Hendricks, D

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AN 2 25

A political action group tied to Elon Musk that has sought to influence Wisconsin’s high stakes Supreme Court election canceled a social media ad this week after it featured the wrong person.

The ad by the group Building America’s Future attempted to attack Dane County Judge Susan Crawford, the liberal candidate in the race. However the ad featured a photo of a different Susan Crawford. Instead of showing the judge, the ad, which attacked Crawford’s record on crime, featured former Harvard Law School Professor Susan P. Crawford.

Derrick Honeyman, a spokesperson for Crawford’s campaign, said in a statement the ad was a “fraud.”

“Maybe an audit is needed of the staff at Musk’s shady far-right group,” Honeyman said. “Wisconsinites shouldn’t trust a single thing from these guys.”

First reported by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, the ad ran for four days and cost $3,000.

Building America’s Future has promised to spend more than $1.5 million on airing anti-Crawford ads in a number of television markets across the state. Another Musk-associated PAC has invested $1 million in canvassing and field operations in support of the conservative candidate, Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel.

Musk’s support of Schimel comes as Tesla has sued the state of Wisconsin over a law that prevents car manufacturers from owning dealerships in the state.

The Supreme Court race will determine the ideological swing of the body. The race between Crawford and Schimel could break spending records for a Wisconsin judicial campaign after 2023’s race set the previous record at about $50 million.

Both candidates have been supported by contributions from billionaires. Crawford has received help from George Soros and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker while Schimel received donations from Illinois billionaire Liz Uihlein, Beloit billionaire Diane Hendricks and outside help from Musk.

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Protecting Walker's agenda

The John Doe files obtained by the Guardian give clues as to why the prosecutors have raised doubts about impartiality in the state courts. They suggest that two of the conservative judges on Wisconsin's top court who voted to halt the John Doe investigation may have themselves been intimately connected to the same campaigning network of rightwing politicians, lobbyists and major donors that the prosecutors were investigating.

JUDGE DAVID PROSSER

WISCONSIN SUPREME COURT

Take David Prosser. He was one of the four conservative judges who approved the July 2015 ruling that terminated the John Doe investigation, sacked Schmitz from his position as special prosecutor and ordered the destruction of all the documents that had been collected (later that order was softened a little to a demand that the prosecutors hand in all the documents to the court which would keep them secret under seal).

At precisely the same time as the six Republican senators were embroiled in their recall election, Prosser was in his own electoral fight for survival. He was up for re-election in April 2011 and facing a tough challenge from JoAnne Kloppenburg, then Wisconsin's assistant attorney general. The Prosser election and the recall election were intertwined in that Kloppenburg was attempting to turn her battle against Prosser into a referendum on Governor Walker'santi-union legislation, Act 10.

Among the leaked John Doe files that the Wisconsin supreme court ordered to be suppressed are documents that underline how anxious Walker's circle were about the threat, as they saw it, to the court's conservative majority. In an email dated 14 December 2010,WCfG's director Eric O'Keefe says he's been in touch with Diane Hendricks, the owner of a roofing company who Forbes describes as America's richest self-made woman with a personal fortune of $5bn. Hendricks is a well-known funder of rightwing causes and individuals, among them Scott Walker himself who she was to go on to support with $500,000 in 2012 for his own recall election.

Judge David Prosser faced a tough re-election battle to remain on the seven-justice Wisconsin Supreme Court. Photograph: M.P. King, State Journal/AP

Hendricks has also popped up as part of the Donald Trump presidential campaign. Trump recently added her to his inner team of economic advisers, having come under fire for only appointing men.

“I have traded emails with diane hendricks,” O'Keefe says in the email. “She is concerned about the state s. Ct.”

Hendricks was right to be concerned about the state supreme court. Were Prosser to lose the vote, the consequences for Walker and his entire rightwing union-bashing agenda would have been devastating. The four-to-three, conservative-to-liberal, balance of the state's top court would have been reversed, allowing progressive groups to overturn the reforms through legal challenges.

The correspondence reveals how Walker's network of associates vowed to go to work to keep Prosser in his job, and thus preserve (or “maintain”) the court's conservative upper hand. “It would be good for [Hendricks] to talk with us or have her see our plan,”writes RJ Johnson, the then “general consultant” to Governor Walker's campaign committee. He says that WCfG “is leading the coalition to maintain the court. Thus far I have raised 450kand am looking to raise an additional 409k.”

DIANE HENDRICKS

DONOR

Johnson name-checks other sources of big money donations that he intends to tap. Leo Leonard of the conservative legal group the Federalist Society was looking for an extra $200,000, he says, and there were hopes for a further $1m from the US Chamber of Commerce.

