ballot because they didn't want to reprint ballots. Some supervisors in Milwaukee and Dane counties raised the prospect of quitting the association because its lawyers were working against their interests.

The court issued its ruling as rapper Kanye West also tries to get on Wisconsin's ballot.West, who has praised Trump and gotten help from Republicans, was kept off the ballot after the state Elections Commission ruled 5-1 that his team missed a filing deadline by seconds or minutes.

West sued to get on the ballot, but a Brown County judge on Friday ruled he shouldn't be on Wisconsin's ballot because of the late filing.

He could appeal, but Monday's ruling in the Green Party case suggests he would have little chance of getting on the ballot at this stage.

Hagedorn offers a swing vote

Hagedorn was elected in 2019 with the support of Republicans, but he has departed from his conservative colleagues at times.

In January, he sided with liberals on the court to decline quickly taking a lawsuit over whether people who are believed to have moved should be taken off the voter rolls. That initial decision means those voters are likely to stay on the rolls at least through the Nov. 3 election. 

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In May, Hagedorn, joined liberals in dissent over a ruling that struck down the stay-at-home order issued by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers' administration to combat the pandemic. 

Since then, the stakes have become higher for cases involving close votes. Karofsky last month was sworn in as a justice after defeating conservative Justice Daniel Kelly this spring.

Her victory narrowed the court's conservative majority from 5-2 to 4-3. That means liberals can form a majority when they can pick off at least one conservative vote, as they did Monday.

Alison Dirr of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.

Contact Patrick Marley at patrick.marley@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @patrickdmarley.

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https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2020/01/15/group-behind-wisconsin-voter-purge-lawsuit-has-strong-gop-ties/

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group Behind Wisconsin Voter Purge Lawsuit Has Strong GOP Ties

by David Armiak | January 15th, 2020

Crusade to remove 200,000 voters from the rolls by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty stands to benefit Trump, a right-wing state Supreme Court justice, and the big Republican donors and strategists that lead and bankroll the group – and have donated at least $12 million to Wisconsin GOP causes and candidates.

The efforts of the right-wing Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) to force the purge of hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin voters in advance of this year’s critical elections has garnered national attention and sparked a complex legal battle.

The stakes in the case are high. WILL is fighting to have more than 200,000 voters — most of whom reside in heavily Democratic areas — removed from the rolls in a swing state that Trump won by less than 23,000 votes in 2016. And in April, voters in the Badger state will head to the polls to vote in a hotly contested state Supreme Court election and the Democratic primary for president. Wisconsin legislators are also up for election this year, and the control of the legislature will determine who gets to draw the district maps for the next decade.

The case has thrust Wisconsin to the forefront in this year’s voter suppression wars and reflects a larger Republican strategy to tilt the playing field by making it harder for low-income, student, and minority citizens to vote. According to a 2018 report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, “voter roll purges often disproportionately affect African-American or Latino-American voters.”

WILL, the conservative litigation group leading the charge in Wisconsin, is hardly a neutral player in this strategy. Considered the “MVP” of the right-wing infrastructure built in the state over the past decade, WILL’s leaders and funders include many of Wisconsin’s heaviest Republican hitters and have collectively poured at least $12 million into the Wisconsin GOP and its candidates over the past two decades.

WILL’s Voter Purge Case

On October 16, 2019, WILL filed a legal complaint against the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) arguing that the Commission is required by law to remove more than 200,000 voters flagged as “movers” by the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC). ERIC, a project of Pew Charitable Trusts used by 28 states and the District of Columbia, uses official data, such as motor vehicle registrations and U.S. Postal Service addresses, to help states identify people eligible for voter registration and to keep voter rolls up to date.

Based on ERIC’s “mover” database, WEC began sending out postcards in October 2017 to flagged voters directing them to confirm their address or reregister in order to stay on the voter rolls. As a result of that mailing, WEC deactivated 335,701 voters in January 2018. However, flaws in the data and process created significant problems in the 2018 primaries when thousands of voters showed up at the polls, only to find that they were no longer registered. In 2019, WEC concluded that problems with the ERIC database resulted in an error rate of at least 14 percent, causing 46,475 voters to be deactivated even though they never moved.

WEC sent out another 234,000 postcards to voters identified by ERIC’s “mover” database in October 2019, and 209,000 did not respond. However, given the error rate on the 2018 list, WEC decided to wait until after the 2020 elections to deactivate those voters.

WILL claims that state law dictates that voters must be purged from the rolls 30 days after failing to respond to a WEC verification mailing based on “reliable information” that they have moved. WEC contends that because ERIC’s “mover” database is not reliable, they have discretion on how and when to proceed, and have decided to give voters until the spring of 2021 to confirm or update their information.

