uline
==
see restoration pac
see Uihlien, dick
-=-=
Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein - Wikipedia
MUCH TALK
Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein (/ˈjuːlaɪn/ YOO-lyne[1]) are American billionaire owners of business supply company Uline, heirs to the Schlitz brewing fortune,[2] and major financial supporters of the Republican Party.[3]
Richard Uihlein was born to Schlitz beer founder descendant and noted conservative Edgar Uihlein and Lucia Ellis Uihlein.[4][5] He graduated from Phillips Andover[6] and from Stanford University with a BA in history.[7] Until 1980, Uihlein worked in international sales for General Binding Corporation, a company his father co-founded.[8] Uihlein's cousin is Lynde Bradley Uihlein.[2]
Richard's father, Edgar Uihlein, was a prominent conservative figure in the 1960s and 1970s. He sat on the John Birch Society's finance committee, donated to the presidential campaign of segregationist candidate George Wallace, and supported General Edwin Walker, who led an insurrection in response to the racial integration of the University of Mississippi.[9][10]
Elizabeth Anne Uihlein was born to Robert Emerson Hallberg, an auto company executive, and Elizabeth Pierce Hallberg of Winnetka, Illinois.[11] She had a sister, Katherine Hallberg, who died in 1997.[11] She is the cousin of Martin Hanson, a Wisconsin environmentalist who fought for federal protection of Lake Superior's Apostle Islands.[12][13]
The Uihleins have three children.[14] The couple's primary residence is in Lake Forest, Illinois, but they own several homes and are noted part-time residents of Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin.[15][16]
Business activities
Uline
Further information: Uline
In 1980, with start-up funds from Richard's father, Elizabeth and Richard founded Uline, a shipping supplies company.[17][14] The company expanded rapidly and is now one of the largest privately held U.S. companies; in 2014, Forbes estimated its value as between $700 million and $2 billion.[14] As of 2020, the company had around 7,000 employees.[18] Elizabeth Uihlein is the company's president and Richard is the CEO; their three children hold executive roles.[19][20][14]
EAU Holdings
Elizabeth and Richard own and operate a number of businesses in downtown Manitowish Waters under EAU Holdings Inc, a holding company advertised on Uline's website.[21][22] Businesses owned by the entity include a gym, a restaurant, various lodgings, a coffee shop, a salon, a spa, and gift shops.[22]
Galectin Therapeutics
Richard Uihlein is the chairman of the board for Galectin Therapeutics, a publicly traded biotech company focusing on treatments for chronic liver disease and cancer.[23] He is its largest individual stock holder.[24][23]
Political activities
Views and history
Richard
Richard Uihlein has been a Republican donor for decades, and increased his political giving after Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.[8] He has been a longtime donor to Republicans who share his ultra-conservative views.[14] He is a staunch social and economic conservative,[25] with views that are anti-union,[18][19][25] anti-tax,[18][25] and pro-deregulation.[25]
He has supported far-right[14] candidates and has often supported efforts in opposition to gay and transgender rights as well as abortion rights.[15] Richard Uihlein has been described as a person who "shuns the spotlight";[19] he rarely gives interviews.[18]
Elizabeth
Elizabeth has said her mother was a liberal and her father a conservative.[26] She has said she held liberal beliefs in her early years.[27]
Like her husband, Elizabeth rarely gives interviews, but she frequently makes statements about her political views in a column that appears in the Uline catalog and on the Uline website.[18][28] Past columns have addressed topics including "the danger of Chinese competition", "the negative health effects of marijuana use", and "the detriments of the Federal Reserve's low interest rate policy".[29]
During the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, Elizabeth Uihlein said the pandemic was "overhyped" and in November 2020 was an outspoken critic of stay-at-home directives issued to combat the spread of the virus.[18]
Elizabeth Uihlein focuses her donations on the main GOP organizations, such as the Republican National Committee, National Republican Senatorial Committee, and National Republican Congressional Committee.[30]
National politics
Richard Uihlein is the biggest donor to Women Speak Out PAC, a group seeking a federal abortion ban.[31] He has also donated millions to Restoration PAC, according to which "all marriage is for one man and one woman for life".[31] He has supported conservative groups and candidates including Ted Cruz, Roy Moore, The Club for Growth, and the Illinois Policy Institute.[17][8][15][32] Uihlein has also been a major donor to Liberty Principles PAC,[33] Americas PAC,[34] and Scott Walker.[35]
2014 election cycle
In the 2014 election cycle, the Uihleins made at least $5 million in political contributions, mostly to right-wing PACs ($1.8 million to Liberty Principles PAC, $670,000 to Americas PAC, and slightly under $500,000 to Jim DeMint's Senate Conservatives Fund and affiliated super PAC).[14]
2016 election cycle
The Uihleins gave $22 million in the 2016 election cycle.[19] In the 2016 Republican primaries, Uihlein initially supported Scott Walker and Ted Cruz; after they both dropped out of the race, Uihlein backed Donald Trump,[19] contributing money to the pro-Trump "Great America PAC" and $500,000 to Trump's inauguration,[25] which he attended.[19] He also donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Republican National Committee.[19]
2018 election cycle
In the 2018 election cycle, Richard dramatically increased his political contributions,[19] making $37.7 million in contributions to outside spending groups (the fourth-largest donor to such groups).[36] His contributions include support for many Republican candidates in competitive primary races,[19] such as Chris McDaniel.[19][25] Also in 2018, Uihlein gave financial support to Kevin Nicholson, a one-time long-shot Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Wisconsin; eight super PACs Uihlein funded also supported Nicholson.[25] They contributed $4 million to the Fair Courts America PAC.[37]
Donations to Roy Moore
Richard supported Roy Moore for U.S. Senate.[38] The support began on September 8, 2017, before sexual misconduct allegations against Moore came to light, with a contribution of $50,000 to Moore's Proven Conservative PAC.[38] On November 22, 2017, after multiple women, some of whom where underage at the time of the alleged offense, had come forward accusing Moore of sexual assault, Richard donated another $50,000 to the Proven Conservative PAC.[38]
Pay for play newspapers
From 2016 to 2018, a political action committee the Uihleins funded gave at least $646,000 to a new network of free newspapers and websites created by Brian Timpone that mimics local newspapers but offers pay-for-play articles to conservative clients.[39]
2020 election cycle
In the 2020 election cycle, the Uihleins and their company had, by April 2020, contributed $1.5 million to Trump's "America First Action" super PAC and $20 million to other Republican groups.[18][40]
Uihlein was a major financial backer for the rally that preceded the January 6 United States Capitol attack.[31] From 2015 to 2020, the Uihleins donated $4.3 million (including $800,000 in October 2020) to Tea Party Patriots, a group that participated in the March to Save America rally that preceded the attack.[41]
After it was reported that the Uihleins were a major financial backer for the rally that preceded the January 6 attack, Northwestern University reviewed its contract with Uline at a university donor's behest.[31][42] Upon conclusion of the review, Northwestern continued its contract with the company.[43]
In November 2020, the Uihleins announced to their company that they had contracted COVID-19 after media speculation that they had been infected during Trump's White House election result watch party.[44][45] Journalists made this speculation after the Uihleins' personal jet flew to DC on the evening of the election and a string of COVID-19 infections befell known attendees.[45][44] Elizabeth insisted that they had not attended Trump's party and had instead contracted it from a friend.[44]
2022 election cycle
During the 2022 election cycle, they contributed to the U.S. Senate campaigns of Herschel Walker, Ron Johnson, and Adam Laxalt.[46] Other politicians the Uihleins supported include Georgia representative Jody Hice and Texas representative Louie Gohmert.[47]
2024 election cycle
As of October 2024, Richard Uihlein had given nearly $59 million in 2024 to Restoration PAC, a leading pro-Trump super PAC that is active in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Georgia.[48]
State politics
Richard is a significant supporter of the Foundation for Government Accountability, a think tank that has worked to relax child labor laws in 22 states.[49]
In September 2022, Richard donated $750,000 to help defeat a ballot question that would legalize recreational cannabis in Wisconsin.[50]
The Uihleins spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in the 2011 Wisconsin Senate recall elections in support of state senators facing recall over their support for legislation to end collective bargaining for public employees, and also backed litigation against public-employee unions, including Janus v. AFSCME.[19] During the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, Elizabeth called upon Republican members of the Wisconsin Legislature to push to remove Governor Tony Evers from office over the stay-at-home directives he issued.[18]