He wasn't bragging. As election day approached, money from rightwing lobby groups and corporations began to pour into Wisconsin, unseen by the public, as the message got out that Prosser's salvation was a necessary step to safeguarding Walker's radical rightwing reforms and Act 10.

An email from March 2011, just two months after Walker took office as governor and a month before Prosser was tested at the polls, makes the point. It's from Matt Seaholm, state director of Americans For Prosperity (AFP), the Tea Party-affiliated group founded and funded by the billionaire rightwing Koch brothers.

By now the anxiety surrounding the fate of the Wisconsin supreme court judge, David Prosser, is growing more intense. “This could stop everything that Walker is trying to accomplish and [the unions] know it. Goes without saying, that would be a bad thing,” Seaholm says, writing to Tim Phillips, AFP's national president.

By 20 March, two weeks before the election, worry is distilling into panic. Brian Fraley of the Wisconsin-based conservative think-tank the MacIver Institute, shoots an impassioned plea for help to what he calls his “group” of like-minded lobbying groups and individuals, forwarded to Walker's chief of staff and other top advisers in Madison.

“David Prosser is in trouble,” Fraley begins. “And if we lose him, the Walker agenda is toast, as could be the Senate GOP majority and any successes creating a new redistricted map. That's not hyperbole.”

By the end of the bitter campaign, some $3.5m was spent by outside lobby groups channeling undisclosed corporate money to support Prosser's re-election – more than eight times the $400,000 the judge was allowed to spend himself. That included $1.5m from WCfG and its offshoot Citizens for a Strong America, and $2m fromWisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC), all of it in unaccountable “dark money”.

It worked. Prosser was re-elected, with a squeaky-tight margin of just 7,000 votes and after a fraught recount. The following month, Walker boasted to the Republican kingmaker, Karl Rove, “Club for Growth–Wisconsin was the key to retaining Justice Prosser.

Act 10 was safe.

Both of the two outside groups that channeled the recall election money (WCfG and WMC) are named as “movants” of the John Doe criminal investigation into alleged campaign finance violations that was shut down under the court ruling that Prosser, having won re-election in no small part with their help, joined. Yet when it was suggested to Prosser and a second conservative judge on the court, Justice Michael Gableman, that they should recuse themselves from deliberations in the case, they both refused.

In their petition to the US supreme court, the prosecutors challenge that refusal, arguing that “the special prosecutor did not receive a fair and impartial hearing”. The petitioners go on to discuss Prosser in detail, but the passage is so heavily redacted that their argument is obscured. They do say at one point, quoting constitutional law, that “No jurist 'can be a judge in his own case or be permitted to try cases where he has an interest in the outcome'.”

Prosser declined to step aside citing a rule change that had been suggested and partially written by WMC itself.The change removed the obligation of supreme court judges in Wisconsin to recuse themselves in cases involving groups that had helped them secure their own elections.

Kurt Bauer, WMC's president and CEO, declined to comment on the John Doe proceedings. But he stressed that the organization's “grassroots lobbying activities are conducted carefully within both the letter and the spirit of the state law. WMC strongly disputes any allegations of wrongdoing and will vigorously defend itself against such allegations.”

Bauer added that WMC was an independent group that was not controlled by any candidate or candidate’s campaign.“WMC will not allow itself to be silenced from commenting about public officials and public policy. WMC has long been a proponent of the First Amendment and has a history of fighting to protect its ability to publicly express its views. WMC maintains that commitment to protecting its right to express a point of view on public policy, public officials and candidates for office as well as protecting the confidentiality of its donors.”

In a telephone interview with the Guardian, Prosser, who retired from the state supreme court in July, said that in his view sufficient time had passed between his re-election in 2011 and the judgment in the John Doe case in 2015 for any potential conflict of interest to fade. “If this had been a year after the contributions I think I would have had to withdraw, but it was four years. There was no expectation on the part of recipient or givers that the contributions were designed to effect litigation, and so the contributions raised no questions whatsoever.”

Prosser said that at the time of his re-election he was facing hostile TV ads that falsely tried to link him to Walker's contentious anti-union legislation Act 10, while he himself was unable directly to solicit large amounts of campaign contributions under new strict fundraising limits imposed by an earlier Democratic-controlled legislature.“I certainly expected Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce sooner or later to put some money into my campaign. Of course I was going to hope that somebody would come in and defend me because I was unable to defend myself.”

But the judge stressed that the only spending involved came from "third parties in which no one on my campaign knew they were coming, didn't ask for them, and frankly if they hadn't come I would have been blown out of the water by false advertising”.