On December 13, 2019, a lower court judge agreed with WILL and ordered WEC to remove the 209,000 voters from the rolls. On Monday, WEC commissioners were found in contempt for not complying with the Judge’s order. However, the Supreme Court voted narrowly to not take the case on an expedited basis, bumping it instead to an appeals court which granted a stay on the purge order on Tuesday, making it unlikely that anyone will be removed from the rolls before the April primary.

Meanwhile, the League of Women Voters filed suit in federal court to prevent the purge, arguing that it would violate voters’ constitutional rights to due process, and the Republican-dominated legislature asked the federal court to dismiss the League’s action on January 6.

In a November 2018 lame duck session, Republicans in the legislature considered moving the presidential primary election to March 2020 to give Walker-appointed Justice Daniel Kelly a better shot at winning his primary contest. The Republican leadership ultimately decided against the idea after city and county clerks united in opposition due to the taxpayer expense and headaches that holding three elections in three months would cause.

Maintaining the state Supreme Court’s right-wing majority, now 5-2, is a top priority for Wisconsin Republicans, a fact surely not lost on WILL’s politically active leaders and funders.

WILL’s Partisan Ties

WILL’s close connection with Justice Kelly — whose 2020 election bid would be directly affected by the outcome of WILL’s lawsuit — and the political goals of its leaders and big funders call into question the group’s nonpartisan motives in aggressively pursuing its voter purge case.

Justice Kelly used to serve on WILL’s legal advisory board, took campaign contributions from two WILL board members last year one week before ruling in favor of WILL in a pending case, and served as president and general counsel of one of WILL’s largest funders, the Kern Family Foundation.

A Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) analysis of campaign contributions maintained by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign shows that WILL’s staff, board, and major funders have contributed more than $2 million to Wisconsin political candidates over the past 20 years, the vast majority of which went to Republicans.

Six of WILL’s staff and board members together have contributed more than $20,000 to conservative state Supreme Court justices, while none of WILL’s current employees have contributed to the liberal wing of the Court.

WILL board member Michael Grebe–current chairman of the board at the Bradley Impact Fund (BIF) and former chairman of the board at the Bradley Foundation–is deeply tied to the Republican Party. Grebe was campaign chairman for former Governor Scott Walker’s failed presidential campaign in 2015 and chairman of Walker’s 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2018 gubernatorial campaigns.

Before chairing the Bradley Foundation (2002-2016), Grebe was general counsel to the Republican National Committee (1996-2000) and Republican National Committeeman for Wisconsin (1984-2002). Grebe gave $131,800 to Republicans and right-wing judicial candidates, between 1990 and 2019, and $19,240 to the Wisconsin Republican Party between 1997 and 2018.

Diane Hendricks, another Bradley Foundation and BIF board member, who is the largest known individual donor to WILL, has given $4.7 million to the Wisconsin Republican Party between 1998 and 2018, and $801,065 to Republican and right-wing judicial candidates for office in the state between 1991 and 2019. Hendricks was Walker’s top donor, and gave $5 million to his Unintimidated PAC to support his run for president.

Hendricks was ranked 35th among all federal contributors by Open Secrets in the 2018 election cycle with $4.5 million to Republican and conservative candidates, parties, political action committees, 527 organizations, and Carey committees.

Robert and Patricia Kern, whose Kern Family Foundation is a major funder of WILL, are also top Republican donors. Robert gave $268,385 (1997-2019) and Patricia gave $197,695 (2001-2016) to Republican and right-wing judicial candidates for office. Robert also donated $30,500 to the Wisconsin Republican Party....

https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/how-right-wing-groups-use-old-law-and-imperfect-data-to-purge-voters-from-statewide-rolls/

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How right-wing groups use old law and imperfect data to purge voters from statewide rolls

Written by Steven Rosenfeld / Independent Media Institute January 21, 2020

Wisconsin has become early 2020’s Exhibit A for political fights surrounding the updating of statewide voter lists, where escalating court battles over conflicting law, procedures and underlying data could lead to removing thousands of legal but infrequent voters.

The fray’s epicenter is a series of rulings by a county judge against Wisconsin’s bipartisan but deadlocked state election board, which has refused to immediately delete 209,000 voter registrations in a swing state with 3.3 million voters. The conflict may preview legal battles coming to other states. California, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Colorado and Virginia have all received letters from Judicial Watch, a right-wing group, threatening to file suits like the complaint from the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) against the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC).