Richard Uihlein spent $2.6 million in support of Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner in his successful 2014 Illinois gubernatorial election campaign. Uihlein broke with Rauner after he signed legislation in 2017 that expanded abortion coverage for women on Medicaid;[25] Uihlein gave millions to Jeanne Ives, who challenged Rauner in the 2018 Republican primary.[25][8]
During the 2022 Illinois gubernatorial election; Richard Uihlein gave more than $42 million to "People Who Play By The Rules PAC",[51][52] a super PAC that ran attack ads against Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker to boost the candidacy of Republican nominee Darren Bailey.[51][53] The super PAC was operated by Republican operative and talk radio host Dan Proft.[53] Richard Uihlein also gave $10 million directly to Bailey's campaign.[53]
During Ohio's 2023 August special election cycle, Richard Uihlein donated $4 million to a PAC supporting Issue 1, an effort to require a 60% majority to pass citizen-initiated constitutional amendments.[54] The measure was defeated by a 57% to 43% margin.[55]
During the 2022 election cycle, the Uihleins were the largest donors to Doug Mastriano's 2022 Pennsylvania gubernatorial campaign.[56]
Between 2019 and 2020, Uihlein gave $250,000 to Allen West's campaign for the chairmanship of the Texas Republican Party against incumbent James Dickey.[36]
Local politics
The Uihleins own several houses in the United States and frequently inject themselves into local politics via large donations to the city governments where they own homes.[6][57] Their primary residence is in Lake Forest, Illinois, but they also own residential property in Lake Bluff.[58] They own two lake houses in Wisconsin, one in Manitowish Waters and one in Hayward on Kavanagh Bay.[57][59] Elizabeth is heavily involved in the politics and commerce of Manitowish Waters via EAU Holdings.[57][8] The couple owns multiple properties in Florida.[6][16]
The Uihelins contributed $3.2 million to the American Principles Project PAC between 2020 and 2022, which ran campaign ads for school board races with messages against "transgender ideology" and critical race theory.[60]
Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin
Elizabeth is heavily involved in politics and economy of Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin, where she and Richard own a large summer house on Spider Lake. Of her work in the town, she has said, "I'm 'up north', my husband's political".[12]
Her investment in area businesses began with the 1998 purchase of a motel as a "defensive move" against a Pakistani buyer who was rumored to be interested.[6] She claims that under his management the motel would have been "doomed to fail".[6] Elizabeth has said that her operations in the town were not profitable as of 2015.[12]
It is estimated that the Uihleins invested $6.5 million in the town between 2007 and 2015.[12] In January 2018, they pledged $1.15 million to the Wisconsin DNR for the purpose of maintaining and expanding bike paths in Manitowish Waters.[61] Elizabeth has since donated to Manitowish Waters Bike Trail Inc via the LUMW Foundation, giving $71,383 in 2022.[62]
Agreements giving Elizabeth considerable control over Rest Lake Park and local trails have been highly contentious among area residents.[12] Complaints commonly center around the park and trails having an overly manicured appearance, with residents and officials saying trails have too much grass on their margins and too many trees have been removed.[12]
Elizabeth has been known to offer advice on how to improve the aesthetics of Manitowish Waters businesses to their owners in conjunction with offers to pay for the repairs herself.[12][63]
Rest Lake Lodge
In August 2015, unpermitted clear cutting was performed at the Rest Lake Lodge, one of the businesses owned by EAU. The work was found to have violated rules related to removing trees near a body of water.[12] Elizabeth's attorney blamed the cutting on her contractor's ignorance of local regulations, but acknowledged that it was her idea.[12] Under a restitution plan approved in October 2015, the Uihleins were required to revegetate the area and pay a $750 fine.[64][12]
Also in 2015, Elizabeth motioned to purchase the lake frontage connect to the same property from the Wisconsin DNR after it was made available for sale following actions by the Republican-led state legislature under Governor Scott Walker, whom the Uihleins had heavily supported.[61] Due to critiques of the sale centering around price and the frontage connecting two other protected wooded areas, the sale was tabled in September 2015, but in August 2016 a revised version of the deal including a land and frontage swap was approved.[65][66][67]
An unapproved 500-foot trail on the DNR land parcel sought by the Uihleins was discovered in the second half of 2015.[68] Elizabeth denied creating the trail, but said that her employees may have performed light cleaning of the area.[68]
Hayward, Wisconsin
In 2015 and 2016, Richard attempted to form an agreement with Utility company Xcel Energy, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to have a floating bog that was blocking the dock to his home in Hayward on Kavanagh Bay nailed down to the lake bed.[57][59] Normally, when floating bogs become a nuisance to boaters, area residents push them away with their boats.[69]
Lake Bluff and Lake Forest, Illinois
In June 2023, the Uihleins petitioned for a two-year exemption from a seasonal ban on the use of leaf blowers for their Lake Bluff home.[70] The regulation contained such an exemption for public properties, like parks, that are more than 20 acres in size, and they argued that their home should qualify as it was 22 acres in size.[70] Their request was denied.[70]
Richard donated to elect a group of school board members for the district that included the "chief critic" of Lake Forest High School's first black principal, Chala Holland.[15][71] Of Holland, a critique of academic tracking,[72] Richard wrote, "I cannot sit by and watch the current administration sacrifice open, honest communication, sacrifice academic excellence and sacrifice my tax dollars."[15]
Palatine, Illinois
Richard donated money to community groups and school board campaigns that sought to roll back policies that allow students to use school facilities consistent with their gender identities.[73][15]
Involvement in conservative media
In the lead-up to the 2014 U.S. Senate race in Texas, Richard donated $450,571.65 to finance a newspaper that published false stories about Representative Steve Stockman's opponent, Senator John Cornyn, suggesting that he "wanted to ban veterans from having guns, had voted to fund abortion, and was secretly working with Democrats to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants".[74][75] This was discovered when the donation was investigated as an attempt by Stockman to subvert limits on coordinated campaign spending.[74]
Richard Uihlein has had a longstanding financial relationship with conservative newspaper producer Brian Timpone.[39] Since 2004, Timpone has worked to build a network of locally published free Internet and print news.[76] These newspapers often employ names that are similar to respected local institutions but are unaffiliated with them.[77] The articles he publishes often reference real events, but he has been accused of severely distorting facts to create emotional responses in his readers.[76] Timpone's companies have been known to offer pay-for-play articles to conservative clients.[39] From 2016 to 2018, a political action committee the Uihleins funded gave at least $646,000 to a network of newspapers and websites Timpone created.[39]
People Who Play By The Rules PAC, which contributed money to Timpone's operations during the 2022 Illinois races, received more than $42 million from Richard Uihlein.[78][51][52] During the lead-up to the 2022 election, Timpone's operations blanketed the state in confusingly titled free newspapers that attacked Governor JB Pritzker and other Illinois Democrats.[78]
In October 2024, ProPublica traced a newspaper delivered to Wisconsinites, The Wisconsin Catholic Tribune, which was unaffiliated with the Catholic Church and painted Trump as pro-Catholic and Biden as anti-Catholic, to Timpone and Uihlein.[79] The company producing the newspapers, which is owned by Timpone, was paid by Restoration PAC, which had received $125 million from Richard between 2020 and the article's publication.[79]
Richard is a supporter of Turning Point USA, a conservative youth organization formed in 2012 with a strong media arm.[80][81] Between 2014 and 2016, he donated $275,000 to it.[82] On January 13, 2021, shortly after the January 6 attack, he donated $250,000 to it.[83]
RealClearPolitics and The Federalist are also significant recipients of funds from the Ed Uihlein foundtation, Richard Uihlein's philanthropic entity.[84][85]
Philanthropy
Elizabeth
Elizabeth operates the LUMW Foundation.[86] The foundation primarily gives to organizations in Chicago's northern suburbs and in and around Manitowish Waters.[86]
-=-=
3 23 yahoomail
Dear MoveOn member,
I'm Tony Evers, the governor of Wisconsin. I've never emailed you before, but I'm emailing you today because I need to talk to you about an incredibly urgent matter: the Wisconsin Supreme Court election on April 4 that will decide whether the far right controls the court or not.