Last year Prosser issued a 12-page justification of his refusal to recuse himself from the John Doe case. In it, he made reference to an email from an “Unnamed Petitioner” that discussed raising money for a campaign “to maintain the Court”. The judge said the comment was “little more than evidence of the fact that some targets of the investigation ... engaged in expenditures that, under all the circumstances, were very valuable to my campaign.”

Just two weeks before writing that sentence, Judge Prosser had approved the court ruling that ordered the destruction of the John Doe files, among which was to be found the very same email to which he referred. The Guardian now publishes that full email for the first time, and as a result the identity of the anonymous “Unnamed Petitioner” who vowed to “maintain the Court” can be revealed: RJ Johnson, “general consultant” to the governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker.

Left: An estimated 70-100,000 demonstrators rallied outside the Wisconsin capitol building in February 2011 to protest a bill restricting collective bargaining rights. Right: A petition to recall the governor launched in November of that year. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty, Chicago Tribune/MCT/Getty

Why it matters

So why should we care about today's fiendishly complicated ways of funding elections? After all, isn't it a cornerstone of American democracy that everybody should be able to express themselves, under the first amendment right of free speech, after which the American people gets to have the final say at the ballot box?

One area of possible concern raised by the John Doe files chimes with the anger and disgruntlement of voters that Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have so powerfully articulated in the presidential race. If money channels are set up in secret to allow corporations and the super-wealthy to inject vast amounts of undisclosed cash into political races, the level playing field can be distorted to the benefit of corporate-friendly candidates and to the disadvantage of those representing ordinary voters.

By the end of Scott Walker's recall election, some $81m overall was spent on the battle – equivalent to $23 for every registered voter in the state. The governor and other Republican groups and committees invested $58.7m, while his Democratic rival and supporters were only able to muster less than half that amount, $21.9m.

“The sheer increased volume of corporate money that has been brought into elections in recent years may go more on one side than the other,” explained Richard Briffault, a professor specialising in campaign finance law at Columbia law school. “Corporations tend to lean more Republican.”

The 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.
**Paul and Alejandra Foster** – 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.
Diane M. Hendricks – 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.
Thomas H. Russell – 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
Warren Stephens – 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.
Elizabeth Uihlein – 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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http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/09/scott-walker-campaign-money-donors

...ollowing the CNN debate, the chatter was that Walker's biggest donors were demanding wholesale change to his campaign. Back when Walker led in the polls, profiles of him tended to focus on the fact that he served as his own chief strategist—which apparently left few options when the donors came looking for a fall guy. Top donors were also said to be scheming to get rid of campaign manager Rick Wiley. But as recently as Friday, Walker said on a conference call with donors that he was going to make no changes.

Apparently that wasn't going to cut it. "Donors have totally dried up for Walker," a campaign insider told the New York Times, because "the candidate and the campaign just couldn't inspire confidence."

The most interesting question amid the wreckage of Walker's campaign may now be this: Where will his wealthy backers go with their money? In July, thesuper-PAC supporting Walker, Unintimidated PAC,reported having locked up more than $20 million, placing him in the top echelon of GOP candidates in terms of financial backing. The bulk of the money, $13.4 million, came from just four people, including Wisconsin-based roofing supply magnate Diane Hendricks, a longtime supporter who gave $5 million.

Most of Walker's war chest came from outside traditional sources, in part because he never achieved much traction in strongholds for GOP campaign money such as Texas. Instead, his campaign and super-PAC seemed to rely on big donors whom Walker had cultivated for his state political runs and who were based in the Midwest. Hendricks, for example, has never laid out such large sums of cash for political causes as she has for Walker; the next largest check she has written to a national group was $1 million (donated last fall to the Koch-affiliated Freedom Partners Action Fund). With so many candidates remaining, Walker's biggest impact on 2016 may have to do with where his deep-pocketed former backers turn next.

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/features/2015-03-12/meet-the-billionaire-roofer-behind-scott-walker

Meet the Billionaire Roofer Behind Scott Walker - Bloomberg Politics

www.bloomberg.com/.../meet-the-billionaire-roofer-behind-scott-wal...

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:{Mar 12, 2015 - :{Diane Hendricks's:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: cash has helped propel the Wisconsin governor into the :{GOP's:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: top ranks. ... Wisconsin's :{Republican:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: Governor Scott :{Walker:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: hasn't formally ... :{Koch:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: Industries' political action committee :{donated:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: $43,000 to ...:(style="word-wrap:break-word"):}:

Diane Hendricks - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/**Diane**_**Hendricks**

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:{Jump to :(style="word-wrap:break-word"):}:Political **donations** - She donated $500,000 to Governor Scott Walker's recall ... Fund, a pro-Republican Super PAC created by the Koch Brothers.