WILL’s lawsuit, where two of its three plaintiffs are donors to state Republican campaigns, seeks the immediate removal of 209,000 infrequent voters who were flagged for the WEC by an interstate data consortium run by top election officials. In March 2019, the WEC’s staff recommended taking 12 to 24 months to vet those voters because in 2018 after using the consortium’s analytics, 24,270 inactive but registered voters—or 7 percent of those flagged and delisted—showed up to vote, as a memo from the WEC explained. (Those voters could re-register under a same-day registration law after showing the correct documentation.)

The affected voters, whose numbers were slightly larger than Donald Trump’s 22,748-vote margin over Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin in 2016, were mostly traced to quirks in the state’s driver’s license database where addresses were extracted and used to verify a voter’s status. The bipartisan WEC initially decided to postpone removing the 209,000 voters, but has since split on party lines. (An appeals court has stayed the lower court’s purge order, and the state chapter of the League of Women Voters has filed a federal lawsuit to stop it.)

But Wisconsin is not the only state wrestling with voter analytics. In Georgia, the process used last fall to remove 300,000-plus old registrations (out of 7.4 million statewide) led to 22,000 voters being reinstated in December. The reversal came after Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger moved up the date up for Georgia’s data query by six months, restoring the inactive voters’ status. In Iowa, election officials pressed pause after finding a 100,000-person database that may have incorrectly listed former felons, who cannot vote until they reapply and regain that right.

Thus, in early 2020, there is an emerging trend of the potential disqualification of thousands of infrequent voters in swing states. While partisan claims surrounding these developments often dominate their news coverage, this trend is driven by a confluence of conflicting laws, regulatory precedents and imperfect voter data.

“The voter registration process and the list maintenance process have become incredibly polarizing,” said Matthew Weil, the Elections Project director at Washington’s Bipartisan Policy Center. “Any removal from the [statewide voter] list is now considered by some to be a purge. And any perceived deadweight is considered ripe for fraud. Neither one of those views is right. There should be reasons to remove people. And there are reasons why we don’t want to remove people too quickly also.”

“Part of the problem here is we are using antiquated, outmoded systems,” said Barbara Arnwine, who from 1989 to 2015 ran the nation’s largest Election Day legal hotline and has since founded the Transformative Justice Coalition. “And it [mass removals] is not required under the NVRA [the National Voter Registration Act of 1993]. But even for those states that chose to do it, they are purposely engaging in a process that is fundamentally outdated and ineffective—and has the predictable consequence of removing valid voters from registration lists.”

Weil and Arnwine both said that the NVRA, which was crafted for an era when people used paper registration forms and postcard mail to contact voters, needed updating. But such modernization was not part of House-passed H.R. 1, an election reform package now stuck in the Senate. Thus, today’s partisan litigants who see advantages in using old and sometimes conflicting state and federal laws, their accompanying bureaucratic procedures and imperfect government data, will likely continue to unfold in 2020 to help their political allies.

“Dirty voting rolls can mean dirty elections and Judicial Watch will insist, in court if necessary, that states follow federal law to clean up their voting rolls,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in its January 2 statement threatening more list maintenance suits. “Judicial Watch found major voting list issues in California, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, and Colorado.”

Ground Zero: Wisconsin

Self-appointed voting list vigilantes are not new. But Wisconsin, which had 2016’s second-closest presidential election margin and has seen some of the past decade’s most bitter fights over voting rules, has not seen a voting list fight for many years. Nor does the state have a history of voter fraud. Instead, its election administration has been seen as a model led by a bipartisan panel that valued civic participation.

Part of that legacy led the state to join an interstate consortium—the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC)—that draws on several state and federal government databases to help officials update their statewide voter rolls, and to identify and then contact eligible but unregistered voters. (Disclosure: Voting Booth’s reporter was part of the Pew Center on the States team that designed ERIC.) More than half the states now use ERIC.

Soon after Wisconsin joined ERIC, its state election board found a unique but deepening problem. Unlike all but one other state in the consortium, Wisconsin’s Division of Motor Vehicles never offered a voter registration option to residents getting a driver’s license. That is because when theNVRA—or so-called Motor Voter law—was passed in 1993 (and primarily required the drivers’ agencies to offer registration), it exempted states with Election Day registration. Wisconsin was a same-day state. Its reward for good behavior had come back to haunt it.

The NVRA also had other provisions and timelines for updating voter rolls, which become bloated after people move or die. The bottom line in 2020 is that people who have not voted since the 2012 presidential election could be removed if they have had no subsequent contact with election officials. The law envisions that contact as responding to postcard mailings—which many people ignore—or showing up and voting.

