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</div><div>https://www.mediamatters.org/local-news/local-news-outlets-subscribing-center-squares-wire-service-are-pushing-right-wing</div><div>
</div><div>Center Square is filling in a void left by vanishing local newsrooms with right-wing propaganda about school choice, guns, immigration, and elections</div><div>
</div><div>WRITTEN BY BEATRICE MOUNT & BEN VAN BLOEM</div><div>
</div><div>PUBLISHED 06/20/23&nbsp;</div><div>
</div><div>Three years after a dark money-funded conservative website known for posting misinformation rebranded as a local news wire, The Center Square has made its way into newspapers across the country.&nbsp;</div><div>
</div><div>In 2019, Watchdog.org, an organization that propagated misinformation and lies that benefitted Republican politicians, rebranded as The Center Square. Since rebranding, the company has operated as a dark money-fueled conservative news wire service writing and distributing right-wing slanted news stories. Their publisher, Franklin News Foundation, has apparently continued to receive funding from the ultra-conservative Donors Trust.</div><div>
</div><div>The Center Square provides struggling and underfunded local outlets their stories for free with attribution, unlike larger, more established wire services like the AP which charge licensing fees. This model preys on vulnerable news organizations with vanishing staff and shrinking budgets that need wire articles, like those offered by The Center Square, to fill space. Outlets that use The Center Square do not typically acknowledge the explicitly conservative lean of their work.&nbsp;</div><div>
</div><div>According to the company, in 2021, their articles had been republished nearly 180,000 times. Center Square articles appearing in daily papers and online news feeds promote right-wing narratives and cite many right-wing think tanks, lobbyists, and policy groups – many of which belong to the conservative State Policy Network, a group of right-wing think-tanks and policy groups that have promoted a highly-partisan agenda in state-level politics for years. The Center Square’s publisher is a member of the State Policy Network. Franklin News Foundation board chair John Tillman and member Charles Mitchell also lead groups affiliated with the State Policy Network.</div><div>
</div><div>Center Square articles are saturating local newspahh'[ 30,000 papers across Illinois’ River Bend region, published multiple Center Square articles featuring an NRA lobbyist’s response to Illinois gun restrictions — without mentioning that he’s an NRA lobbyist. According to the Factiva database, The Telegraph published at least two articles in April about the Illinois assault weapons and high-capacity magazine ban that quoted Todd Vandermyde. The NRA lobbyist questioned how Illinois would enforce the law or decide who was properly licensed. The articles did not quote gun control activists or inform readers about enforcement mechanisms for similar bans.</div><div>At least seven newspapers owned by The Times-Journal Inc, circulating over 100,000 papers across Georgia, simultaneously republish articles by The Center Square in each of those papers. According to the Factiva database, a recent article promoting school choice, “Georgia Democrat calls for lawmakers to pass school choice bill,” ran in The Gwinnett Daily Post, The Henry Daily Herald, Newton Citizen, Rockdale Citizen, Jackson Progress-Argus, Cherokee Tribune, and Clayton News Daily on June 2. The Center Square article promoted public school voucher legislation without any pushback from opposed lawmakers, public education groups, teachers, or public school workers. In 2022, The Times Journal Inc. bought six of the papers from Southern Community Newspapers Inc. Center Square articles began appearing on the sites after the purchase.&nbsp;</div><div>According to the Factiva database, The Courier-Times, a North Carolina community newspaper, cited The Center Square at least 1,000 times in the last six months. The Courier-Times circulates about 7,800 papers across Roxboro and Person counties. Residents have received Center Square articles promoting conservative perspectives on the U.S.-Mexico border, including some alleging El Paso is “overrun with foreign nationals,” promoting a claim that the Biden administration’s border policies are the “greatest national security threat since 9/11,” and elevating the Texas GOP's accusation that immigrants are invading the U.S. Other Center Square articles run in the Courier-Times portrayed gender identity as a “controversial issue” and legitimized a bogus political investigation into COVID-19 vaccines.</div><div>Sample News Group, which owns dozens of papers in Pennsylvania, published Center Square articles promoting school choice. The News-Item published a Center Square article alleging that Pennsylvania school districts are “excessively funded” and raising taxes unnecessarily despite having a stockpile of savings. The article quoted from the Senior Vice President of the Commonwealth Foundation, a think-tank affiliated with the State Policy Network. The News-Item distributes 9,556 papers across Northumberland County.</div><div>Louisiana’s L’Observateur, which circulates approximately 2,400 daily papers in the River Parishes area, published a Center Square article promoting a crime report by the free-market think tank Pelican Institute, according to Factiva. The Pelican Institute is a member of The State Policy Network and has ties to ALEC, which played a central role in the expansion of the U.S. prison system.&nbsp;</div><div>The Waukesha Freeman, a Greater Milwaukee Today publication circulating 12,267 papers across Wisconsin, published a Center Square article on a lawsuit alleging the state is “making school choice more difficult.” The December article cited The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) and School Choice Wisconsin Action. WILL is a conservative public interest law firm that argued against school closures during the pandemic. School Choice Wisconsin Action is a lobbying organization tied to the right-wing State Policy Network which supports anti-LGBTQ schools under the guise of parental choice. The Center Square article contained no pushback from opposing education groups. Studies show school choice initiatives divert funding from public schools and increase inequality.</div><div>Washington County Daily News, another Greater Milwaukee Today publication circulating roughly 5,399 papers, republished a Center Square article platforming an election denialist’s bogus investigation into military ballot fraud. According to Factiva, a Center Square article legitimizing GOP state Rep. Janel Brandtjen’s claim ran in the January 10 edition of Washington County Daily News. Brandtjen’s embrace of election conspiracies alienated her from Republican colleagues; last November, they barred her from attending caucus meetings. The Center Square articles promoting right-wing election misinformation have appeared on GM Today’s website.&nbsp;</div><div>Arizona's Herald Review, which circulates approximately 5,848 papers in the Sierra Vista area, reposted a Center Square article fear-mongering about undocumented immigrants evading apprehension. One article uncritically quoted a National Border Patrol Council tweet accusing the Biden administration of “complete erasure of our border.”&nbsp;</div><div>Logan Daily News, which circulates approximately 4,500 papers across Logan, Ohio, republished a Center Square story one-sidedly criticizing Democratic economic policies last December. According to Factiva, Logan Daily News published a Center Square story on Ohio’s unemployment rate quoting from the Buckeye Institute– a State Policy Network affiliate.&nbsp;</div><div>The online edition of Texas’ Longview News-Journal has republished multiple Center Square pieces, including a piece full of conservative attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. The Longview News-Journal circulates to over 25,000 subscribers daily across 11 east Texas counties. The June article promoting attacks on DEI programs contained no pushback from DEI coordinators – only quotes from Republican legislators.</div><div>The online edition of The Independent, which circulates around 38,000 newspapers across California’s Tri-Valley region, has published many Center Square articles containing unchallenged conservative talking points about the border, Biden’s green energy policies, and COVID-19. The paper republished an article claiming China “unwittingly verified Wuhan Lab leak.” The report cited by The Center Square actually did not verify that COVID-19 came from a Wuhan lab.</div><div>=</div><div>=</div><div>cmd</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>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.”</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>WILL’s Voter Purge Case</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>WILL’s Partisan Ties</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>“Counsel to the Conservative Movement”</div><div>WILL, with $1.9 million in revenue according to its latest available tax filing, was founded in 2011 with “major support” from the right-wing Bradley Foundation, an internal grant proposal record states. Since its founding, Bradley and its donor conduit, the Bradley Impact Fund, have provided WILL with 52 percent of its revenue, CMD has found.</div><div>
</div><div>“If the Wisconsin Network had an MVP it would be Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL). It is, as founder Rick Esenberg likes to say, counsel to the movement. Nearly all of the organizations of the conservative infrastructure come to WILL for advice,” a Bradley staffer wrote in another internal grant proposal record.</div><div>
</div><div>The grant proposal records were analyzed as part of CMD’s investigation into hacked internal Bradley files released online in October 2016. CMD concluded that, “The Bradley Foundation, organized as a tax-exempt ‘charitable’ foundation under 501(c)(3) of the tax code, appears to be pursuing a highly partisan game plan: funding an ‘infrastructure’ on the right that benefits the Republican Party, while at the same time attempting to crush supporters of the Democratic Party.”</div><div>
</div><div>Litigation centers, like WILL, were one of eight aspects of “successful state infrastructure,” that Bradley identified for strategic investments. The others were: respected and dynamic leadership, quality think tank(s), investigative journalism, opposition research, receptive policymakers, symbiotic relationship with grassroots groups, and committed local funding support.</div><div>
</div><div>WILL has received significant “local funding” from two other major sources, the Kern Family Foundation (KFF) and the Rite-Hite Corporation Foundation, IRS filings show.</div><div>
</div><div>The Waukesha-based KFF, with $668.3 million in assets according to its latest IRS filing, has provided WILL with just under $1.5 million in funds between 2012 and 2018. Like Bradley, KFF focuses “on initiatives that have long-term, systemic impact,” which is not surprising considering Bradley’s President and CEO Richard Graber sits on its board of directors.</div><div>
</div><div>KFF began when Robert and Patricia Kern sold part of their Generac Power Systems, an international power backup company, in 1998.</div><div>
</div><div>The Milwaukee-based Rite-Hite Corporation Foundation sprung off of Rite-Hite, a manufacturing company that WILL President Esenberg previously worked at as general counsel. Esenberg’s former employer, Rite-Hite owner and CEO Michael White, is Chairman of WILL’s board of directors. Rite-Hite’s Foundation has provided $520,000 to WILL between 2012 and 2018.</div><div>