My state is one of the most critical battleground states in the country, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court will rule on hugely consequential election cases that could end up deciding the 2024 presidential election.
That's why Republican billionaires are flooding Wisconsin with cash—all to elect their right-wing candidate, a radical extremist who collaborated with Trump's plot to undermine fair elections in Wisconsin.1
Even the man who financed the January 6 insurrection is pouring money into our state.2
That's why I'm partnering with MoveOn to stop the far right and to win this election. But we need your help.
...
It's not just democracy and voting rights that are on the line in this election.
...
Sources:
1. "Trump ally with ties to 'fake elector' scheme advances in Wisconsin Supreme Court race,"NBC News, February 21, 2023
https://act.moveon.org/go/170624?t=4&akid=347354%2E20164584%2E_YYjVx
no lnx
Trump ally with ties to 'fake elector' scheme advances in Wisconsin Supreme Court race
Daniel Kelly, a conservative with connections to a plan to reverse the 2020 election results, will face liberal Janet Protasiewicz in an April 4 election to determine control of the court.
Feb. 21, 2023,
By Adam Edelman
A Donald Trump ally who advised Republicans on legal efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential race has advanced to the Wisconsin Supreme Court general election, putting him one step closer to a seat on the powerful bench.
Daniel Kelly is a former state Supreme Court justice with connections to a plan hatched by the former president's allies to reverse the 2020 election results in Wisconsin through the use of “fake electors.” He was one of two candidates to advance in Tuesday’s Supreme Court primary, according to projections by The Associated Press.
The other to move forward was liberal candidate Janet Protasiewicz, a Milwaukee County circuit judge who was endorsed by the Democratic abortion rights group Emily’s List.
Protasiewicz and Kelly will face off in an April 4 general election that will determine political control of the court — and, with it, the future of many pivotal issues the court is likely to decide in the coming years, including abortion rights, elections and gerrymandering. The winner is elected to a 10-year term.
Although the court and its members are technically nonpartisan, conservatives hold a 4-3 majority. But with conservative Justice Patience Roggensack retiring, that majority hangs in the balance.
There has not been a liberal majority on the court in 15 years, and Democrats see the election as a prime opportunity to shift the balance.
Kelly was one of two conservative candidates in the primary election; the other, Jennifer Dorow, is a Waukesha County circuit judge best known in the state for having presiding over the criminal trial of Darrell Brooks, who was convicted last year of killing six people at a Waukesha Christmas parade in 2021 when he crashed his SUV into the crowd.
Wisconsin faces high-stakes Supreme Court race
FEB. 21, 2023
Protasiewicz won about 46% of the vote Tuesday, a commanding victory based on Democratic turnout, particularly in Milwaukee and Dane counties, that was especially high for an off-year, down-ballot, winter primary election.
The two liberal candidates in the race together won 54% of the vote, compared to about 46% for the two conservative candidates combined.
Kelly only narrowly bested Dorow for a second-place finish, with the two basically splitting the support of voters who turned out for a conservative candidate. Kelly outperformed Dorow in rural counties, while Dorow outdid Kelly in the heavily Republican suburban counties surrounding Milwaukee.
Kelly is a former state Supreme Court justice who lost his seat in a 2020 election to liberal Jill Karofsky. He was appointed to the seat in 2016 by former Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican. He has remained tied to Trump allies through a plan that was intended to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state with the use of “fake electors.”
In a deposition to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, former Wisconsin GOP chairman Andrew Hitt said he and Kelly had “pretty extensive conversations” about the plan, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported last week that the Republican Party at the state and national levels had paid Kelly $120,000 to advise it on “election integrity” issues.
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A spokesperson for Kelly's campaign did not respond to questions about his involvement in those efforts. Kelly spokesperson Jim Dick told the Journal Sentinel that Kelly "believes Joe Biden is the duly elected president of the United States." Dick also suggested to the newspaper that Kelly's beliefs about the election were not necessarily aligned with what his clients believed, saying, "It is a maxim in the legal profession that the views of clients are not attributable to their attorneys."
Kelly based much of his campaign on heavy criticism of Protasiewicz for having openly suggested how she would rule on pivotal cases likely to come before the court involving hot-button issues with national ramifications, like abortion rights, elections and gerrymandering.
Protasiewicz, one of two liberal candidates in the race (the other was Everett Mitchell, a Dane County circuit judge), focused her campaign heavily on her support for abortion rights. Her television advertisements, for example, emphasized that support: One featured her talking directly to the camera, saying, “I believe in a woman’s freedom to make her own decision on abortion,” while a second featured several women touting that support and slamming “extremists” on the other side of the argument.
[pix Daniel Kelly, Scott Walker
Attorney Daniel Kelly in Madison, Wis., on July 22, 2016.John Hart / AP file]
The issue has taken center stage in the race. After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, an 1849 state law banning abortion in almost all cases snapped back into effect.
Gov. Tony Evers and Attorney General Josh Kaul, both Democrats, have said they will not enforce the law, and Kaul has filed a lawsuit alleging that it is unenforceable. The suit is expected to eventually make its way before the state Supreme Court, most likely giving the court the power to decide on abortion rights in Wisconsin.
Kelly, who has refrained from saying how he would rule in such a case, was endorsed by three groups that oppose abortion rights.
The court is also very likely to hear various challenges to existing election laws, as well as cases that might relate to recounts, absentee ballots and other facets of election administration that could have material impacts on the outcomes of close elections in the perpetual battleground — including the 2024 presidential election.
For example, in a 4-3 decision last year, the state Supreme Court deemed all ballot drop boxes outside election clerks’ offices illegal — a setback for Democrats, who had advocated to preserve one of the more lenient rules about the boxes that arose during the coronavirus pandemic. Two years earlier, the court, in another 4-3 vote, narrowly upheld the 2020 election results in the state. Court watchers predict similar cases in the future.
Other issues that could make it before the court in the coming years include challenges to Act 10, a law enacted by then-Republican Gov. Scott Walkerthat eliminated collective bargaining for most public workers. It could also hear cases about redrawn legislative maps (the current map, which experts have said is one of the most gerrymandered in the country, was approved by the current state Supreme Court last year). As is the case in many states, in Wisconsin, if the governor and the Legislature cannot agree on legislative maps, the issue falls to the state Supreme Court.
The general election is on pace to be the most expensive Supreme Court race in Wisconsin history. Candidates and outside groups have already spent more than $9.2 million, an amount that, through the general election, will clearly exceed the record $10 million spent in 2020.
2. "PAC linked to megadonor Dick Uihlein says it's prepared to spend millions backing Kelly for state Supreme Court," WISPolitics, November 18, 2022
https://act.moveon.org/go/170738?t=6&akid=347354%2E20164584%2E_YYjVx
- "Work for anti-abortion group issue in Wisconsin court race," AP News, February 23, 2023
https://act.moveon.org/go/170739?t=8&akid=347354%2E20164584%2E_YYjVx
an 1 23
An upcoming Wisconsin Supreme Court race in April _{could determine}_ the future of politics in the swing state, Politico reports.
Following conservative Justice Patience Roggensack's stepping down,her available seat leaves room for the court to not only tip to majority Democrat for the next two years, but also determine thefuture for important issues like abortion rights, voting rights and redistricting.
The Court will likely hear a case that challenges Wisconsin’s abortion ban “in the near future”, according to Politico. To make matters more complicated for the court, Republican Justice Brian Hagedorn has been known to side with the liberal justices on past cases.
Chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, Ben Wikler, _{has called}_ the critical race “the most important election that nobody’s ever heard of.” He said, “It has implications that will affect national politics for years to come, really at every level of government.”