In 2017, when Wisconsin’s election board sent various public databases to ERIC for data mining, or using redundant records to update the voter files, it ran into an unexpected problem. Because the state DMV did not manage addresses for voter registration purposes, its files did not have some voters’ actual home addresses. (Voter registration must have actual addresses for voters to get a correct ballot.)

“In these situations, the voters may have provided an address in their transaction with the DMV that was different from their voting address, even though DMV asked for their residential address on their forms,” the March 2019 WEC memo said. “These voters were likely unaware that the information provided to the DMV would affect their voter registration status.”

The reason for the incongruity has nothing to do with elections. It was because people who had registered cars for others—such as a family member who lives elsewhere—used their addresses to avoid paying a county car tax. That tax-evading move was what was behind most of the voters who were removed in 2017 but showed up to vote in 2018, said Kevin Kennedy, the former director of Wisconsin’s Government Accountability Board (which preceded the WEC) and who worked in Wisconsin elections for nearly four decades. The ERIC algorithms used to verify the voter rolls could not tie the same address to that individual. Being exempt from the NVRA’s requirement to register voters at its DMVs hid this address snafu.

Instead, Wisconsin had an older state law on its books for voter list maintenance. That law required removing voters “upon receipt of reliable information” within a month. That deadline and ERIC’s list of 209,000 infrequent voters (most of whom had moved or died) was cited in the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty suit. In suburban Ozaukee County north of Milwaukee, a GOP stronghold, Circuit Court Judge Paul Malloy cited that state law as he repeatedly ordered the mass purge to proceed. Malloy has since held the WEC in contempt for not acting, including issuing penalties and additional fines for its three Democratic members. (An appeals court stayed his rulings.)

WILL’s argument is typical of right-wing lawsuits targeting voter registration lists. It alleges that various vague harms that “impair” or “threaten… the legal rights and privileges” of its plaintiffs. On the other side of this partisan lens are voting rights activists who say that no list maintenance process can ever be error-free, and cite errors made by ERIC in Wisconsin and Maryland. (ERIC’s defenders say these problems come with managing any large and fluid list, and note that ERIC has helped to identify and to register more than 5 million new voters nationally.)

Broad Swipes, Local Remedies

But all of these arguments and details—which come from a conflicting mix of laws, bureaucracy and porous data—obscure some bigger points, said Justin Levitt, a professor of constitutional law at Loyola Law School and former staff attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Voting Section.

“There are only a few states where nonvoting is still used to trigger the NVRA removal procedure, and they tend to be [citing] legacy laws from decades ago when ham-handed approaches to list maintenance were more common,” he said. “The vast majority of states only start the NVRA process when there’s some affirmative evidence of ineligibility, which is a little more like using a scalpel rather than a chainsaw to do surgery.”

In other words, activist right-wing law groups are targeting an imperfect landscape surrounding the way voter rolls are updated. And the most likely impact—should they prevail in court—could be disrupting or discrediting the 2020 voting process in swing states. But it is hard to estimate the magnitude of their impact apart from noting thousands of voters could be affected in states with close elections.

“We don’t have great data on how many of the registrations at issue in these battles correspond to voters who are still eligible,” said Levitt, who added that the remedy for voters was checking their registration status two months before Election Day. “Purges unquestionably affect voters. But this is an area where voters have more control than other aspects of election administration.”

Kevin Kennedy noted that any incorrectly purged Wisconsin voter could re-register on Election Day, when people have to present proof of residency and a photo ID. While unsuspecting voters might not have all those documents with them, he said that the state does accept emailed bills as proof of one’s addresses.

“If anything, it’s actually gotten better because you can do it electronically,” said Kennedy. “You can show your electronic bills. [But] they are not always the best for students, because sometimes their bills are at their parents’ house.”

Stepping back, the former state election director said the fray over voter rolls was a sign of how hard-fought 2020’s election cycle would likely be in his state.

“In Wisconsin in 2020, the big thing besides the voter purge issue will be a voter turnout issue,” Kennedy said. “The Democrats are saying they need to mobilize voters. They can look back to last April and see they were clearly out-mobilized in the state Supreme Court race. It was supposed to be a non-partisan race, but clearly had partisan motivations going on there. You’re not going to see Republicans sit back. They will redouble their efforts.”

Steven Rosenfeld is the editor and chief correspondent of Voting Booth, a project of the Independent Media Institute. He has reported for National Public Radio, Marketplace, and Christian Science Monitor Radio, as well as a wide range of progressive publications including Salon, AlterNet, the American Prospect, and many others.