</div><div>An internal Bradley spreadsheet detailing matching grants shows that other major funders to WILL include GOP megadonor and Bradley board member Diane Hendricks, who gave $75,000 to WILL in 2014 and possibly more in 2011, when she donated $2 million for “Wisconsin based C(3) efforts”; right-wing operative and director at Empower Wisconsin Eric O’Keefe, who gave $10,000 in 2014; and the late investor and furniture maker George Mosher, who gave $10,000 in 2014.</div><div>
</div><div>Outside of Wisconsin, the Walton Family Foundation is WILL’s biggest funder to the tune of $1.5 million between 2014 and 2018. The Waltons continue to profit immensely off their Wallmart empire, which had ...>The State Policy Network (SPN), of which WILL is an associate member, provided it with $98,850 in 2016-2017. A web of right-wing “think tanks,” advocacy groups, and other registered nonprofits in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., Canada, and the United Kingdom, SPN groups play an integral role in getting legislation passed in state legislatures by providing academic legitimacy when called upon to testify at hearings or through the production of “studies.” Many SPN groups now have litigation centers in house thanks to Bradley, which gave $350,000 in 2014 to launch a “https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2017/06/28/talent-market-libertarian-headhunter-koch-bradley-foundation david a zzz&nbsp; === https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/how-right-wing-groups-use-old-law-and-imperfect-data-to-purge-voters-from-statewide-rolls/"... How right-wing groups use old law and imperfect data to purge voters from statewide rolls< zzz 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.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>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).</div><div>
</div><div>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.)</div><div>
</div><div>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.)</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>“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.”</div><div>
</div><div>“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.”</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>“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.”</div><div>
</div><div>Ground Zero: Wisconsin</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>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 the NVRA—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.</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>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.)</div><div>
</div><div>“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.”</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>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.)</div><div>
</div><div>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.)</div><div>
</div><div>Broad Swipes, Local Remedies</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>“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.”</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>“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.”</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>“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.”</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>“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.”</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>This article was produced by Voting Booth, a project of the Independent Media Institute.</div><div></div><div></div><div>
</div><div>? 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.</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>=</div><div>kos 1219</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>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.&nbsp;</div><div>
</div><div>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.&nbsp; &nbsp;Read More</div><div>=</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/how-right-wing-groups-use-old-law-and-imperfect-data-to-purge-voters-from-statewide-rolls/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/how-right-wing-groups-use-old-law-and-imperfect-data-to-purge-voters-from-statewide-rolls/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>How right-wing groups use old law and imperfect data to purge voters from statewide rolls</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Steven Rosenfeld / Independent Media Institute January 21, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>But Wisconsin is not the only state wrestling with voter analytics. In Georgia,</b>&nbsp;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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“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.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“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&nbsp;<b>Transformative Justice Coalition</b>. “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.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“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.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Ground Zero: Wisconsin</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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 the<b>&nbsp;NVRA—or so-called Motor Voter law</b>—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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“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.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The reason for the incongruity has nothing to do with elections. It was because people who had registered cars for others—</b>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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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.&nbsp;</span>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.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Broad Swipes, Local Remedies</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“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,</b>” 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.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“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.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“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.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“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&nbsp;<b>were clearly out-mobilized in the state Supreme Court race.</b>&nbsp;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.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This article was produced by Voting Booth, a project of the Independent Media Institute.</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;(WILL) is a</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/501(c)(3)" title="501(c)(3)" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">501(c)(3)</a>&nbsp;nonprofit organization.<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_note-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[1]</a></sup>&nbsp;It is a conservative, libertarian, public interest law firm backed with millions in grants from the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Lynde_and_Harry_Bradley_Foundation" title="Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation</a></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[2]</a></sup><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;WILL is a member of the&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/State_Policy_Network" title="State Policy Network" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">State Policy Network</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, a web of right-wing “think tanks” and tax-exempt organizations in 49 states, Puerto Rico, Washington, D.C., Canada, and the United Kingdom.</span><sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_note-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[3]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div id="toc" class="toc" style="border: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); background-color: rgb(248, 249, 250); padding: 7px; display: table; zoom: 1;"><div class="toctitle" style="direction: ltr; text-align: center;">
</div><ul style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#News_and_Controversies" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">News and Controversies</span></font></a><ul style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#WILL_Founds_The_Center_for_Competitive_Federalism_with_Cash_From_Bradley_Foundation" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">1.1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">WILL Founds The Center for Competitive Federalism with Cash From Bradley Foundation</span></font></a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#Court_Cases" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">2</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Court Cases</span></font></a><ul style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#Support_for_Act_10" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">2.1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Support for Act 10</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-5" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#McCutcheon.2C_et_al.v.FEC" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">2.2</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">McCutcheon, et al. v. FEC</span></font></a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-6" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#Ties_to_the_Bradley_Foundation" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">3</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Ties to the Bradley Foundation</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-7" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#Ties_to_ALEC" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">4</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Ties to ALEC</span></font></a><ul style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-8" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#WILL_Presents_Paper_at_ALEC.27s_Fall_2016_Meeting" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">4.1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">WILL Presents Paper at ALEC's Fall 2016 Meeting</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-9" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#WILL_Signs_onto_Letter_with_ALEC_in_Support_of_CEI" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">4.2</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">WILL Signs onto Letter with ALEC in Support of CEI</span></font></a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-10" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#State_Policy_Network" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">5</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">State Policy Network</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-11" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#Funding" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">6</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Funding</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-12" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#Core_Financials" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">7</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Core Financials</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-13" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#Personnel" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">8</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Personnel</span></font></a><ul