But first, before a new justice is determined, voters will cast their ballots in a February primary election. Potential candidates include former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly, a Republican, Judge Jennifer Dorow of Waukesha County, who became known for how she handled the 2021 Waukesha Christmas parade attack, also a Republican and Democratic Judges Everett Mitchell of Dane County and Janet Protasiewicz of Milwaukee County.
Because the race is so crucial to the future of some of the most important social issues today, many advocacy groups, both Republican and Democrat leaning, are expected to spend millions of dollars on ads for their preferred candidate.
Conservative group Fair Courts America, which is financially supported by businessman and billionaire Richard Uihlein, has pledged “millions of dollars” to Judge Kelly’s campaign.And Stephen Billy, the Vice President of State Affairs at the anti-abortion groupSusan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, confirmed the group will also contribute to the race “to make sure that Wisconsin doesn’t end up with a fabricated right to abortion decided by activist judges.”
On the other side of the political aisle, Planned Parenthood is planning to drop “six figures” on the race, in addition to coordinating voter education campaigns.
Aside from partisan groups and individuals, there are also those who are choosing to remain "neutral," such as Wisconsin’s Democratic Governor Tony Evers. Although he hasn't stated his partisan position, he called the race “huge.” He said, “The Supreme Court has leaned conservative on almost all of the issues. So yes, this is a big deal.”
The National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC) is also staying neutral in the primary, but is in the process of ramping up their political efforts. Chair of the organization, former attorney general Eric Holder, has plans to travel to Wisconsin for the general election, according to Politico.
As the race quickly approaches, the state’s Republican Party is paying close attention to Democrats.
Mark Jefferson, executive director of the Wisconsin Republican Party said, “It is becoming clear the Democrats want to use the Supreme Court as a vehicle to circumvent legislators who actually make policy decisions.” He continued, “If the liberals pick up another seat, they will have a rock-solid majority that never deviates from liberal activism.”
Gracie Skogman, with anti-abortion organization Wisconsin Right to Life, said when it comes to ensuring their base is ready for the race, “there’s a long way to go.”
She asserted, “The unfortunate news is the majority of voters that we have interacted with are not aware of the stakes of the election, the candidates who are on the ballot, the views of the candidate, or the tie between our current pro-life statutes and the results of the election.”
READ MORE: **How abortion rights and redistricting are firing up state supreme court races in 2022**
https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/gop-megadonors-funding-election-denial/
In an article published on November 3, the Daily Beast’s Roger Sollenberger reported that “nearly 80 percent” of the $1.7 million that right-wing shipping magnates Dick and Elizabeth Uihlein donated to Republican candidates “between January 7, 2021 and August 31, 2022” went to “campaigns or committees tied to the 147 Republicans who voted, on January 6, (2021), to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory.” But their fondness for MAGA election denialists, according to Sollenberger, goes beyond donations.
Sollenberger, writing for the Beast in an article published on November 28, reports that in 2021, Arizona Republican Party Vice Chair Gina Swobodawas hired as executive director for “the Uihlein-backed dark money nonprofit Restoration Action Inc.” Her salary was $108,750 per year.
“Swoboda, a former Trump campaign official and the vice chair of the Arizona Republican Party, is now leading a misguided charge against the ballot count in that state on behalf of GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake,” Sollenberger explains. “Swoboda currently serves as ‘election integrity’ coordinator for Lake, whose repeated false claims of voter fraud have ingratiated her to former President Donald Trump and who still refuses to acknowledge her election loss to (Democratic Arizona Secretary of State) Katie Hobbs.”
The Beast reporter continues, “After the election, Lake promoted Swoboda’s appearance on a right-wing podcast. In addition to hiring Swoboda, the filing shows Restoration Action’s accounts swelling for the second year in a row.According to the filing, in the 12 months following the January 6 attack on the Capitol, Restoration Action’s revenue topped $20.5 million — double what the group raised in 2020, and light years beyond its $64,000 haul in 2019.”
Sollenberger notes that Restoration Action is “tied to the larger Restoration of America network, funded almost exclusively by the Uihleins.”
Brendan Fischer, who serves as deputy executive director of the watchdog group Documented, told the Beast, “Restoration Action is a hub for election denial, including funding some of the key players pushing election falsehoods in Arizona at the moment. This is a reminder that there’s big money behind the push to undermine democracy. Through Restoration Action and other entities, an array of groups pushing election conspiracy theories are backed by literally tens of millions of dollars from just one billionaire couple.”
Restoration America, according to Sollenberger, “also threw $600,000 to the super PAC affiliated with January 6 rally organizer Tea Party Patriots” and “another $1.5 million…. to the Lawyers Democracy Fund, a conservative dark money group that advocates for changes in election law.”
“The group sent another half a million to Fight Voter Fraud, which has also pushed baseless claims of election malfeasance, including in 2021,” Sollenberger reports. “Another recipient, the Liberty Initiative Fund, donated $675,000 to a group fighting for more restrictive voter ID requirements in Michigan. That Michigan group raised $2.2 million total, with $1.5 million coming from Uihlein himself.
READ MORE:'Selling the Big Lie': Reporter unloads on Kari Lake after her campaign ends in defeat
igor salon
https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/glenn-youngkin-2655355138/
A billionaire Trump donor who funded a group that marched on the Capitol ahead of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot is bankrolling a dark-money group boosting Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin's attacks on Democratic opponent Terry McAuliffe.
The Republican-aligned Restoration PACthis weeklaunched
attacking McAuliffe, who served a previous term as governor, over crime rates. (Virginia's unusual term limits restrict governors to one term, but does not bar them from running again after leaving office.) The PAC has spent $1.767 million funding ads against McAuliffe, making it by far the largest independent expenditure group in the race.
The group is funded almost entirely by Republican mega-donor Richard Uihlein, co-founder of the Wisconsin shipping supply giant Uline. Uihlein contributed $24.5 million to the group in the 2020 election cycle, making up 97% of its funding, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. He put another $1.5 million into the group in May, according to FEC filings.
Uihlein and his wife Liz are among the biggest Republican donors in the country, having given more than $65 million to former President Donald Trump,Republican candidates and conservative groups since 2019. The Uihleins have also contributed $4.3 million over the past five years to theTea Party Patriots, including $800,000 in October 2020, making them by far the group's biggest donors.
The Tea Party Patriots participated in the "March to Save America" rally that preceded the Capitol riot and were one of 11 groups listed as part of the "#StopTheSteal coalition,"according toWBEZ.The group also contributed to Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., who was accused by "Stop the Steal" organizer Ali Alexander of helping plan the rally, which Brooks has denied. Tea Party Patriots also contributed to Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who led objections to the certification of Electoral College results in the Senate.
Restoration PAC last month also gave $942,000 to Women Speak Out Virginia — 2021, a PAC affiliated with the anti-choice Susan B. Anthony List that launched a $1.4 million campaign to attack McAuliffe on abortion.
Uihlein's foundation also contributed $275,000 to Trump booster Charlie Kirk's Turning Point Action between 2014 and 2016.The group was listed as a participant in the Capitol protest and Kirk took credit for "sending 80+ buses full of patriots to DC to fight for this president" in asince-deleted tweet.
Turning Point Action also previously received $50,000 from the Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative dark-money group that helped Trump fill federal courts with conservative judges and is pushing to restrict voting. The group also funds the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA), giving it $2.1 million last October and a total of $12.7 million since 2014. RAGA's fundraising arm, the Rule of Law Defense Fund, sent out robocalls urging supporters to "march to the Capitol building and call on Congress to stop the steal" on Jan. 6.
The Judicial Crisis Network has multiple legal aliases it uses for other initiatives, including The Concord Fund and Free to Learn Action.That latter group has launched a $1 million ad campaign focused on "critical race theory" in schools, an issue Youngkin and other conservatives have seized on. The group is spending $1 million attacking McAuliffe for arguing that parents should not dictate school curricula.