This article was produced by Voting Booth, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

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? Wisconsin: A trio of rulings from three separate Wisconsin courts on Monday and Tuesday has resulted, for now, in a halt to a conservative group’s effort to require the state to remove 209,000 voter registrations from the rolls.

On Monday, a lower court judge, who had previously ordered the purge to go forward, held Democratic election officials in contempt for not proceeding with the removal. These officials, who’d asked the judge, Daniel Malloy, to issue a stay while they appeal, pointed out that Malloy’s order had not specified a deadline by which they were obligated to act.

Later that same day, the state Supreme Court declined to expedite an appeal requested by the plaintiff, a conservative organization called the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty. WILL had hoped that the Supreme Court, which is dominated by right-wing jurists, would give it a friendly reception, one but conservative justice who’s up for re-election this year recused himself and another sided with the court’s two liberals in declining to fast-track the case. That resulted in a 3-3 tie, meaning the plaintiff’s request was rejected.

Finally, on Tuesday, the state’s intermediate Court of Appeals stayed Malloy’s decisions: both his order directing the purge to proceed and his contempt ruling. That amounted to a victory for voting rights advocates, who, if they cannot halt the purge, at least want to delay it until after November’s elections.

The win is only temporary, though: The state Supreme Court’s refusal to expedite the case does not guarantee that the court will stop the purge if the case eventually reaches them. A separate federal lawsuit opposing the purge remains ongoing.

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A single county judge in Wisconsin has ordered the purge of over 200,000 names from the state’s voters rolls. More than 90% of those names are not in the county where the judge presides. In fact, the number of names the judge ordered stricken is over twice the whole population of his county.

As reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Judge Paul Malloy acted on a request from just three voters who were backed by a conservative organization, while ignoring both the state election commissions and the League of Women Voters, nether of which were allowed to testify. The center of the case was a letter that the elections commissions sent out to voters it believe may have moved. However, that letter was sent only a month earlier, and the elections commission intended to give voters until 2021 to correct any information.

But Malloy didn’t give the commission, or the voters, that chance. Instead, he ordered the names removed in advance of the nexts election. To get an idea of how big a deal that is, Donald Trump won the state of Wisconsin by just 23,000 votes. In fact, it’s that kind of margin that has Republicans out hunting for cases like this in which they can make it impossible for everyone to vote. 

In fact, Malloy seems to have done even more than the conservative group “Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty” asked. The original request was for an injunction requiring election officials to remove voters who had not responded in 30 days. Instead, Malloy issued a “writ of mandamus” ordering the purge and threatening any election commissioner who refused to cooperate.  

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WI IS A SWING STATE 2016 RECALL QUASHED?

Koch Network and Christian Right Celebrate Apparent Hagedorn Victory in Wisconsin Supreme Court Race

By David Armiak — Right-wing Judge Brian Hagedorn leads Judge Lisa Neubauer by less than half a percent.

Read more >>

4/19

The Koch brothers’ astroturf operation, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), and Wisconsin Family Action (WFA) are exuberant over Brian Hagedorn‘s apparent razor-thin victory over Lisa Neubauer on Tuesday for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Hagedorn is winning by less than 6,000 votes, or less than a half a percent, the Associated Press is reporting. If the margin holds, Wisconsin law allows for a recount, but Neubauer would have to foot the bill.

Hagedorn has declared victory in the race, but Neubauer has not conceded and is considering a recount. The eventual winner will replace longtime Supreme Court Justice Shirley Abrahamson who announced her retirement last year.

If the Kochs’ Hagedorn is elected, the Wisconsin Supreme Court will move one seat further to the right with a 5-2 majority.

Kochs, Christian Right Rejoice

Hagedorn’s biggest supporter in terms of money was the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC), which took out $1.3 million in TV and digital ads. The RSLC funnels millions in corporate money into state campaigns, and counts tobacco companies, the US Chamber of Commerce, the Judicial Crisis Network, pharmaceutical giants, and Koch Industries among its top funders.

But it was the Kochs and the Christian Right group Wisconsin Family Action who are credited with Hagedorn coming out on top. AFP spent over $200,000 on canvassing efforts and mailings. According to its State Director, Eric Bott, AFP talked to more than 750,000 voters and sent out over 1.5 million targeted mailings in the seven weeks up to the election.

“There’s no question our engagement made a huge difference,” Bott said.

WFA spent more than $25,000 on mailings and brochures for Hagedorn as well. WFA thanked AFP for its efforts and extended “a hearty congratulations and thanks to Brian and his family for their hard work and steadfast commitment to staying the course despite the unjust attacks on their personal lives and their religious beliefs,” in a press release following the election.