style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-14" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#Staff" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">8.1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Staff</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-15" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#Board_of_Directors" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">8.2</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Board of Directors</span></font></a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-16" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#Contact_Information" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">9</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Contact Information</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-17" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#References" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">10</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">References</span></font></a></li></ul></div><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;"><span class="mw-headline" id="News_and_Controversies"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">News and Controversies</font></span></h2><h3 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.6;"><span class="mw-headline" id="WILL_Founds_The_Center_for_Competitive_Federalism_with_Cash_From_Bradley_Foundation"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WILL Founds The Center for Competitive Federalism with Cash From Bradley Foundation</font></span></h3><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> July 2016, WILL launched an initiative to protect the rights of states and limit the power of the federal government</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><sup id="cite_ref-js_4-0" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_note-js-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[4]</a></sup><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;According to its website, the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Center for Competitive Federalism (CCF) will "engage in strategic litigation and public education to advance the “competitive” federalism established by the Constitution</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> – 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."</span><sup id="cite_ref-ccf_5-0" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_note-ccf-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[5]</a></sup><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;CCF's director is Mario Loyola, former contributing editor at the&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/National_Review" title="National Review" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">National Review</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;and former senior fellow at the&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Texas_Public_Policy_Foundation" title="Texas Public Policy Foundation" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Texas Public Policy Foundation</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, also a member of the&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/State_Policy_Network" title="State Policy Network" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">State Policy Network</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><sup id="cite_ref-ccf_5-1" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_note-ccf-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[5]</a></sup><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;The&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Lynde_and_Harry_Bradley_Foundation" title="Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;provided millions of dollars in funding for the CCF.</span><sup id="cite_ref-js_4-1" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_note-js-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[4]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Scott Ross of&nbsp;<i style="">One Wisconsin Now</i>&nbsp;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."<sup id="cite_ref-js_4-2" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_note-js-4" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">[4]</a></sup></font></p><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;"><span class="mw-headline" id="Court_Cases"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Court Cases</font></span></h2><h3 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.6;"><span class="mw-headline" id="Support_for_Act_10"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Support for Act 10</font></span></h3><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In February 2013, WILL helped 3 teachers file an&nbsp;<i style="">amicus curiae</i>&nbsp;brief defending Governor&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Scott_Walker" title="Scott Walker" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Scott Walker</a>'s union-busting reforms.</span><sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_note-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[6]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"&nbsp;</span><sup id="cite_ref-7" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_note-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[7]</a></sup></font></p><h3 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.6;"><span class="mw-headline" id="McCutcheon.2C_et_al.v.FEC"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">McCutcheon, et al. v. FEC</font></span></h3><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Shaun_McCutcheon&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Shaun McCutcheon (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Shaun McCutcheon</a>&nbsp;and the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Republican_National_Committee&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Republican National Committee (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Republican National Committee</a>&nbsp;(RNC) filed a lawsuit challenging the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Federal_Election_Commission" title="Federal Election Commission" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Federal Election Commission</a>'s biennial limit on individual contributions contending the limit is unconstitutionally low and not supported by a sufficient governmental interest.<sup id="cite_ref-8" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_note-8" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[8]</a></sup>&nbsp;WILL filed an&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/images/9/98/Mccutcheon_sc_will_amicus_brief.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" https="https" upload.wikimedia.org="upload.wikimedia.org" wikipedia="wikipedia" commons="commons" icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif="Icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px"><b><i>amicus curiae</i>&nbsp;</b>brief</a>&nbsp;in support of the plaintiff-appellants. The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States" class="mw-redirect" title="Supreme Court of the United States" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Supreme Court of the United States</a>&nbsp;granted certiorari and will hear the case during the Fall 2013 session.<sup id="cite_ref-9" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_note-9" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[9]</a></sup></font></p><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;"><span class="mw-headline" id="Ties_to_the_Bradley_Foundation"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ties to the Bradley Foundation</font></span></h2><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Through 2016 the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty received&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Contributions_of_the_Bradley_Foundation" title="Contributions of the Bradley Foundation" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">$4,155,355</a>&nbsp;from the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Lynde_and_Harry_Bradley_Foundation" title="Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>2015-2016</b>: (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.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">2015</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">: $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</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">… 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, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">filed suit against the Government Accountability Board (GAB), partnered with the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/National_Right_to_Work_Legal_Defense_Foundation" title="National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation</a>&nbsp;to rebuff union challenges to Act 10 and represented a UWM student whose dissertation criticizing MPS was used to bar her graduation</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. WILL has worked with&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/School_Choice_Wisconsin" title="School Choice Wisconsin" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">School Choice Wisconsin</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">,&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Media_Trackers" title="Media Trackers" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Media Trackers</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, the&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/MacIver_Institute" title="MacIver Institute" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">MacIver Institute</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">,&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Majority" title="American Majority" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">American Majority</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;and&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Education_Action_Group" title="Education Action Group" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Education Action Group</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.”</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">2014</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">: $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…</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It is estimated that for the cost of $1.4 million roughly $4.3 million in legal services were provided.”</span></font></p><table style="vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(244, 210, 0);"><tbody><tr><th style="background: rgb(244, 210, 0); border: 1px solid rgb(244, 210, 0); text-align: left; padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bradley Files</font></th></tr><tr><td style=""><div style="padding: 2px 5px;"><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2017, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), publishers of SourceWatch, launched a series of articles on the Milwaukee-based&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Lynde_and_Harry_Bradley_Foundation" title="Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation</a>, 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&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.exposedbycmd.org/2017/05/05/documents-detail-bradley-foundation-efforts-build-right-wing-infrastructure-nationwide/" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.0%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22" standalone="%22no%22%3F%3E%3Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E%3Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22/%3E%3C/svg%3E" stroke="%22%2306c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" cpath="Cpath" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">map and measure right wing infrastructure nationwide</a>, including by&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.exposedbycmd.org/2017/05/05/bradley-foundation-bankrolls-attacks-unions/" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.0%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22" standalone="%22no%22%3F%3E%3Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E%3Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22/%3E%3C/svg%3E" stroke="%22%2306c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" cpath="Cpath" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">dismantling and defunding unions to impact state elections</a>;&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.exposedbycmd.org/2017/05/09/bradley-foundation-bankrolls-front-groups-richard-berman/" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.0%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22" standalone="%22no%22%3F%3E%3Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E%3Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22/%3E%3C/svg%3E" stroke="%22%2306c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" cpath="Cpath" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">bankrolling discredited spin doctor Richard Berman and his many front groups</a>; and more.