Ca Donor Table Prog

sf chron 2026

A megadonor Repub­lican bil­lion­aire from Illinois has so far given $17 mil­lion to the effort to enact voter ID require­ments in Cali­for­nia, mak­ing him Pro­pos­i­tion 39’s biggest single backer.

Richard Uih­lein, the heir to the Schlitz Brew­ing Co. and the cofounder of a lead­ing ship­ping and pack­aging com­pany, has been a prom­in­ent Repub­lican donor since the 1990s. This year alone, Uih­lein has given more than $35 mil­lion to the Res­tor­a­tion of Amer­ica PAC, a con­ser­vat­ive super PAC. His ship­ping com­pany, Uline, is based in Wis­con­sin, where Uih­lein has also shelled out sev­eral mil­lions so far this year to sup­port the state’s Repub­lican Party.

Uih­lein first donated $4 mil­lion to Prop 39 in Decem­ber 2025. Two sep­ar­ate dona­tions of $6.5 mil­lion fol­lowed, in August and earlier this month, cam­paign fin­ance records show. The next single-largest dona­tion of about $1 mil­lion came from Reform Cali­for­nia, Assembly Mem­ber Carl DeMaio’s PAC. DeMaio, R-San Diego, is one of two Repub­lican state law­makers who filed Prop 39.

The meas­ure, which will be on the bal­lot this

Novem­ber, would require Cali­for­nia voters to show gov­ern­ment-issued iden­ti­fic­a­tion every time they vote in per­son. Those vot­ing by mail — which is the vast major­ity of Cali­for­ni­ans — would have to con­firm their iden­tity by writ­ing the last four digits of a gov­ern­ment ID on bal­lot envel­opes.

The pro­posed law fol­lows some of the same object­ives laid out in the Trump-sup­por­ted SAVE Amer­ica Act. That legis­la­tion failed but included its own voter ID reg­u­la­tions, proof of cit­izen­ship require­ments and an end to most mail-in vot­ing. Pres­id­ent Don­ald Trump and the Repub­lican Party have claimed, without evid­ence, that voter fraud is wide­spread and that voter ID is the solu­tion.

Vot­ing rights advoc­ates, however, say cre­at­ing doc­u­ment­a­tion require­ments could dis­en­fran­chise eli­gible voters and believe the meas­ure is designed pur­pose­fully to sup­press vot­ing. Cali­for­nia already requires a Cali­for­nia driver’s license, state ID num­ber or the last four digits of a Social Secur­ity num­ber to register to vote.

Under Prop 39, eli­gible voters could request a free voter ID card from the state, which is one reason the non­par­tisan Legis­lat­ive Ana­lyst’s Office said the meas­ure would cost state and local gov­ern­ments “tens of mil­lions of dol­lars to low hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars” to imple­ment.

Uih­lein and his wife, Eliza­beth Uih­lein, are some of Trump’s biggest fin­an­cial sup­port­ers. The two are in their early 80s, and For­bes puts their com­bined net worth at about $14 bil­lion. Dur­ing the 2024 cam­paign cycle, the couple gave about $139 mil­lion to MAGA-aligned can­did­ates and cam­paigns. Richard Uih­lein did not respond to a Chron­icle request to dis­cuss his dona­tions to Prop 39. He has said he shares his father’s con­ser­vat­ive val­ues.

The late Ed Uih­lein sup­por­ted politi­cians who embraced segreg­a­tion dur­ing the Civil Rights Move­ment.

In 2018, the New York Times pub­lished a pro­file on the couple’s dona­tion his­tory in an art­icle titled “The Most Power­ful Con­ser­vat­ive Couple You’ve Never Heard Of.” They rarely grant inter­views but sent the Times a state­ment say­ing, “We care about our com­munity and our coun­try and choose to per­son­ally sup­port can­did­ates that share our policy beliefs.”

Cam­paign fin­ance records show Richard Uih­lein has been a major sup­porter of the Amer­ican Prin­ciples Project, which has run attack ads on abor­tion rights, trans­gender health care for minors and the teach­ings of “crit­ical race the­ory.” Amid the pan­demic, he donated $50,000 to a cam­paign to recall four school board mem­bers in a small town in Wis­con­sin because of their sup­port for COVID-19 safety pro­to­cols and “equity” train­ing for teach­ers, accord­ing to online news out­let Urban Mil­wau­kee.

He gave $800,000 to the “Safe­guard Girls Sports” com­mit­tee in Maine this year, mak­ing him its largest donor, accord­ing to the Port­land Press Her­ald. The “Pro­tect Girls Sports in Maine” ini­ti­at­ive that will be on the bal­lot in Maine this Novem­ber would bar trans­gender girls from par­ti­cip­at­ing in girls’ sports and restrict trans­gender stu­dents’ access to school bath­rooms, locker rooms and chan­ging areas.

The Uih­leins have also put their money behind elec­tion den­iers, ProP­ub­lica repor­ted. They were the largest donors to a can­did­ate for gov­ernor in Pennsylvania who atten­ded the Jan. 6 riot at the Cap­itol. They have given money to a Nevada offi­cial who said he opposed the cer­ti­fic­a­tion of Pres­id­ent Joe Biden’s elec­tion vic­tory. ProP­ub­lica uncovered internal doc­u­ments from Super PAC Res­tor­a­tion of Amer­ica, which said it aims to “get on God’s side of the issues and stay there” and “pun­ish left­ists.” Richard Uih­lein is the PAC’s main fun­der.

Voters are watch­ing Prop 39 closely. In a PPIC Cali­for­nia poll released last week, Prop 39 received the highest share of responses to the ques­tion “Which one of the 14 state pro­pos­i­tions on the Novem­ber 3 bal­lot are you most inter­ested in?” with 23%. The poll found 43% of those sur­veyed sup­port the meas­ure, and 55% oppose.

Prop 39 was sub­mit­ted by DeMaio and state Sen. Tony Strick­land, R-Hunt­ing­ton Beach (Orange County). Adding the iden­ti­fic­a­tion require­ments would require an amend­ment to the state Con­sti­tu­tion.

The ACLU of North­ern Cali­for­nia and the Cali­for­nia Donor Table, a group that sup­ports pro­gress­ive can­did­ates, have both donated to defeat the voter ID law. The oppos­i­tion’s top indi­vidual donors include Net­flix founder Reed Hast­ings ($1 mil­lion) and his wife, Patty Quil­lin ($1.5 mil­lion) as well as phil­an­throp­ist and Demo­cratic donor Quinn Delaney ($1.5 mil­lion).