One Wisconsin Now revealed that Hagedorn founded a school that prohibits anyone working there from being in a same-sex relationship and could expel students who identify as LGBTQ.

The *Milwaukee Journal Sentinel* also exposed an old blog Hagedorn wrote from 2005 where he addressed his “fellow soldiers in the culture wars,” stating that “the idea that homosexual behavior is different than bestiality as a constitutional matter is unjustifiable.”

Following the revelations of his hateful stance towards the LGBT community, the Wisconsin Realtors Association revoked its endorsement of Hagedorn saying, “The real estate related issues that served as the basis for our endorsement have been overshadowed by other, non-real estate related issues — issues with which we do not want to be associated and that directly conflict with the principles of our organization and the values of our members.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which often funnels money to right-wing candidates through the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, followed suit, according to the Journal Sentinel.

Hagedorn and other influential right-wing leaders in the state, such as Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty’s Rick Esenberg, framed the anti-LGBT Hagedorn revelations as attacks on “religious tolerance.” Esenberg, who donated to Hagedorn, regularly brings cases in front of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

WFA riled its base to support Hagedorn, claiming he had been “viciously and unjustly attacked,” and warning of dire results if he lost the election and liberals won the next 2020 Supreme Court election. If that happens, there will be a “deluge of cases…against faith-based adoption agencies, cases against Christian florists and photographers,” said WFA President Julaine Appling. “You could probably kiss aspects of voter ID, or concealed carry, or right-to-work, or portions of Act 10 goodbye.”

Two hours prior to polls closing, WFA attempted to motivate Twitter followers by adding that Neubauer was endorsed by “pro-abortion” Planned Parenthood and “pro-LGBT” Human Rights Council.

WFA has been active in pushing a Christian Right agenda in the state for years, as the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) reported last year in *Conquering the Courts: The Religious Right’s Fight to Rig the Rules and Undermine Judicial Independence*. WFA is an affiliate of the Family Policy Alliance, a national network of 40 groups in 38 states that spends millions to influence state legislation and elect socially conservative candidates.

In 2006, WFA partnered with Family Research Institute of Wisconsin and Focus on the Family to spend heavily on a media campaign for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. The amendment passed but was overturned in 2014 when the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals declared the marriage ban unconstitutional.

In 2008, WFA and Wisconsin Right to Life worked together to unseat Louis Butler on the Supreme Court, which resulted in the election of Michael Gableman.

WFA also played a big role in former Governor Scott Walker’s dark money operation in 2011 and 2012, channeling $1.2 million in cash from Wisconsin Club for Growth and Citizens for a Strong America into recall elections.

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https://www.will-law.org/about-us/

sw

The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.[1] It is a conservative, libertarian, public interest law firm backed with millions in grants from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.[2] WILL is a member of the State Policy Network, a web of right-wing “think tanks” and tax-exempt organizations in 49 states, Puerto Rico, Washington, D.C., Canada, and the United Kingdom.[3]

News and Controversies

WILL Founds The Center for Competitive Federalism with Cash From Bradley Foundation

In July 2016, WILL launched an initiative to protect the rights of states and limit the power of the federal government.[4] According to its website, the Center for Competitive Federalism (CCF) will "engage in strategic litigation and public education to advance the “competitive” federalism established by the Constitution – a system in which the authority of both the states and federal government is carefully delineated and circumscribed and which is informed by the need to protect the liberty of persons and not the prerogatives of government."[5] CCF's director is Mario Loyola, former contributing editor at the National Review and former senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, also a member of the State Policy Network.[5] The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation provided millions of dollars in funding for the CCF.[4]

Scott Ross of One Wisconsin Now argues that the Bradley Foundation does not represent citizens of the State of Wisconsin and will use CCF as a tool for its political agenda, "They'll write more seven-figure checks from this right-wing slush fund to sue on behalf of Scott Walker's radical social agenda, failed economic agenda and to attack Walker's political opponents."[4]

Court Cases

Support for Act 10

In February 2013, WILL helped 3 teachers file an amicus curiae brief defending Governor Scott Walker's union-busting reforms.[6]

WILL also filed a lawsuit against the Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC) for allegedly violating Act 10 by approving a labor agreement. The plaintiff in the lawsuit has been teaching at MATC since 1984. She said, "I'm appalled that my union would flout the law and negotiate an illegal contract." [7]

McCutcheon, et al. v. FEC

Shaun McCutcheon and the Republican National Committee (RNC) filed a lawsuit challenging the Federal Election Commission's biennial limit on individual contributions contending the limit is unconstitutionally low and not supported by a sufficient governmental interest.[8] WILL filed an *amicus curiae* brief in support of the plaintiff-appellants. The Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari and will hear the case during the Fall 2013 session.[9]

Ties to the Bradley Foundation

Through 2016 the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty received $4,155,355 from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.