The Judicial Crisis Network is also closely aligned and shares staff with the Judicial Education Project and its Honest Elections Project, a conservative initiative pushing voting restrictions. The Judicial Education Network is almost entirely funded by the Donors Trust, a dark-money group backed by the Koch network. Donors Trust in 2019 gave more than $20 million to at least a dozen groups who would later question the results of the election. Last year, the Honest Elections Project announced a six-figure ad campaign stoking fears of a "brazen attempt to manipulate the election system for partisan advantage" before the election even happened.
Youngkin has tried to walk a fine line on Trump's election lies as he tries to solidify his Republican base without alienating independent and suburban voters in the increasingly blue state. He refused to acknowledge President Biden's election victory while seeking the Republican nomination, doing so only after he had already triumphed over Republican rivals. And while Youngkin has said he would have voted to certify the election results, he is nonetheless calling for an "audit" of voting machines in Virginia (something the state already does) and boosting election conspiracy theorists.
Youngkin, the former CEO of the private equity firm the Carlyle Group,is also the primary funder of Virginia Wins, contributing $1 million to back Republican candidates in down-ballot races.The PAC has funneled tens of thousands to candidates who attended the Stop the Steal rally, organized transportation for others to attend the event, defended Capitol rioters or pushed election conspiracy theories,Mother Jonesreported on Thursday.
Youngkin did not respond to a request for comment.
"It's no surprise that some of the most powerful, pro-insurrection dark money forces are rushing to Glenn Youngkin's side in this campaign," Manuel Bonder, a spokesman for the Virginia Democratic Party, said in a statement to Salon. "They are supporting Youngkin because he's all in on their agenda — and they have full confidence that if elected, Glenn will do exactly what Donald Trump says. He belongs nowhere near the governorship."
alex k
https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2020/12/09/who-funds-the-federalist-finally-we-know/
For years, the funding behind the right-wing, pro-Trump publication The Federalist has been a total mystery. Many Twitter users have asked the website’s leaders, repeatedly, “Who funds The Federalist?” only to be blocked by the likes of publisher Ben Domenech, co-founder Sean Davis, or senior editor Mollie Hemingway. (This author is blocked by all three.)
Last year, Hemingway characterized the question as “a kind of a veiled threat” and a “clear, coordinated attempt to silence The Federalist.
However, a few months earlier, The Federalist’s affiliated nonprofit, FDRLST Media Foundation, had been certified as a 501(c)(3) charity by the Internal Revenue Service, meaning that donors could begin making tax-deductible contributions to the foundation. If the donor was a nonprofit organization like a family foundation or trade association, its grants to the FDRLST Media Foundation would eventually be part of the public record. Hemingway is a director and “governor” of the foundation.
Last week, CMD obtained the 2019 tax records of two right-wing funders who donated to the FDRLST Media Foundation that year: GOP megadonor and shipping supply billionaire Richard Uihlein and DonorsTrust, a donor-advised fund manager that has been dubbed “the dark money ATM” of the conservative movement.
The Uihleins
The Federalist may have once had a “never Trump” image, but the conservative publication moved quickly rightward as President Donald Trump became president and took over the Republican Party. The outlet is now known for vigorously defending Trump, for its trolling and conspiracy-laden posts, and for attacking liberal media. Sometimes trafficking in racism, The Federalist had a “black crime” tag until someone exposed the tag on Twitter.
It’s unclear when Uihlein, the Illinois-based founder of shipping supply company Uline, began funding The Federalist, but it makes sense that his foundation, the Ed Uihlein Family Foundation, donated $400,000 to the FDRLST Media Foundation last year. Uihlein and his wife, Liz, are influential Trump donors and among the Republican Party’s biggest funders; Uihlein is the fifth-biggest donor to outside political spending groups of the 2020 federal elections, having doled out over $63 million tosuper PACs such as the pro-Trump America First Action, Club for Growth Action, the Senate Leadership Fund, and Restoration PAC, which he funded nearly exclusively.
The New York Times reported in August that, based on interviews, Richard Uihlein was a donor to The Federalist, but his foundation’s 2019 tax return is the first evidence of his financial support to be made public.
As The Federalist published story after story denying science and opposing mask wearing during the coronavirus pandemic—including one story allegedly written by an anonymous small-town mayor claiming that health officials order mask mandates for political, not scientific, reasons—Liz Uihlein minimized the virus, calling it “overhyped,” and endangered Uline workers by allegedly using lax safety practices and initially discouraging employees from working from home. Liz Uihlein, the president and CEO of Uline, got an exemption from Canada’s quarantine requirement to visit a Uline facility in the country, which she reached via private jet. The Uihleins would eventually contract COVID-19 in November.
The Uihleins have endorsed fringe candidates such as Roy Moore, the far-right Alabaman who ran for Senate in 2017 and was credibly accused of sexual misconduct with minors by multiple women. Liz Uihlein was a member of the 2016 Trump campaign’s economic council.
The Ed Uihlein Foundation gave to additional right-wing media outlets in 2019, including The Daily Caller News Foundation ($25,000), the Media Research Center ($275,000), and the Real Clear Foundation ($350,000), which has ties to The Federalist (see below). It also donated $400,000 to the Center for Security Policy, an anti-Muslim hate group. Its largest 2019 contribution, $3.2 million, went to the Foundation for Government Accountability, a State Policy Network member that advocated kicking people off of Medicaid this year during the pandemic. Since 2014, the Uihleins have given the Foundation for Government Accountability over $11 million.
The “Dark Money ATM” of the Conservative Movement
One of the political right’s biggest funding vehicles, DonorsTrust, gave $249,000 to the FDRLST Media Foundation in 2019. CMD was first to report on DonorsTrust’s 2019 tax records and on the group’s major donation to the white nationalist hate group VDARE, as well as a smaller amount to the New Century Foundation, the nonprofit behind the white nationalist publication American Renaissance.
DonorsTrust also gave $1,350,000 to the Real Clear Foundation and nearly $400,000 to the Media Research Center in 2019, part of $15 million in grants to conservative media operations that year.
DonorsTrust is a donor-advised fund sponsor, meaning that it manages individual charitable accounts of its wealthy clients, who have included GOP megadonors such the DeVos, Koch, and Mercer Families. These clients can donate appreciable assets into their accounts and score a double tax benefit: they get both a capital gains tax break and a charitable tax deduction. Clients then direct DonorsTrust to donate their money to the nonprofits of their choice, as long as the DonorsTrust board approves the proposed recipient. Donor-advised fund managers allow their clients to remain anonymous, as the manager legally owns and disperses the money.
DonorsTrust and its sister organization, Donors Capital Fund, distributed $165 million in grants in 2019, much of it going to right-wing think tanks, advocacy groups, litigation centers, media outlets, extremists, and climate deniers.
Past Clues
The Uihlein and DonorsTrust grants are the first known donations to The Federalist, but one financial tie was already public. Journalist Andrew Perez found that the George E. Coleman Jr. Foundation is an investor in FDRLST Media, LLC, the company behind The Federalist. In 2018, the Coleman Foundation had $148,000 invested in FDRLST Media. The foundation’s trustee, Daniel Oliver, is a former Reagan official who was once executive editor of the conservative National Review, which receives significant funding from DonorsTrust through its affiliated National Review Institute.
In advance of a 2019 Buzzfeed News article that cited the Coleman Foundation investment, Domenech, The Federalist’s publisher, refused to comment but tweeted that this impending revelation of public information amounted to “doxxing” an investor. “They will do this because they want to shut us down,” he claimed.
Federal tax records for the FDRLST Media Foundation are not yet public, but the Washington, D.C. secretary of state has public records of the foundation. David DesRosiers, the publisher of Real Clear Politics and the former executive vice president of the Uihlein-funded Manhattan Institute, is a director. Hemingway is both a director and a “governor.” Attorney Alan P. Dye is the third director.
It’s possible that more FDRLST Media Foundation donors will emerge as CMD obtains additional 2019 tax records from conservative foundations.
