Out-of-state donations are ramping up in Wisconsin Supreme Court race

Out-of-state donors and political action committees are starting to pour their resources into this spring’s Wisconsin Supreme Court election.

The race between Dane County Judge Susan Crawford and former Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel is likely to be the most expensive judicial election in American history. That’s according to Nick Ramos, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a campaign finance watchdog. 

Ramos spoke recently on WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.” He said roughly 60 people so far contributed the maximum $20,000 individual donation to a judicial campaign for an election that’s more than a month away. 

“We’re seeing maxed-out contributions at a level that we have not seen before at this moment in time,” he said. “This isn’t all in-state money. There are a lot of out-of-state people.”  

“And just because you maxed out [donating to campaigns], doesn’t mean you have to stop donating. You can go to the party of your choice. You can go to the committee of your choice,” he added. “Like current Judge Schimel said in a town hall, he said: Hey guys, max out. Then go to the party, they’ll send me the check.”

The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign filed an ethics complaint with the Wisconsin Judicial Commission over Schimel’s comments, accusing him of breaking judicial ethics by directly soliciting for campaign contributions. 

Since the start of the race, Crawford’s campaign has raised over $7.3 million, $3 million of which was donated by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, while Schimel’s campaign raised nearly $5 million. Of that, $1.7 million was contributed by the state’s Republican party.

Ramos talked with “Wisconsin Today” about political action committee spending, multibillionaire Elon Musk’s involvement in the election and what Ramos expects in future races.

The following was edited for brevity and clarity. 

Kate Archer Kent: This election is still weeks away. Is it safe to assume spending will ramp up even more? 

Nick Ramos: Yeah. For anybody at home who has been paying attention to what’s been going on at the national level, Elon Musk is now in this race. His PAC is called Building America’s Future. And if my numbers are correct, I’ve counted about $3 million. And that just jumped from about a week ago. With the numbers that we’re looking at right now, we’re projecting to reach at least $75 million when it’s all said and done, which would be a $20 million leap since the last time we had a state Supreme Court race. 

And you can understand why. If you’re a liberal voter in this state, if the liberal candidate wins, then you don’t have to worry about ideological control being in the balance for another two years. Vice versa: If Schimel ends up winning and you’re a conservative voter, then you’re looking at it and you’re saying: Well it’s not the most comfortable place because we have another election next year. We have Supreme Court races every year until 2030. 

KAK: Should Wisconsin expect all of these upcoming races to have record-high spending? 

NR: Unless we decide we want to do something different. And what is insanity? It’s doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Everybody knows it’s a problem. We ran a money in politics poll statewide last week. I can tell you right now that demographically, Republican, Democrat, independents, doesn’t matter. Evenly split, 88 percent of Wisconsinites think that money is a problem when it comes to our politics. 

People want to say the elector is dumb. But they are paying attention. They understand that at every level, money plays a key factor in what types of decisions are going to be impacted on our lives. And we’re seeing billionaires coming into this election here, trying to buy a Supreme Court seat. It’s a situation where it doesn’t matter the party affiliation. People deserve more agency than what they’re being given right now. 

KAK: Should we be more concerned about who is spending the money here, where it’s coming from and what it’s being spent on? 

NR: Absolutely. I’m not completely convinced that every active voter really understands and truly grasps how much out-of-state money is coming in, especially when it comes to our Supreme Court elections. The fact that you have Elon Musk and his PAC getting ready, they’re just getting started with $3 million. There’s going to be so much more down the pipeline.

But then on the Democrat side, you see Steven Spielberg, JB Pritzker, Reid Hoffman. … They’re not letting up because we are a litmus test. We are a bellwether state and the first really big election in this country to test what the mood is after the presidential election. All these rich people, they’re all like “Well, we’re gambling here. We’re going to see what plays and what can work on a national scale.”

KAK: Should someone donate to a campaign or a political party if there’s really no way of knowing how the money is being spent or if there’s such an influx of people who are ultra-wealthy funding the campaigns? 

NR: It’s enough to make anybody jaded. I don’t blame people for being apathetic about our system because it is broken. It’s been broken since 2015 when then-Gov. [Scott] Walker rewrote our campaign finance laws. And then you pair Citizens United on top of that. 

But I want to give people some hope. And the hope is that you are more powerful than you even know. While money is something that can buy a lot of things, it cannot vote. Your vote is going to mean so much over these next five, six years because there’s going to be really big decisions. Both in front of the judiciary and, as far as for our lawmakers, they’re going to be making decisions that are going to impact your life. You deserve to be educated about it. We are going to work our tails off to mobilize the people and show them their agency and show them what the path is forward because we think we can get campaign finance reform done, and we’re going to do it in the next couple of years. I promise you that.