Bradley detailed the most recent grants in internal documents examined by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). Below is a description of the grant prepared by CMD. The quoted text was written by Bradley staff.

2015-2016: (Barder Fund): $1,155,355 over three years to create a “Center for Competitive Federalism” to work with others in Bradley’s Wisconsin Network, including WPRI, to cast federal programs as overly burdensome to the states.

2015: $500,000 to support general operations. Bradley calls WILL its MVP of the Wisconsin Network. “Nearly all of the organizations of the conservative infrastructure come to WILL for advice… In the (four) years since its inception (WILL) had made itself the indispensable partner to nearly every member of the Wisconsin Network, and has been a voice in nearly every public controversy over property rights, free speech and limited government in Wisconsin…WILL has taken the lead in the fight against the Milwaukee Street Car, sued Milwaukee County Board for open meetings violations, sued against the Kenosha Unified School Board for violating Act 10, filed an amicus brief in McCutcheon v FEC, filed suit against the Government Accountability Board (GAB), partnered with the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation to rebuff union challenges to Act 10 and represented a UWM student whose dissertation criticizing MPS was used to bar her graduation. WILL has worked with School Choice Wisconsin, Media Trackers, the MacIver Institute, American Majority and Education Action Group.”

2014: $500,000 to support general operations. WILL “has grown from 2 to 5 attorneys plus an unpaid legal fellow, MU Law School approved WILL’s participation in its internship program…It is estimated that for the cost of $1.4 million roughly $4.3 million in legal services were provided.”

Bradley Files

In 2017, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), publishers of SourceWatch, launched a series of articles on the Milwaukee-based Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, exposing the inner-workings of one of America's largest right-wing foundations. 56,000 previously undisclosed documents laid bare the Bradley Foundation's highly politicized agenda. CMD detailed Bradley's efforts to map and measure right wing infrastructure nationwide, including by dismantling and defunding unions to impact state elections; bankrolling discredited spin doctor Richard Berman and his many front groups; and more.

Find the series here at ExposedbyCMD.org.

Ties to ALEC

About ALEC
ALEC is a corporate bill mill. It is not just a lobby or a front group; it is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, corporations hand state legislators their wishlists to benefit their bottom line. Corporations fund almost all of ALEC's operations. They pay for a seat on ALEC task forces where corporate lobbyists and special interest reps vote with elected officials to approve “model” bills. Learn more at the Center for Media and Democracy's ALECexposed.org, and check out breaking news on our PRWatch.org site.

WILL Presents Paper at ALEC's Fall 2016 Meeting

WILL President Rick Esenberg, WILL Senior Fellow and Center for Competitive Federalism Director Mario Loyola, and Federal Litigator Jake Curtis presented a paper written by Loyola entitled, A Common Cause: Uniting the States Against Federal Overreach, at the American Legislative Exchange Council fall meeting in November 2016.[10]

WILL Signs onto Letter with ALEC in Support of CEI

WILL signed onto a letter with ALEC and many other Koch-backed groups and SPN members hosted on the ALEC website expressing support of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). [11] The letter addressed to CEI's President Kent Lassman offers support to the "think tank" in face of a subpoena from U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General (AG) Claude Walker filed in May 2016 asking for all of CEI's communication on climate change between 1997 and 2007.[11] AG Walker withdrew his subpoena.

Politico reported that,

"Walker argued that the withdrawn subpoena would help the case against Exxon by clearing space for the Justice Department — which has not yet confirmed an official inquiry into the company’s climate record — 'to focus on its ongoing investigation, without the distraction of this procedural litigation.'"[12]

State Policy Network

WILL is a member of SPN. SPN is a web of right-wing “think tanks” and tax-exempt organizations in 49 states, Puerto Rico, Washington, D.C., Canada, and the United Kingdom. As of July 2017, SPN's membership totals 153. It is an $83 million right-wing empire as of the 2011 funding documents from SPN itself and each of its state "think tank" members. Although SPN's member organizations claim to be nonpartisan and independent, the Center for Media and Democracy's in-depth investigation, "EXPOSED: The State Policy Network -- The Powerful Right-Wing Network Helping to Hijack State Politics and Government," reveals that SPN and its member think tanks are major drivers of the right-wing, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)-backed corporate agenda in state houses nationwide, with deep ties to the Koch brothers and the national right-wing network of funders.[13]