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.exposedbycmd.org/bradley-files/" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.0%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22" standalone="%22no%22%3F%3E%3Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E%3Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22/%3E%3C/svg%3E" stroke="%22%2306c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" cpath="Cpath" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">Find the series here at ExposedbyCMD.org</a>.</font></p></div></td></tr></tbody></table><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;"><span class="mw-headline" id="Ties_to_ALEC"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ties to ALEC</font></span></h2><table style="vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170);"><tbody><tr><th style="background: rgb(41, 102, 184); border: 1px solid rgb(46, 114, 205); text-align: left; padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">About ALEC</font></th></tr><tr><td style=""><div style="padding: 2px 5px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC" class="mw-redirect" title="ALEC" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">ALEC</a>&nbsp;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&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://alecexposed.org/" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.0%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22" standalone="%22no%22%3F%3E%3Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E%3Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22/%3E%3C/svg%3E" stroke="%22%2306c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" cpath="Cpath" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">ALECexposed.org</a>, and check out breaking news on our&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.prwatch.org/" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.0%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22" standalone="%22no%22%3F%3E%3Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E%3Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22/%3E%3C/svg%3E" stroke="%22%2306c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" cpath="Cpath" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">PRWatch.org site</a>.</font></div></td></tr></tbody></table><h3 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.6;"><span class="mw-headline" id="WILL_Presents_Paper_at_ALEC.27s_Fall_2016_Meeting"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WILL Presents Paper at ALEC's Fall 2016 Meeting</font></span></h3><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">WILL President&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rick_Esenberg&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Rick Esenberg (page does not exist)" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Rick Esenberg</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, WILL Senior Fellow and Center for Competitive Federalism Director Mario Loyola, and Federal Litigator Jake Curtis presented a paper written by Loyola entitled,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.will-law.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/A-Common-Cause-1-1.pdf" style="background-image: url(" https="https" upload.wikimedia.org="upload.wikimedia.org" wikipedia="wikipedia" commons="commons" icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif="Icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif" background-position="background-position" right="right" center="center" background-size="background-size" initial="initial" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" background-attachment="background-attachment" background-origin="background-origin" background-clip="background-clip" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">A Common Cause: Uniting the States Against Federal Overreach</a>, at the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Legislative_Exchange_Council" title="American Legislative Exchange Council" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">American Legislative Exchange Council</a>&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">fall meeting in November 2016.</span><sup id="cite_ref-10" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_note-10" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[10]</a></sup></font></p><h3 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.6;"><span class="mw-headline" id="WILL_Signs_onto_Letter_with_ALEC_in_Support_of_CEI"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WILL Signs onto Letter with ALEC in Support of CEI</font></span></h3><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">WILL signed onto a&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.alec.org/public-affair/coalition-letter-to-support-the-competitive-enterprise-institute/" style="background-image: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.0%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22" standalone="%22no%22%3F%3E%3Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E%3Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22/%3E%3C/svg%3E" stroke="%22%2306c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" cpath="Cpath" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" background-position="background-position" right="right" center="center" background-size="background-size" initial="initial" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" repeat="repeat" background-attachment="background-attachment" background-origin="background-origin" background-clip="background-clip" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">letter</a>&nbsp;with ALEC and many other Koch-backed groups and SPN members hosted on the ALEC website expressing support of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Competitive_Enterprise_Institute" title="Competitive Enterprise Institute" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Competitive Enterprise Institute</a>&nbsp;(CEI).&nbsp;<sup id="cite_ref-alec_11-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_note-alec-11" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[11]</a></sup>&nbsp;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.<sup id="cite_ref-alec_11-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_note-alec-11" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[11]</a></sup>&nbsp;AG Walker withdrew his subpoena.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><i>Politico</i>&nbsp;reported that,</font></p><dl style="margin-top: 0.2em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><dd style="margin-left: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"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.'"<sup id="cite_ref-12" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_note-12" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[12]</a></sup></font></dd></dl><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;"><span class="mw-headline" id="State_Policy_Network"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">State Policy Network</font></span></h2><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WILL is a member of SPN.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/State_Policy_Network" title="State Policy Network" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">SPN</a>&nbsp;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 June 2018, SPN's membership totals 156. 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, "<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/2/25/SPN_National_Report_FINAL.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" https="https" upload.wikimedia.org="upload.wikimedia.org" wikipedia="wikipedia" commons="commons" icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif="Icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">EXPOSED: The State Policy Network -- The Powerful Right-Wing Network Helping to Hijack State Politics and Government</a>," reveals that SPN and its member think tanks are major drivers of the right-wing,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/SPN_Ties_to_ALEC" title="SPN Ties to ALEC" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">American Legislative Exchange Council</a>&nbsp;(ALEC)-backed corporate agenda in state houses nationwide, with deep ties to the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Koch_brothers" class="mw-redirect" title="Koch brothers" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Koch brothers</a>&nbsp;and the national right-wing network of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/SPN_Funding" title="SPN Funding" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">funders</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-13" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_note-13" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[13]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In response to CMD's report, SPN Executive Director&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Tracie_Sharp" title="Tracie Sharp" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Tracie Sharp</a>&nbsp;told national and statehouse reporters that SPN affiliates are "fiercely independent." Later the same week, however,&nbsp;<i style="">The New Yorker'</i>s Jane Mayer caught Sharp in a contradiction.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> In her article, "</span><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/11/is-ikea-the-new-model-for-the-conservative-movement.html" style="background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.0%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22" standalone="%22no%22%3F%3E%3Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E%3Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22/%3E%3C/svg%3E" stroke="%22%2306c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" cpath="Cpath" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">Is IKEA the New Model for the Conservative Movement?</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">," 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.'"</span><sup id="cite_ref-14" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_note-14" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[14]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A set of&nbsp;</span><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/842271-spn-budget-proposals-state-by-state.html" style="background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.0%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22" standalone="%22no%22%3F%3E%3Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E%3Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22/%3E%3C/svg%3E" stroke="%22%2306c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" cpath="Cpath" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">coordinated fundraising proposals</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">obtained and released by&nbsp;<i style="">The Guardian</i>&nbsp;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,"</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><i style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Guardian</i><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;notes.