State Superintendent Candidate Says Opponent Offered Him A Job To Exit Race

A candidate for state superintendent says an opponent offered him a $150,000 job in the state Department of Public Instruction if he dropped out of the race and requested a similar deal if he bowed out.

John Humphries made the allegation against Lowell Holtz on Wednesday during a debate on WISN radio. The two are challenging incumbent state Superintendent Tony Evers.

“He presented me with a written list of demands including $150,000 a year for three years and a no-cut contract, and he wanted a driver,” Humphries alleged.

Humphries gave the The Wisconsin State Journal a document he alleges was sent to him by Holtz. It appears to lay out in writing a set of terms for such a deal, including granting Holtz power to oversee the state’s largest urban school districts if Humphries was elected.

“He wanted unilateral power to break apart districts and dismantle school boards,” Humphries charged.

Holtz called Humphries’ allegations a smear campaign and a “bunch of liberal BS.”

“There is absolutely no way, after getting to know somebody, that I would ever work with that person because our values don’t line up,” Holtz said of Humphries.

Holtz said he and Humphries did meet at the urging of unnamed business people to discuss options for working together and that ideas were thrown around but “there was no specific proposal.”

“John Humphries is not one to let the facts get in the way of a good story. A group of business leaders asked John and I to consider supporting each other after the primary,” Holtz said in a written statement Wednesday. “The document to which he is referring was a rough draft and a conversation starter about what an agreement between us working together could look like.

“Unfortunately, we are on totally opposite ends of the political spectrum. The differences between Mr. Humphries’ approach to education and mine were too stark to be reconciled, so the conversation ended there.”

Meanwhile, Humphries campaign spokesman, Brian Schupper, said it was purely a campaign move on Holtz’s part.

“This was a proposal/conversation about someone withdrawing before the primary; in fact, about withdrawing before signatures were due in order to get on the ballot. There is no doubt about it. Any suggestions otherwise are a severe misrepresentation,” Schupper wrote in an email Wednesday.

Kevin Kennedy, the former director of Wisconsin’s now-defunct Government Accountability Board, said proposals like this aren’t unusual in politics, “but it’s not usually quite so blatant in terms of demands of what they’re going to get.”

Kennedy said no state ethics or election laws prohibit this kind of deal-making, but if the accusations are true, they still give voters something to consider.

“What does this say about the candidate? Is this someone we want to cast a vote for if this is the kind of self-serving deals they want to make?” Kennedy said.

In a written statement, Evers’ campaign spokeswoman, Amanda Brink, called the two’s moves a “power grab” and said the plan would “strip away parents and community member’s rights to weigh in on their local districts.”

“This is a massive power grab. It isn’t a conversation that can be simply brushed aside,” Brink continued. “This is a proposal for a heavy handed, top-down approach struck through a backroom deal between a few unnamed business leaders and two politicians looking out for their own financial interests.”

The primary is Feb. 21, and the top two vote-getters will advance to the April 4 general election.

Editor’s Note: This story was last updated at 1:01 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 16.