In September 2017, FDRLST Media filed an offering of debt securities with the Securities and Exchange Commission. At the time, $200,000 of the $750,000 offered had been sold. Listed as a director of FDRLST Media was John McIntyre, president and CEO of Real Clear Media. Someone named Jenn McIntyre was also listed as a director and an executive officer. The filing located FDRLST Media at the same Chicago address as Real Clear Politics, the main publication of Real Clear Media.
Real Clear has taken a “sharp right turn” in recent years, likely due to its increased funding from right-wing donors and its reaction to Trump’s takeover of the Republican party. A CMD report showed that at least 99 percent of the 2015 to 2018 revenue of the Real Clear Foundation, which funds the outlet’s investigative stories, came from right-wing funders, including DonorsTrust, Donors Capital Fund, the Uihlein Foundation, and two foundations of Charles Koch.
“As the administration lurched from one crisis after another,” wrote The New York Times’ Jeremy Peters last month, “Real Clear became one of the most prominent platforms for elevating unverified and reckless stories about the president’s political opponents, through a mix of its own content and articles from across conservative media.”
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/new-report-reveals-one-of-the-funders-of-the-federalist-and-how-right-wing-commentators-warp-the-news/
alex h
some right-wing pundits will offer a policy-by-policy defense of President Donald Trump, while right-wing pundits of the Never Trump persuasion — from CNN’s Ana Navarro and MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough to Bill Kristol and Charlie Sykes of The Bulwark — will go issue by issue while slamming the president. But Jeremy W. Peters, in anarticle for the New York Times, examines athird type of right-wing pundit: one who is generally pro-Trump but is less interested in defending Trump on the issues than demonizing Trump’s liberal critics.
“What these writers and pundits don’t tend to do is make the doggedly pro-Trump defenses that appear on Breitbart and erupt from the mouth of Sean Hannity,” Peters explains. “Often, they don’t bother at all with the awkward business of trying to explain away Mr. Trump’s latest folly. Instead, they offer an outlet for outrage against those the president has declared his enemies, often by reducing them to a culture war caricature of liberalism.
Peter cites The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway and Allie Beth Stuckey (who hosts the podcast “Relatable”) as examples of pundits who fall into that category. Stuckey, according to Peters, “does not go out of her way to defend the president” but does go out of her way to demonize his liberal critics.
“Through this lens,” Peters observes, “Mr. Trump’s transgressions seem irrelevant compared with the manifold misdeeds of everyone from the Clintons to CNN. Their portrayal of what the country would look like if the Democrats win big in November is indeed a frightening one to Trump supporters: a White House with Sen. Bernie Sanders as the shadow socialist president; a Democratic House of Representatives where Rep. Ilhan Omar calls the shots; a society in which mask mandates are the first step in a government experiment with social control; a political arena where conservatives are badgered into silence."
the piece also revealed one of The Federalist’s funders, who have long been kept secret, and indicated how the backer may have influenced its coverage:
Critics have asked who is funding the site, since ad revenue alone wouldn’t be enough to sustain its staff of 14 and political websites often rely on wealthy donors for support. The Federalist has not disclosed its supporters, leading to criticism that it is not being transparent about its agenda. But according to two people with knowledge of its finances, one of itsmajor backers is Dick Uihlein, the Midwestern packing supply magnate and Trump donor who has a history of giving to combative, hard-right candidates, like Roy S. Moore of Alabama, who make many Republicans squeamish. (After Mr. Moore was accused of assaulting underage girls in 2017, The Federalist ran an opinion piece that defended men who dated young women as a practice with a long history that was “not without some merit if one wants to raise a large family.”)
Another pundit Peters discusses in his article is Ben Shapiro, who famously became the butt of jokes in the U.K. after calling British conservative Andrew Neil a “leftist” during an appearance on his BBC program (to Brits who are familiar with Neil, the notion that he is a “leftist” is beyond laughable). Shapiro is not deeply enamored of Trump the way that Breitbart’s staff are, but as Peters notes, Shapiro’s hatred of liberals by far outweighs his issues with Trump.
“Mr. Shapiro isn’t shy about calling out the president for his divisive and unfocused leadership, but far more often, he takes shots at Mr. Trump’s critics,” Peters explains. “Mr. Shapiro echoes other conservatives who deflect: Mr. Trump wasn’t helping anyone, for instance, by asking top public health officials to study whether disinfectant could be injected into the human body as a coronavirus treatment. But, Mr. Shapiro explained he didn’t actually tell people to put bleach in their bodies: ‘That doesn’t mean he was recommending actually injecting Clorox, people.’”
Tim Miller, a Never Trump conservative and GOP activist who writes for The Bulwark, told the Times that publications like The Federalist are motivated by “an unquenchable desire to take everybody else down a peg.” Miller, on the other hand, believes that Trump has been terrible for the conservative movement — and he is happy to express that view during his appearances on cable news.
With Hemingway, Stuckey and Shapiro, Peters observes, the main ingredient is “anti-liberalism” — not an intense adoration for all things Trump like one finds at Breitbart.
Nicole Hemmer, a research scholar at Columbia University in New York City, told the Times, “The conservative ideology that had been cohesive during the Cold War is falling apart. It seems to me that ‘owning the libs’ is kind of the way you hold everyone together when your policy preferences are coming apart."
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/meet-the-billionaire-trump-donor-pushing-for-recall-of-wisconsins-governor-over-stay-at-home-order-after-claiming-the-media-is-overblowing-covid-19/
no lnx
Meet the billionaire Trump donor pushing for recall of Wisconsin’s governor over stay-at-home order after claiming ‘the media is overblowing COVID-19’
Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein
Written by Alex Henderson April 22, 2020
In the business world, supporters of stay-at-home orders and aggressive social distancing have been arguing that ending them prematurely — and causing unnecessary deaths from coronavirus — will ultimately hurt the U.S. economy a lot more than the financial pain that is presently being felt. But one person who doesn’t see it that way is billionaire shipping magnate Liz Uihlein, a major GOP donor and an economic adviser to President Donald Trump. And Bloomberg News reporters Anders Melin and Polly Mosendz, in an April 21 article, describe some of the actions Uihlein is taking politically to discourage social distancing and stay-at-home orders.
Uihlein, Melin and Mosendz report, is supporting a petition to recall Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers for his stay-at-home order.
“As protests grip Wisconsin and other states with Democratic governors, the debate is dividing neighbors, politicians and business executives,” the Bloomberg journalists notes. “Big company CEOs — Democrats and Republicans alike — have generally urged caution about reopening because of the health risk, yet some of the GOP’s biggest donors have been pushing hardest on the side of lifting restriction.”
Melin and Mosendz observed that although Koch Industries Chairman Charles Koch has “questioned blanket shutdowns…. few have objected more strongly than Liz Uihlein, chief executive officer of closely held Uline.”
Uihlein has a history of downplaying the severity of COVID-19. In a March 13 e-mail to Illinois politicians, the Uline CEO asserted, “The media is overblowing COVID-19. At what point do we go back to our normal lives? This has been a huge disruption.”
But the pandemic that Uihlein believes the media are “overblowing,” according to researchers at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, has killed at least 178,845 people worldwide (as of early Wednesday morning, April 22). And that includes over 45,000 deaths in the United States, which has become the coronavirus epicenter of the world.
Uihlein has been criticized for not doing enough to encourage Uline employees to work from home. Melin and Mosendz note that Uline is offering an extra $5 per hour to employees who work on site rather than working from home.
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https://www.factcheck.org/2020/01/club-for-growth-action-5/
1/20
political leanings: Conservative
2018 total spending: $19.6 million
Club for Growth Action, the super PAC of the conservative Club for Growth, was launched in August 2010. On its website, the organization declares its mission is to “take on any Member of Congress on policy who fails to uphold basic economic conservative principles … regardless of party.”
The PAC targets some Republican incumbents in primary elections in order to replace them with “pro-growth, limited government conservatives.” Club for Growth Action states on its website that it has been “instrumental” in helping to elect conservatives such as Sen.Ted Cruzof Texas, Sen.Marco Rubioof Florida andSen.Tim Scottof South Carolina.
As of Dec. 31, 2019, the group had raised $7.7 million in the 2020 election cycle.