</span><sup id="cite_ref-15" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_note-15" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[15]</a></sup></font></p><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;"><span class="mw-headline" id="Funding"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Funding</font></span></h2><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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:</font></p><ul style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.1%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22%3F%3E%0A%3Csvg" width="%225%22" height="%2213%22%3E%0A%3Ccircle" cx="%222.5%22" cy="%229.5%22" r="%222.5%22" fill="%22%2300528c%22/%3E%0A%3C/svg%3E%0A" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/DonorsTrust" title="DonorsTrust" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">DonorsTrust</a>:&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/DonorsTrust_and_Donors_Capital_Fund_Grant_Recipients" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.0%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22" standalone="%22no%22%3F%3E%3Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E%3Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22/%3E%3C/svg%3E" stroke="%22%2306c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" cpath="Cpath" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" background-position="background-position" right="right" center="center" background-size="background-size" initial="initial" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" repeat="repeat" background-attachment="background-attachment" background-origin="background-origin" background-clip="background-clip" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">$50,000</a>&nbsp;(2014)</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Lynde_and_Harry_Bradley_Foundation" title="Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation</a>:&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Contributions_of_the_Bradley_Foundation" style="background-image: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.0%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22" standalone="%22no%22%3F%3E%3Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E%3Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22/%3E%3C/svg%3E" stroke="%22%2306c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" cpath="Cpath" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" background-position="background-position" right="right" center="center" background-size="background-size" initial="initial" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" repeat="repeat" background-attachment="background-attachment" background-origin="background-origin" background-clip="background-clip" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">$4,155,355</a>&nbsp;(2011-2016)</font></li></ul><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;"><span class="mw-headline" id="Core_Financials"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Core Financials</font></span></h2><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><big>2015</big></b><sup id="cite_ref-16" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_note-16" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[16]</a></sup></font></p><ul style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.1%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22%3F%3E%0A%3Csvg" width="%225%22" height="%2213%22%3E%0A%3Ccircle" cx="%222.5%22" cy="%229.5%22" r="%222.5%22" fill="%22%2300528c%22/%3E%0A%3C/svg%3E%0A" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Total Revenue: $3,001,261</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Total Expenses: $1,309,639</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Net Assets: $3,172,145</font></li></ul><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><big>2014</big></b><sup id="cite_ref-17" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_note-17" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[17]</a></sup></font></p><ul style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.1%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22%3F%3E%0A%3Csvg" width="%225%22" height="%2213%22%3E%0A%3Ccircle" cx="%222.5%22" cy="%229.5%22" r="%222.5%22" fill="%22%2300528c%22/%3E%0A%3C/svg%3E%0A" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Total Revenue: $1,611,698</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Total Expenses: $791,708</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Net Assets: $1,408,523</font></li></ul><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><big>2013</big></b><sup id="cite_ref-18" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_note-18" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[18]</a></sup></font></p><ul style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.1%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22%3F%3E%0A%3Csvg" width="%225%22" height="%2213%22%3E%0A%3Ccircle" cx="%222.5%22" cy="%229.5%22" r="%222.5%22" fill="%22%2300528c%22/%3E%0A%3C/svg%3E%0A" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Total Revenue: $938,457</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Total Expenses: $663,606</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Net Assets: $660,553</font></li></ul><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><big>2012</big></b><sup id="cite_ref-19" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_note-19" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[19]</a></sup></font></p><ul style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.1%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22%3F%3E%0A%3Csvg" width="%225%22" height="%2213%22%3E%0A%3Ccircle" cx="%222.5%22" cy="%229.5%22" r="%222.5%22" fill="%22%2300528c%22/%3E%0A%3C/svg%3E%0A" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Total Revenue: $664,068</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Total Expenses: $514,619</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Net Assets: $385,592</font></li></ul><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><big>2011</big></b><sup id="cite_ref-20" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_note-20" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[20]</a></sup></font></p><ul style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.1%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22%3F%3E%0A%3Csvg" width="%225%22" height="%2213%22%3E%0A%3Ccircle" cx="%222.5%22" cy="%229.5%22" r="%222.5%22" fill="%22%2300528c%22/%3E%0A%3C/svg%3E%0A" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Total Revenue: $511,939</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Total Expenses: $275,796</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Net Assets: $236,143</font></li></ul><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;"><span class="mw-headline" id="Personnel"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Personnel</font></span></h2><h3 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.6;"><span class="mw-headline" id="Staff"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Staff</font></span></h3><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As of September 2017:<sup id="cite_ref-21" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_note-21" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[21]</a></sup></font></p><ul style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.1%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22%3F%3E%0A%3Csvg" width="%225%22" height="%2213%22%3E%0A%3Ccircle" cx="%222.5%22" cy="%229.5%22" r="%222.5%22" fill="%22%2300528c%22/%3E%0A%3C/svg%3E%0A" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rick_Esenberg&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Rick Esenberg (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Rick Esenberg</a>, President and General Counsel</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CJ Szafir, Vice President for Policy and Deputy Counsel</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stacy A. Stueck, Vice President for Administration</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tom Kamenick, Deputy Counsel and Litigation Manager</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Brian McGrath, Senior Counsel</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mike Fischer, Senior Counsel</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jake Curtis, Associate Counsel & Federalism Litigator</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Clyde Taylor, Associate Counsel</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Libby Sobic, Associate Counsel</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Will Flanders, Ph.D., Education Research Director</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Collin Roth, Research Fellow</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cameron Sholty, Communications Director</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Virginia Zignego, Director of Development</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Natalie Goodnow, Research Fellow</font></li></ul><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Former Staff</font></b></p><ul style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.1%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22%3F%3E%0A%3Csvg" width="%225%22" height="%2213%22%3E%0A%3Ccircle" cx="%222.5%22" cy="%229.5%22" r="%222.5%22" fill="%22%2300528c%22/%3E%0A%3C/svg%3E%0A" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mario Loyola, Senior Fellow</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jennifer Johnson, Law Clerk&nbsp;<sup id="cite_ref-22" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_note-22" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[22]</a></sup></font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Elena Ramlow, Policy Intern</font></li></ul><h3 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.6;"><span class="mw-headline" id="Board_of_Directors"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Board of Directors</font></span></h3><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As of August 2016:<sup id="cite_ref-2015_990_23-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_note-2015_990-23" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[23]</a></sup></font></p><ul style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.1%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22%3F%3E%0A%3Csvg" width="%225%22" height="%2213%22%3E%0A%3Ccircle" cx="%222.5%22" cy="%229.5%22" r="%222.5%22" fill="%22%2300528c%22/%3E%0A%3C/svg%3E%0A" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rick_Esenberg&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Rick Esenberg (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Rick Esenberg</a>, President and Treasurer</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">James T. Barry, III</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Michael H. White</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Christopher Wolfe</font></li></ul><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;"><span class="mw-headline" id="Contact_Information"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Contact Information</font></span></h2><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty
1139 E. Knapp St.
Milwaukee, WI 53202
Phone: (414) 727-WILL(9455)
Fax: (414) 727-6385
Website:&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://www.will-law.org/" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.0%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22" standalone="%22no%22%3F%3E%3Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E%3Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22/%3E%3C/svg%3E" stroke="%22%2306c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" cpath="Cpath" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" word-wrap="word-wrap" break-word="break-word" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">http://www.will-law.org</a>
Email: info@will-law.org
Twitter:<a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="https://twitter.com/wilawliberty" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.0%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22" standalone="%22no%22%3F%3E%3Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E%3Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22/%3E%3C/svg%3E" stroke="%22%2306c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" cpath="Cpath" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" word-wrap="word-wrap" break-word="break-word" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">https://twitter.com/wilawliberty</a>
Facebook:&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="https://www.facebook.com/Wisconsin-Institute-for-Law-Liberty-191561687596446/" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.0%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22" standalone="%22no%22%3F%3E%3Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E%3Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22/%3E%3C/svg%3E" stroke="%22%2306c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" cpath="Cpath" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" word-wrap="word-wrap" break-word="break-word" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">https://www.facebook.com/Wisconsin-Institute-for-Law-Liberty-191561687596446/</a>
</font></p><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;"><span class="mw-headline" id="References"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">References</font></span></h2><div class="mw-references-wrap mw-references-columns" style="column-width: 30em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><ol class="references" style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em 3.2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li id="cite_note-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; break-inside: avoid-column;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_ref-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" 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;">Jump up</span>↑</a></span>&nbsp;<span class="reference-text">Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty,&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.will-law.org/Home/About-WILL" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.0%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22" standalone="%22no%22%3F%3E%3Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E%3Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22/%3E%3C/svg%3E" stroke="%22%2306c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" cpath="Cpath" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">About WILL</a>, Organizational Website, Accessed May 17, 2013.</span></font></li><li id="cite_note-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; break-inside: avoid-column;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_ref-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" 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;">Jump up</span>↑</a></span>&nbsp;<span class="reference-text">Bill Glauber,&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/lawyer-rick-esenberg-revels-in-public-policy-fights-e69tilg-207137331.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.0%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22" standalone="%22no%22%3F%3E%3Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E%3Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22/%3E%3C/svg%3E" stroke="%22%2306c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" cpath="Cpath" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">Marquette professor leads Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty in conservative causes</a>,&nbsp;<i>Milwaukee Journal Sentinel</i>, May 12, 2013.</span></font></li><li id="cite_note-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; break-inside: avoid-column;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_ref-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" 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;">Jump up</span>↑</a></span>&nbsp;<span class="reference-text">State Policy Network,&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://spn.org/directory/" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.0%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22" standalone="%22no%22%3F%3E%3Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E%3Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22/%3E%3C/svg%3E" stroke="%22%2306c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" cpath="Cpath" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">Directory</a>,&nbsp;<i>State Policy Network</i>, 2017.</span></font></li><li id="cite_note-js-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; break-inside: avoid-column;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;">↑&nbsp;<sup style="line-height: 1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_ref-js_4-0" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" 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;">Jump up to:</span>4.0</a></sup>&nbsp;<sup style="line-height: 1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_ref-js_4-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">4.1</a></sup>&nbsp;<sup style="line-height: 1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_ref-js_4-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">4.2</a></sup></span>&nbsp;<span class="reference-text">Haley Henschel,&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://archive.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/conservative-legal-group-announces-states-rights-initiative-b99759616z1-386368311.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.0%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22" standalone="%22no%22%3F%3E%3Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E%3Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22/%3E%3C/svg%3E" stroke="%22%2306c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" cpath="Cpath" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">Conservative legal group announces states' rights initiative</a>,&nbsp;<i>Journal Sentinel</i>, July 11, 2016.</span></font></li><li id="cite_note-ccf-5" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; break-inside: avoid-column;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;">↑&nbsp;<sup style="line-height: 1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_ref-ccf_5-0" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" 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;">Jump up to:</span>5.0</a></sup>&nbsp;<sup style="line-height: 1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_ref-ccf_5-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">5.1</a></sup></span>&nbsp;<span class="reference-text">Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty,&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.will-law.org/will-press-release-will-launches-new-project-federalism/" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.0%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22" standalone="%22no%22%3F%3E%3Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E%3Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22/%3E%3C/svg%3E" stroke="%22%2306c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" cpath="Cpath" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">WILL Launches New Project on Federalism</a>,&nbsp;<i>Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty</i>, July 11, 2016.</span></font></li><li id="cite_note-6" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; break-inside: avoid-column;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_ref-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" 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;">Jump up</span>↑</a></span>&nbsp;<span class="reference-text">Press Release,&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.nrtw.org/en/press/2013/02/teachers-file-state-court-brief-act10-02062013" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.0%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22" standalone="%22no%22%3F%3E%3Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E%3Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22/%3E%3C/svg%3E" stroke="%22%2306c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" cpath="Cpath" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">Teachers File Brief Defending Gov. Walker's 'Act 10' Reforms in Union's State Appeals Court Lawsuit</a>, National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, February 6, 2013.</span></font></li><li id="cite_note-7" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; break-inside: avoid-column;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_ref-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" 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;">Jump up</span>↑</a></span>&nbsp;<span class="reference-text">Case Updates,&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://will-law.org/Home/Case-Updates/2013/05/02/WILL-Files-Lawsuit-Against-MATC" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.0%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22" standalone="%22no%22%3F%3E%3Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E%3Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22/%3E%3C/svg%3E" stroke="%22%2306c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" cpath="Cpath" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">WILL Files Lawsuit Against MATC</a>, will-law.org, May 2, 2013.</span></font></li><li id="cite_note-8" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; break-inside: avoid-column;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_ref-8" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" 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;">Jump up</span>↑</a></span>&nbsp;<span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.fec.gov/law/litigation/McCutcheon.shtml" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.0%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22" standalone="%22no%22%3F%3E%3Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E%3Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22/%3E%3C/svg%3E" stroke="%22%2306c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" cpath="Cpath" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">McCutcheon, et al. v. FEC - Case Summary</a>, FEC.gov, Accessed May 17, 2013.</span></font></li><li id="cite_note-9" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; break-inside: avoid-column;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_ref-9" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" 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;">Jump up</span>↑</a></span>&nbsp;<span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.aspx?FileName=/docketfiles/12-536.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.0%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22" standalone="%22no%22%3F%3E%3Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E%3Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22/%3E%3C/svg%3E" stroke="%22%2306c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" cpath="Cpath" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">Shaun McCutcheon, et al., Appellants v. Federal Election Commission</a>, SupremeCourt.gov, Accessed May 17, 2013.</span></font></li><li id="cite_note-10" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; break-inside: avoid-column;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_ref-10" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" 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;">Jump up</span>↑</a></span>&nbsp;<span class="reference-text">Cameron Sholty,&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.will-law.org/wisconsin-watchdog-lawmakers-anti-alec-bill-is-anti-constitution/" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.0%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22" standalone="%22no%22%3F%3E%3Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E%3Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22/%3E%3C/svg%3E" stroke="%22%2306c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" cpath="Cpath" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">Center for Competitive Federalism Presents White Paper to ALEC Conference</a>,&nbsp;<i>Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty</i>, December 17, 2016.