In response to CMD's report, SPN Executive Director Tracie Sharp told national and statehouse reporters that SPN affiliates are "fiercely independent." Later the same week, however, The New Yorker's Jane Mayer caught Sharp in a contradiction. In her article, "Is IKEA the New Model for the Conservative Movement?," the Pulitzer-nominated reporter revealed that, in a recent meeting behind closed doors with the heads of SPN affiliates around the country, Sharp "compared the organization’s model to that of the giant global chain IKEA." She reportedly said that SPN "would provide 'the raw materials,' along with the 'services' needed to assemble the products. Rather than acting like passive customers who buy finished products, she wanted each state group to show the enterprise and creativity needed to assemble the parts in their home states. 'Pick what you need,' she said, 'and customize it for what works best for you.'" Not only that, but Sharp "also acknowledged privately to the members that the organization's often anonymous donors frequently shape the agenda. 'The grants are driven by donor intent,' she told the gathered think-tank heads. She added that, often, 'the donors have a very specific idea of what they want to happen.'"[14]

A set of coordinated fundraising proposals obtained and released by The Guardian in early December 2013 confirm many of these SPN members' intent to change state laws and policies, referring to "advancing model legislation" and "candidate briefings." These activities "arguably cross the line into lobbying," The Guardian notes.[15]

Funding

The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty is not required to disclose its funders. Its major foundation funders, however, can be found through a search of the IRS filings. Here are the know funders of WILL:

Core Financials

2015[16]

2014[17]

2013[18]

2012[19]

2011[20]

Personnel

Staff

As of September 2017:[21]

Former Staff

Board of Directors

As of August 2016:[23]

Contact Information

Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty

1139 E. Knapp St.

Milwaukee, WI 53202

Phone: (414) 727-WILL(9455)

Fax: (414) 727-6385

Website: http://www.will-law.org

Email: info@will-law.org

Twitter:https://twitter.com/wilawliberty

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Wisconsin-Institute-for-Law-Liberty-191561687596446/

References

  1. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, About WILL, Organizational Website, Accessed May 17, 2013.
  2. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Bill Glauber, Marquette professor leads Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty in conservative causes, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, May 12, 2013.
  3. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ State Policy Network, Directory, State Policy Network, 2017.
  4. ↑ ^Jump ^up to:4.0 4.1 4.2 Haley Henschel, Conservative legal group announces states' rights initiative, Journal Sentinel, July 11, 2016.
  5. ↑ ^Jump ^up to:5.0 5.1 Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, WILL Launches New Project on Federalism, Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, July 11, 2016.
  6. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Press Release, Teachers File Brief Defending Gov. Walker's 'Act 10' Reforms in Union's State Appeals Court Lawsuit, National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, February 6, 2013.
  7. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Case Updates, WILL Files Lawsuit Against MATC, will-law.org, May 2, 2013.
  8. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ McCutcheon, et al. v. FEC - Case Summary, FEC.gov, Accessed May 17, 2013.
  9. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Shaun McCutcheon, et al., Appellants v. Federal Election Commission, SupremeCourt.gov, Accessed May 17, 2013.
  10. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Cameron Sholty, Center for Competitive Federalism Presents White Paper to ALEC Conference, Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, December 17, 2016.
  11. ↑ ^Jump ^up to:11.0 11.1 American Legislative Exchange Council, Coalition Letter to Support the Competitive Enterprise Institute, American Legislative Exchange Council, June 1, 2016.
  12. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Eric Wolff, Virgin Islands AG withdraws Exxon subpoena, Politico, June 30, 2016.
  13. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Rebekah Wilce, Center for Media and Democracy, EXPOSED: The State Policy Network -- The Powerful Right-Wing Network Helping to Hijack State Politics and Government, organizational report, November 13, 2013.
  14. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Jane Mayer, Is IKEA the New Model for the Conservative Movement?, The New Yorker, November 15, 2013.
  15. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Ed Pilkington and Suzanne Goldenberg, State conservative groups plan US-wide assault on education, health and tax, The Guardian, December 5, 2013.
  16. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, 2015 Form 990, organizational tax filing, August 12, 2016.
  17. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, 2014 Form 990, organizational tax filing, August 6, 2015.
  18. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, 2013 Form 990, organizational tax filing, May 15, 2014.
  19. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, IRS 2012 Form 990, organizational tax filing, May 2, 2013.
  20. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, IRS 2011 Form 990, organizational tax filing, July 5, 2012.
  21. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, About Us, Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, 2017.
  22. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, Staff Bios, Organizational Website, Accessed May 17, 2013.

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