Itsindependent expenditures— spending for or against identified candidates, without coordination with candidates or parties —totaled about $2.5 millionas of Feb. 10. Club for Growth Action spent more than$550,000againstDemocrat Dan McCreadyin North Carolina. McCready lost to RepublicanDan Bishopin North Carolina’s 9th Congressional Districtspecial electionin 2019.In the Democratic presidential primaries, the group has so far spent almost $67,000 against former Vice President Joe Biden, $59,000 against Sen. Bernie Sanders and a little more than$34,000 against former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas. O’Rourke dropped out of the Democratic race on Nov. 1.
The bulk of Club for Growth Action’s money thus far in the 2020 cycle has come from three donors. Richard Uihlein, thechief executive officer of Uline, a shipping, packaging and industrial supplies company, gave the PAC $2.5 million in May. The two other major donors are Jeff Yass, cofounder of the financial firm Susquehanna International, and Virginia James, a conservative investor and former spouse of Club for Growth co-founder and stockbroker Richard Gilder. They have donated $2 million and $1 million to the PAC, respectively.
In the 2018 cycle, Club for Growth Action spent $19.6 million. The PAC spent $1.2 million in the Texas senatorial race against O’Rourke, who lost in his bid to unseat Cruz. The group also spent more than$1.1 million to defeat Republican candidate Russell “Russ” Fagg in the Montana Senate Republican primary.
The PAC also focused onspecial House elections in Georgia and Pennsylvania. During the last election cycle,the group found itself at odds in the Georgia House race with a pro-Trump group called 45Committee.Club for Growth Action endorsed RepublicanBob Gray — one of 18 candidates, including 11 Republicans, running in what was known as a “jungle primary.”
45Committee ran TV ads opposing Gray, claiming voters could not “trust him” because he “stands with the Club for Growth.” Gray did not survive the primary.Karen Handel, a Republican, won the special election in a runoff against Democrat Jon Ossoff.
A large chunk of the PAC’s money in the 2018 election cycle came from Uihlein,who has donated to Club for Growth Action since2010.Uihlein gave the PAC$6.7 million.Jeff Yass, co-founder of global trading firm Susquehanna International Group, gave the PAC a little over$3.8 million. Yass also serves on theboard of directorsat theCato Institute, a libertarian think tank.
In the 2016 cycle, Club for Growth Action spent a little over $20 million. On the presidential election alone, the group spent nearly $8 million — including more than$7 million against Donald Trump during the Republican primary. The group, for example, accused Trumpin TV adsof supporting higher taxes. Once in office, Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which reduced individual and corporate income tax rates, among other things. (See our story, “A Guide to the Tax Changes.”)
https://www.propublica.org/article/while-trump-cracked-down-on-immigration-a-republican-megadonor-sued-for-a-special-visa
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https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2019/05/28/corporate-funded-groups-continue-campaign-cripple-public-sector-unions
don weiner
519
The same corporate-funded groups that bankrolled a successful ten-year campaign to cripple public employee unions by having the U.S. Supreme Court strike down “fair share” fees for nonmembers in Janus v. AFSCME last year are now suing to retroactively recover fees paid before the Court’s ruling.
This is the latest move in the right-wing’s quest to “defund and defang” public sector unions with a goal of delivering a “mortal blow” to progressive politics, and mirrors similar “clawback” suits filed across the country over the past year.
Two groups that spearheaded the Janus case, the Liberty Justice Center (LJC) and National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (NRTWLDF), have now filed a federal lawsuit in Illinois seeking repayment of $2 million in fair share fees paid by 2,700 Illinois public employees to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) between May 1, 2017 and June 27, 2018.
Public employee unions are required to represent all workers, whether they join the union or not, so unions have collected “fair share” fees, also known as agency fees, for many decades to cover the basic costs of bargaining for higher wages and benefits. That practice was upheld by the Supreme Court unanimously in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education in 1977, but the Court turned its back on that precedent in the *Janus* case and struck them down on First Amendment grounds.
A similar lawsuit by the two groups filed in a different federal district court was thrown out earlier this year when the judge ruled that AFSCME had collected the dues “in good faith.”
“That ruling echoes what more than a dozen other federal and state courts have decided in similar cases,” AFSCME spokesman Anders Lindall told the Chicago Tribune. “The anti-worker, corporate-funded front groups prolonging this failed litigation want to use the courts to further their political attack on working people and our union. Their repeated lawsuits are nothing but a greedy grab for more.”
In its Janus decision, the Court’s majority acknowledged that public sector unions would now have to represent nonunion members even without their agency fees, creating an entire class of free-riders.
With respect to both lawsuits and the earlier Janus case, public sector unions note that the plaintiffs never complained about receiving the wage increases, health insurance coverage, vacation time, and other benefits that the union negotiated for on their behalf.
In addition to the new lawsuit, LJC and NRTWLDF have appealed the original case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
Lawsuits Bankrolled by Corporate Foundations and a Megadonor
Richard Uihlein, an Illinois businessman and GOP megadonor, the Koch brothers’ donor network, and the Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation have bankrolled much of the groups’ legal war on public sector unions.
The LJC, part of the right-wing Illinois Policy Institute at the time of the Janus ruling, has received $1.7 million since 2010 from the Koch donor network’s funding vehicles, Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, and $320,000 since 2009 from the Bradley Foundation, which the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) exposed in a series of articles in 2017.
Uihlein has given over $8.6 million to Illinois Policy Institute since 2009 and at least another $800,000 since 2014 to LJC. Uihlein is notoriously anti-union and spent millions to support the gubernatorial campaigns of the anti-worker governors Scott Walker and Bruce Rauner.
Uihlein has also given $300,000 since 2014 to NRTWLDF, which has received $1.3 million since 2003 from Bradley and $833,000 since 2010 from DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund, according to IRS filings.
LJC’s most recent IRS 990 filing shows that its revenue jumped from $494,000 in its fiscal year 2016 to $692,000 in 2017, a 40 percent increase, while it was working on the Janus case. LJC’s chair, John Tillman, was paid over $400,000 in 2017 from affiliated nonprofits, principally the Illinois Policy Institute.
LJC is a member of the State Policy Network (SPN). In the states, SPN groups peddle cookie-cutter “studies” to back the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) agenda.
Bradley Foundation grants to SPN “affiliate” and “associate” members stretch back decades and amount to approximately $133 million, according to Bradley grant summary documents tallied by CMD.
A 2016 Bradley internal file on SPN notes that SPN’s focus in recent years has been on “catalyzing further efforts to curb public-sector unions’ excesses” and “mobilizing nonprofits, donors and citizens to uphold the principles of donor privacy and freedom of speech.” The right-wing effort is part of a concerted campaign to bankrupt unions in order to cripple the Democratic Party and, more broadly, the progressive movement.
The new wave of legal assaults on public employee unions as we head into the 2020 elections appears to be the latest stage of that campaign.
David Armiak contributed research to this report.
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On the Republican side, outside spending against GOP Senate candidates is even higher.
In the 2018 cycle, about $4.7 million of the roughly $5.2 million – or around 90 percent – of outside spending against all Republican candidates for the Senatehas targetedAlabama’s Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore. All but about $295,000 of the $4.7 million targeted Moore before the Republican primary in September. Outside spending after the primary has come from two groups, The Advocacy Fund and Highway 31.
Among Republicans, the next highest total was the $28,000 targetingone of Baldwin’s Republican challengers, Kevin Nicholson, who has the supportof former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.
Nicholson is a former Democrat who once workedfor the Democratic National Committee and even spoke at its 2000 convention.
Uline Inc, a Wisconsin-based shipping supply company owned by Illinois-based conservative donor Richard Uihlein, gave $3.5 million to the pro-Nicholson super PAC Solutions for Wisconsin. Uihlein’s investmentsalso include several resorts, spas and restaurants in the state.
Solutions for Wisconsin, in turn, has contributed $1.5 million to Americas PAC and Restoration PAC,which representthe second and third largest outside spenders opposing Baldwin. Uihlein also gave$250,000 directly to Americas PAC. He is the chief donor to a super PAC that has funded ads benefiting Moore as well, The Daily Beast reported.