</span></font></li><li id="cite_note-alec-11" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; break-inside: avoid-column;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;">↑&nbsp;<sup style="line-height: 1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_ref-alec_11-0" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" 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;">Jump up to:</span>11.0</a></sup>&nbsp;<sup style="line-height: 1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_ref-alec_11-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">11.1</a></sup></span>&nbsp;<span class="reference-text">American Legislative Exchange Council,&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.alec.org/public-affair/coalition-letter-to-support-the-competitive-enterprise-institute/" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.0%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22" standalone="%22no%22%3F%3E%3Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E%3Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22/%3E%3C/svg%3E" stroke="%22%2306c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" cpath="Cpath" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">Coalition Letter to Support the Competitive Enterprise Institute</a>,&nbsp;<i>American Legislative Exchange Council</i>, June 1, 2016.</span></font></li><li id="cite_note-12" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; break-inside: avoid-column;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_ref-12" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" 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;">Jump up</span>↑</a></span>&nbsp;<span class="reference-text">Eric Wolff,&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-energy/2016/06/virgin-islands-ag-withdraws-exxon-subpoena-215099" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.0%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22" standalone="%22no%22%3F%3E%3Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E%3Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22/%3E%3C/svg%3E" stroke="%22%2306c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" cpath="Cpath" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">Virgin Islands AG withdraws Exxon subpoena</a>,&nbsp;<i>Politico</i>, June 30, 2016.</span></font></li><li id="cite_note-13" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; break-inside: avoid-column;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_ref-13" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" 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;">Jump up</span>↑</a></span>&nbsp;<span class="reference-text">Rebekah Wilce, Center for Media and Democracy,&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/2/25/SPN_National_Report_FINAL.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" https="https" upload.wikimedia.org="upload.wikimedia.org" wikipedia="wikipedia" commons="commons" icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif="Icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">EXPOSED: The State Policy Network -- The Powerful Right-Wing Network Helping to Hijack State Politics and Government</a>, organizational report, November 13, 2013.</span></font></li><li id="cite_note-14" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; break-inside: avoid-column;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_ref-14" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" 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;">Jump up</span>↑</a></span>&nbsp;<span class="reference-text">Jane Mayer,&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/11/is-ikea-the-new-model-for-the-conservative-movement.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.0%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22" standalone="%22no%22%3F%3E%3Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E%3Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22/%3E%3C/svg%3E" stroke="%22%2306c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" cpath="Cpath" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">Is IKEA the New Model for the Conservative Movement?</a>,&nbsp;<i>The New Yorker</i>, November 15, 2013.</span></font></li><li id="cite_note-15" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; break-inside: avoid-column;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_ref-15" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" 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;">Jump up</span>↑</a></span>&nbsp;<span class="reference-text">Ed Pilkington and Suzanne Goldenberg,&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/05/state-conservative-groups-assault-education-health-tax" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.0%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22" standalone="%22no%22%3F%3E%3Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E%3Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22/%3E%3C/svg%3E" stroke="%22%2306c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" cpath="Cpath" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">State conservative groups plan US-wide assault on education, health and tax</a>,&nbsp;<i>The Guardian</i>, December 5, 2013.</span></font></li><li id="cite_note-16" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; break-inside: avoid-column;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_ref-16" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" 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;">Jump up</span>↑</a></span>&nbsp;<span class="reference-text">Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty,&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.will-law.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/2015-PUBLIC-Form-990-Wisconsin-Institute-for-Law-Liberty.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" https="https" upload.wikimedia.org="upload.wikimedia.org" wikipedia="wikipedia" commons="commons" icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif="Icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">2015 Form 990</a>, organizational tax filing, August 12, 2016.</span></font></li><li id="cite_note-17" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; break-inside: avoid-column;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_ref-17" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" 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;">Jump up</span>↑</a></span>&nbsp;<span class="reference-text">Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty,&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.will-law.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/WILL-2013-PUBLIC-Form-990.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" https="https" upload.wikimedia.org="upload.wikimedia.org" wikipedia="wikipedia" commons="commons" icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif="Icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">2014 Form 990</a>, organizational tax filing, August 6, 2015.</span></font></li><li id="cite_note-18" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; break-inside: avoid-column;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_ref-18" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" 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;">Jump up</span>↑</a></span>&nbsp;<span class="reference-text">Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty,&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.will-law.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/WILL-2013-PUBLIC-Form-990.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" https="https" upload.wikimedia.org="upload.wikimedia.org" wikipedia="wikipedia" commons="commons" icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif="Icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">2013 Form 990</a>, organizational tax filing, May 15, 2014.</span></font></li><li id="cite_note-19" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; break-inside: avoid-column;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_ref-19" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" 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;">Jump up</span>↑</a></span>&nbsp;<span class="reference-text">Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty,&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.will-law.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2012-WILL-990-Public-Copy.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" https="https" upload.wikimedia.org="upload.wikimedia.org" wikipedia="wikipedia" commons="commons" icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif="Icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">IRS 2012 Form 990</a>, organizational tax filing, May 2, 2013.</span></font></li><li id="cite_note-20" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; break-inside: avoid-column;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_ref-20" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" 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;">Jump up</span>↑</a></span>&nbsp;<span class="reference-text">Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty,&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://pdfs.citizenaudit.org/2015_09_EO/39-1592727_990_201503.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" https="https" upload.wikimedia.org="upload.wikimedia.org" wikipedia="wikipedia" commons="commons" icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif="Icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">IRS 2011 Form 990</a>, organizational tax filing, July 5, 2012.</span></font></li><li id="cite_note-21" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; break-inside: avoid-column;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_ref-21" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" 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;">Jump up</span>↑</a></span>&nbsp;<span class="reference-text">Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty,&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.will-law.org/about-us/" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.0%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22" standalone="%22no%22%3F%3E%3Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E%3Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22/%3E%3C/svg%3E" stroke="%22%2306c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" cpath="Cpath" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">About Us</a>,&nbsp;<i>Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty</i>, 2017.</span></font></li><li id="cite_note-22" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; break-inside: avoid-column;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_ref-22" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" 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;">Jump up</span>↑</a></span>&nbsp;<span class="reference-text">Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty,&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.will-law.org/Home/Staff-Bios" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="%221.0%22" encoding="%22UTF-8%22" standalone="%22no%22%3F%3E%3Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E%3Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22/%3E%3C/svg%3E" stroke="%22%2306c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" cpath="Cpath" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">Staff Bios</a>, Organizational Website, Accessed May 17, 2013.</span></font></li><li id="cite_note-2015_990-23" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; break-inside: avoid-column;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty#cite_ref-2015_990_23-0" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" 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;">Jump up</span>↑</a></span>&nbsp;<span class="reference-text">Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty,&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.will-law.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/2015-PUBLIC-Form-990-Wisconsin-Institute-for-Law-Liberty.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" https="https" upload.wikimedia.org="upload.wikimedia.org" wikipedia="wikipedia" commons="commons" icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif="Icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">2015 990</a>,&nbsp;<i>Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty</i>, August 12, 2016.</span></font></li></ol></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">wiki</font><div><div id="mw-content-text" lang="en" dir="ltr" class="mw-content-ltr" style="direction: ltr; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="mw-parser-output"><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty</b>&nbsp;<b>(WILL)</b>&nbsp;is a nonprofit&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_interest_law" title="Public interest law" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">public interest law</a>&nbsp;firm located in&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milwaukee,Wisconsin" class="mw-redirect" title="Milwaukee, Wisconsin" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Milwaukee, Wisconsin</a>, that says it is "dedicated to the promotion of free markets, individual liberty, and a robust civil society."<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law_and_Liberty#cite_note-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[1]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law_and_Liberty#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[2]</a></sup>&nbsp;The group was founded by lawyer Rick Esenberg in 2011. Esenberg sought to found a group of advocacy lawyers dedicated to&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism_in_the_United_States" title="Conservatism in the United States" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">conservative</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_in_the_United_States" title="Libertarianism in the United States" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">libertarian</a>&nbsp;causes to counter liberal legal organizations.<sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law_and_Liberty#cite_note-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[3]</a></sup></font></p><h2 style="background: none; font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177);" linux="Linux" libertine="Libertine" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" serif="serif" line-height="line-height"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="Issues">Issues</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law_and_Liberty&action=edit&section=1" title="Edit section: Issues" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left: 0.25em;">]</span></span></font></h2><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The organization published a study in June 2016 which found that&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Wisconsin_Act_10" title="2011 Wisconsin Act 10" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">public-sector union reforms passed in Wisconsin in 2011</a>&nbsp;had not harmed the state's public schools.<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law_and_Liberty#cite_note-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[4]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2016, the organization announced the launch of the Center for Competitive Federalism, a national effort to bring lawsuits and conduct research to promote state sovereignty.<sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law_and_Liberty#cite_note-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[5]</a></sup>&nbsp;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.<sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law_and_Liberty#cite_note-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[6]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-7" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law_and_Liberty#cite_note-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[7]</a></sup></font></p><h2 style="background: none; font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177);" linux="Linux" libertine="Libertine" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" serif="serif" line-height="line-height"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="References">References</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law_and_Liberty&action=edit&section=2" title="Edit section: References" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left: 0.25em;">]</span></span></font></h2><div class="reflist" style="margin-bottom: 0.5em; list-style-type: decimal;"><div class="mw-references-wrap"><ol class="references" style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0px 3.2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none; list-style-type: inherit;"><li id="cite_note-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law_and_Liberty#cite_ref-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" 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;">Jump up</span>^{</a></b></span>&nbsp;}<span class="reference-text"><cite class="citation web" style="font-style: inherit; word-wrap: break-word;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.will-law.org/about-us/" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E" cpath="Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22" stroke="%22%2336c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" c="C" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">"About Us"</a>. Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty<span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved&nbsp;<span class="nowrap" style="white-space: nowrap;">14 September</span>&nbsp;2016</span>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=unknown&rft.btitle=About+Us&rft.pub=Wisconsin+Institute+for+Law+and+Liberty&rft_id=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.will-law.org%2Fabout-us%2F&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AWisconsin+Institute+for+Law+and+Liberty" class="Z3988" /></span></font></li><li id="cite_note-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law_and_Liberty#cite_ref-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" 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;">Jump up</span>^{</a></b></span>&nbsp;}<span class="reference-text"><cite class="citation news" style="font-style: inherit; word-wrap: break-word;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.politifact.com/personalities/wisconsin-institute-law-liberty/" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E" cpath="Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22" stroke="%22%2336c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" c="C" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">"Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty's file"</a>. PolitiFact<span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved&nbsp;<span class="nowrap" style="white-space: nowrap;">14 September</span>&nbsp;2016</span>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Wisconsin+Institute+for+Law+%26+Liberty%27s+file&rft_id=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.politifact.com%2Fpersonalities%2Fwisconsin-institute-law-liberty%2F&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AWisconsin+Institute+for+Law+and+Liberty" class="Z3988" /></span></font></li><li id="cite_note-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law_and_Liberty#cite_ref-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" 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;">Jump up</span>^{</a></b></span>&nbsp;}<span class="reference-text"><cite class="citation news" style="font-style: inherit; word-wrap: break-word;">Elbow, Steven (May 19, 2013).&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/writers/steven_elbow/q-a-wisconsin-institute-for-law-liberty-takes-on-cause/article_2bdad798-bf36-11e2-8fb4-0019bb2963f4.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E" cpath="Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22" stroke="%22%2336c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" c="C" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">"Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty takes on 'cause lawyering' from the right"</a>. The Capital Times<span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved&nbsp;<span class="nowrap" style="white-space: nowrap;">14 September</span>&nbsp;2016</span>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Wisconsin+Institute+for+Law+%26+Liberty+takes+on+%27cause+lawyering%27+from+the+right&rft.date=2013-05-19&rft.aulast=Elbow&rft.aufirst=Steven&rft_id=http%3A%2F%2Fhost.madison.com%2Fct%2Fnews%2Flocal%2Fwriters%2Fsteven_elbow%2Fq-a-wisconsin-institute-for-law-liberty-takes-on-cause%2Farticle_2bdad798-bf36-11e2-8fb4-0019bb2963f4.html&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AWisconsin+Institute+for+Law+and+Liberty" class="Z3988" /></span></font></li><li id="cite_note-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law_and_Liberty#cite_ref-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" 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;">Jump up</span>^{</a></b></span>&nbsp;}<span class="reference-text"><cite class="citation news" style="font-style: inherit; word-wrap: break-word;">Russell, Jason (June 23, 2016).&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2594724" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E" cpath="Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22" stroke="%22%2336c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" c="C" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">"Scott Walker's union reforms didn't harm Wisconsin schools"</a>. The Washington Examiner<span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved&nbsp;<span class="nowrap" style="white-space: nowrap;">14 October</span>&nbsp;2016</span>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Scott+Walker%27s+union+reforms+didn%27t+harm+Wisconsin+schools&rft.date=2016-06-23&rft.aulast=Russell&rft.aufirst=Jason&rft_id=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonexaminer.com%2Farticle%2F2594724&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AWisconsin+Institute+for+Law+and+Liberty" class="Z3988" /></span></font></li><li id="cite_note-5" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law_and_Liberty#cite_ref-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" 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;">Jump up</span>^{</a></b></span>&nbsp;}<span class="reference-text"><cite class="citation news" style="font-style: inherit; word-wrap: break-word;">Henschel, Haley (July 11, 2016).&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://archive.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/conservative-legal-group-announces-states-rights-initiative-b99759616z1-386368311.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E" cpath="Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22" stroke="%22%2336c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" c="C" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">"Conservative legal group announces states' rights initiative"</a>. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel<span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved&nbsp;<span class="nowrap" style="white-space: nowrap;">14 October</span>&nbsp;2016</span>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Conservative+legal+group+announces+states%27+rights+initiative&rft.date=2016-07-11&rft.aulast=Henschel&rft.aufirst=Haley&rft_id=http%3A%2F%2Farchive.jsonline.com%2Fnews%2Fstatepolitics%2Fconservative-legal-group-announces-states-rights-initiative-b99759616z1-386368311.html&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AWisconsin+Institute+for+Law+and+Liberty" class="Z3988" /></span></font></li><li id="cite_note-6" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law_and_Liberty#cite_ref-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" 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;">Jump up</span>^{</a></b></span>&nbsp;}<span class="reference-text"><cite class="citation news" style="font-style: inherit; word-wrap: break-word;">Johnson, Shawn (August 23, 2016).&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.wpr.org/conservative-group-sues-overturn-minimum-markup-law" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E" cpath="Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22" stroke="%22%2336c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" c="C" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">"Conservative Group Sues To Overturn Minimum Markup Law"</a>. Wisconsin Public Radio. National Public Radio<span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved&nbsp;<span class="nowrap" style="white-space: nowrap;">14 October</span>&nbsp;2016</span>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Conservative+Group+Sues+To+Overturn+Minimum+Markup+Law&rft.date=2016-08-23&rft.aulast=Johnson&rft.aufirst=Shawn&rft_id=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wpr.org%2Fconservative-group-sues-overturn-minimum-markup-law&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AWisconsin+Institute+for+Law+and+Liberty" class="Z3988" /></span></font></li><li id="cite_note-7" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law_and_Liberty#cite_ref-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" 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;">Jump up</span>^{</a></b></span>&nbsp;}<span class="reference-text"><cite class="citation news" style="font-style: inherit; word-wrap: break-word;">Cassens Weiss, Debra (August 24, 2016).&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/suit_challenges_wisconsins_minimum_markup_law" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E" cpath="Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22" stroke="%22%2336c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" c="C" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">"Suit challenges Wisconsin's minimum markup law"</a>. American Bar Association Journal<span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved&nbsp;<span class="nowrap" style="white-space: nowrap;">14 October</span>&nbsp;2016</span>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Suit+challenges+Wisconsin%27s+minimum+markup+law&rft.date=2016-08-24&rft.aulast=Cassens+Weiss&rft.aufirst=Debra&rft_id=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.abajournal.com%2Fnews%2Farticle%2Fsuit_challenges_wisconsins_minimum_markup_law&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AWisconsin+Institute+for+Law+and+Liberty" class="Z3988" /></span></font></li></ol></div></div><h2 style="background: none; font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177);" linux="Linux" libertine="Libertine" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" serif="serif" line-height="line-height"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="External_links">External links</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; 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background: none;">Conservative organizations in the United States</a></li></ul></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">? 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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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.&nbsp;<b>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.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div></div>