Two advisors Nicholson is replacing on his campaign are takingpositions at Solutions for Wisconsin.
So far in the 2018 cycle, Uihlein has fundedroughly $6.1 million in outside spending, all of which went toward conservative groups.
The outside spending group that has spent the mostagainst Baldwin is Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, a politically active nonprofit that serves as the fundraising hub of the donor network spearheaded by billionaire industrialists David and Charles Koch.
Freedom Partners has spent around $1.7 million to defeat Baldwin, and as a 501(c)(6) trade association, it is not required to disclose its donors.
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he last time the Democratic and Republican
parties had to stage the quadrennial spectacles that serve as their
presidential nominating conventions, they got a big assist from the
taxpayers: The Federal Election Commission cut checks to each of the two
parties for $18.2 million to pay for construction and other basic
services required for the 2012 events.
Coming from the same pot of money that also provided public grants
for presidential candidates — the $3 per person voluntary income tax
checkoff — the convention funding part of the system effectively
outlived the rest of it. Candidates began rejecting the public funding
system in the 2000 election because there was too little money and too
many strings. It has so withered by now that only one White House candidate (former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley,
a Democrat) opted to participate this cycle. Still, the parties
continued to accept their convention grants, supplementing them with
cash raised by the host cities for the occasions and other sources of
support.
That changed just before Christmas 2014, when Congress — to almost
everyone’s surprise — privatized the conventions by wiping out the
grants, which would have come to about $19 million each in this cycle.
Instead, each party is now allowed to set up a special convention
account and collect donations of up to three times the usual limit for
gifts to a national party — meaning as much as $100,200 in 2015 and
another $100,200 in 2016. PACs can contribute up to $45,000 per year.
As is often the case when it comes to fundraising, Republicans have
been more successful at bringing home money for their convention.
Through March, the Republican National Committee raised $11.8 million
through 318 of these “bonus” contributions. About half the money has
come in gifts of $100,200 each. But eight individuals have maxed out
already for both years of the current cycle, giving a total of $200,400
per person; that’s $1.6 million to finance national party activities
this July, or more than 13 percent of the total raised through March 30
for the GOP convention.
Look for these folks in the best sky box seats in Cleveland.
Who are they? Not exactly new players in the realm of
money-in-politics — the majority already have shelled out millions in
the 2016 cycle alone to the party, its candidates and super PACs
supporting them, and have been strong backers of the GOP for years:
- Joseph W. Craft III – A Kentuckian, Craft is president and CEO of Alliance Resources, the sixth-largest
U.S. coal producer in 2014. He and his wife have donated more than $3.2
million to Republican and conservative groups so far this cycle.
– Foster is chairman of Western Refining, a large independent oil
refiner. He and his wife have given $1.9 million so far in the 2016
cycle alone to party committees, candidates and conservative outside
spending groups.
– She owns Hendricks Holding company and is chairperson of ABC Supply, a
roofing supply company. Hendricks, who’s worth about $5 billion
according to Forbes,
has contributed more than $3 million to Republican party committees,
candidates and conservative spending groups in 2015 and 2016. Hendricks
was refunded $4 million of the $5 million she gave to the super PAC supporting Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker‘s presidential run. She has also given $2 million to the Koch brothers’ Freedom Partners Action Fund.
- Charles Joyce – The president and CEO of New
York-based Otis Eastern Service LLC, a large maker of oil and gas
pipeline, Joyce has been extremely active with state and federal Republican party committees. So far this cycle, he and his wife, Lorraine, have dished out more than $800,000 to Republican candidates and the party.
– An Oklahoman who made his name in natural gas processing equipment
and technology, Russell has contributed about $500,000 to Republican
candidates and organizations so far in the 2016 cycle
– The CEO of Stephens Inc., a financial services firm in Little Rock,
Ark., Stephens has donated more than $5 million to Republican causes in
the past 15 months — including super PACs backing failed presidential
candidates Walker, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. The biggest recipient of his largesse has been the anti-Donald Trump Our Principles PAC, to which Stephens has given $2 million.
– President of family-owned Uline, Inc., a major producer of packaging }:
and shipping materials, she and her husband Richard (who himself has
given $100,200 for the Republican convention thus far), can take credit
for more than $8 million in outlays to conservative and Republican
organizations this cycle alone. That includes millions to the pro-Walker
Unintimidated PAC, as well as Keep the Promise, which supports Sen. Ted Cruz‘s bid for the White House, and Club for Growth Action.
For its part, the Democratic National Committee has reported raising
only $3.5 million in these special donations. It lists 165 contributions
to the convention account, with only seven coming in at $100,000 or
more. Thus far, only Henry and Marsha Laufer have given the maximum in both 2015 and 2016.
Laufer is on the board of Renaissance Technologies,
a N.Y. hedge fund; previously he was the firm’s research director. The
couple has contributed more than $2.5 million to Democratic
organizations thus far in the 2016 cycle. James Simons,
Renaissance’s founder, is one of three others who have given $100,000
or more to the Democratic convention effort; the others are David Trone,
the co-founder of Total Wine & More who was a Maryland
congressional candidate until losing in the primary this week, and
longtime Democratic donor Fred Eychaner,
a Chicago publisher and radio station owner. So far, at least,
Renaissance Technologies would seem to have qualified for naming rights
to the Democratic convention this summer in Philadelphia.
The new convention accounts represent just one more example of the
dramatic increase in concentration of federal campaign funding among a
very small group of donors. In 2012, the grants to the two parties
represented ‘contributions’ from more than twelve million U.S. taxpayers
who voluntarily participated in the funding program. This year so far,
fewer than 500 people have accounted for the direct party funding of
these efforts, and while much more will be received before the gavels
fall in Cleveland and Philadelphia, the concentration of funding is
unlikely to change significantly.
Separately, the host cities are raising funds to pay for convention
expenses. Donations to these accounts are unlimited and there are no
restrictions on sources so corporations, unions and other institutions
will be important donors. These funds will not be publicly disclosed
until months after the convention is concluded, but the *Washington Post* has reportedthat the DNC has commitments totaling more than $40 million and the RNC has pledges of $56 million thus far for these groups.
We’re hearing these days about donor fatigue, and it’s no wonder.
This handful of people, who wouldn’t even make up a majority of
delegates to either of the conventions we’re preparing for, are
financing much of the outside spending that has become so important in
this presidential race, increasingly along with the normal activities of
the two parties and now the basic costs for the conventions.
Categories: Campaign finance Political Parties Politicians & Elections Presidential Election
Tags: alejandra foster, Bob Biersack, charles joyce, Club for Growth Action, david trone, democratic convention, diane hendricks, Elizabeth uihlein, Fred Eychaner, henry laufer, James Simons, Jeb Bush, joseph craft, keep the promise, Marco Rubio, Marsha Laufer, Our Principles PAC, paul foster, Renaissance Technologies, republican convention, Richard Uihlein, Scott Walker, Ted Cruz, thomas russell, unintimidated pac, WArren Stephens
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Box co
| Candidate | Amount |
|---|---|
| Cotton, Tom (R-AR) |  $7,900 |
| Land, Terri Lynn (R-MI) |  $7,800 |
| Amash, Justin (R-MI) |  $5,200 |
| Birman, Igor A (R-CA) |  $5,200 |
| Bridenstine, James (R-OK) |  $5,200 |
Organization(1 result)
Lobbying Client(2 results)
- Pauline Auberle Foundation2011
- Uline2013
Top Contributor to Member(17 results)
- Truline Corpto Joe Heck (R) in 2014
- Uline Incto James Bridenstine (R) in 2014
- Uline Incto Justin Amash (R) in 2014
- Uline Incto Ron DeSantis (R) in 2014
- Uline Incto Tom Coburn (R) in 2014
Show All
Top Contributor to Candidate(3 results)
- Uline Incto Illinois Senate candidates in 2014
- Uline Incto Louisiana Senate candidates in 2014
- Uline Incto Texas District 4 candidates in 2014
Top Contributor to 527s(3 results)