May 12, 2025 - Tom O'Connor, Wisconsin Examiner Commentary | Will $100M Supreme Court elections be the new normal in Wisconsin? It shouldn’t and doesn’t have to be that way
May 5, 2025 - Jay Heck, Wisconsin Examiner
Saturday, May 31, 2025
In The News - May 2025
May 12, 2025 - Tom O'Connor, Wisconsin Examiner Commentary | Will $100M Supreme Court elections be the new normal in Wisconsin? It shouldn’t and doesn’t have to be that way
May 5, 2025 - Jay Heck, Wisconsin Examiner
Monday, May 5, 2025
Will $100M Supreme Court elections be the new normal in Wisconsin? It shouldn’t and doesn’t have to be that way
For release: Monday - May 5, 2025
Image: Billionaire businessman Elon Musk arrives for a town hall meeting wearing a cheesehead hat at the KI Convention Center on March 30, 2025 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The town hall is being held in front of the state’s high-profile Supreme Court election between Circuit Court Judge Brad Schimel, who has been financially backed by Musk and endorsed by President Donald Trump, and Dane County Circuit Court Judge Susan Crawford. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Guest Commentary by CCWI Director Jay Heck
Published by the Wisconsin Examiner - May 5, 2025
On April 1 Wisconsin voters decisively voted against unprecedented, massive outside interference in our state Supreme Court election by the nearly $30 million from the richest and second (to Donald Trump) most egotistical person in the world – Elon Musk. In handing Musk’s endorsed candidate, Brad Schimel, a more than 10 percentage point, 269,000-vote drubbing, Wisconsinites rendered the nation a great service by humiliating Musk here and thereby driving him from the corridors of power and influence in Washington D.C. where he has been savaging vital U.S. government services and programs that helped the poorest people in our nation and in the world.
Wisconsin also opted to preserve recent democracy reforms in our state by maintaining the current 4-3 progressive majority on the Court. Fairer and more representative state legislative voting maps and the restoration of the use of secure ballot drop boxes for voters will be preserved and the possibility of new and enhanced political reform is possible in the years immediately ahead either through upholding reforms passed legislatively, through court action, or both.
But what can be done about the obscene amount of political money raised and spent to elect a new Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice in 2025 – as much if not more than $105 million – by far the most amount ever spent in a judicial election in the history of the United States? Wisconsin faces new state supreme court elections every April for the next four years and a continuation of such frenzied and out of control spending for the foreseeable future seems both unbearable and unsustainable.
Voluntary spending limits for Supreme Court candidates with the incentive of providing them with full public financing if they agree to statutory spending limits is a possibility. Wisconsin actually had such a law in place for exactly one Supreme Court election in 2011. The Impartial Justice Act was made possible by passage with overwhelming bipartisan majorities in the Wisconsin Legislature and enactment into law in 2009. In 2011, both candidates for a seat on the high court agreed to the voluntary spending limits of $400,000 each and received full public financing. That campaign was robust, competitive and the result was close, which is what you would expect in Wisconsin. And it cost just a tiny fraction of the more than $100 million that was spent in 2025.
Unfortunately, later in 2011, then-Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature defunded the Impartial Justice Act and all other public financing for elections. Four years later, Walker and the GOP completely eviscerated and deformed Wisconsin’s campaign finance laws. They did away with limits on what political parties and outside groups can raise and spend in elections, increased individual campaign contribution limits and, most alarmingly, legalized previously illegal campaign coordination between so-called issue ad spending groups and candidates, which greatly increased opportunities for corruption and undue influence through campaign spending. Disclosure requirements were weakened and, in some instances, dismantled altogether.
In just four short years, Wisconsin was transformed from one of the most transparent, low spending and highly regarded election states in the nation to one of the worst, least regulated special interest-controlled political backwaters in the nation, akin to Texas, Louisiana or Florida.
This current corrupt status quo will remain in place for the upcoming state Supreme Court elections in 2026, 2027, 2028 and 2029 unless the governor, Legislature and the Wisconsin Supreme Court take action and do the following:
- Re-establish an “impartial justice” law for the public financing of state Supreme Court elections modeled after the 2009 law which was in place for only one election before it was repealed. Update and revise it to better fit current times and circumstances including more realistic spending limits and higher public financing grants.
- Establish clear recusal rules for judges at all levels in Wisconsin that clearly decree that if a certain campaign contribution is reached or surpassed beyond a certain threshold amount, then the beneficiary of that contribution (or of the expenditure against her/his opponent) must recuse from any case in which the contributor is a party before the court.
- Restore sensible limitations on the transfer of and acceptance of campaign funds and make illegal again campaign coordination between outside special interest groups engaged in issue advocacy with all candidates for public office — particularly judges.
- Petition the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the disastrous 2010 Citizens United vs F.E.C. decision which ended over 100 years of sensible regulation of unlimited corporate, union and other outside special interest money in federal and by extension state elections, unleashing the torrential flood of campaign cash drowning democracy today.
These are common-sense, achievable reforms that, if enacted into law, would go a long way toward restoring desperately needed public confidence in the fairness, impartiality and trust in Wisconsin’s courts and in particular, our Wisconsin Supreme Court which was regarded as the model for the nation and the best anywhere a quarter century ago. But it will take determined action by all three branches of Wisconsin’s state government working together with the voters to uphold election integrity and curb corruption in a way all of us can embrace.
Ultimately, of course, it’s up to us, the voters, to hold our governmental institutions accountable and ensure that they work for us instead of for their own narrow interests and those of the donor class. In this critical season of resistance and defiance against tyranny — speak up, make noise and ensure that your voice is heard. Demand real reform and an end to the corruption of our representative government.
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Jay Heck
608/512-9363 (cell)
Common Cause in Wisconsin
152 Johnson St, Suite 212
Madison, WI 53703
152 Johnson St, Suite 212
Madison, WI 53703
Wednesday, April 30, 2025
In the News - April 2025
April 10, 2025 - Bill McCarthy, AFP USA FactCheck The Wisconsin Supreme Court race cost over $100M. Can that be stopped?
April 8, 2025 - Andrew Bahl, The Cap Times Social media post distorts ballot shortage in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election
April 2, 2025 - Amy Sherman, PolitiFact Analysis: Crawford beats Musk in Wisconsin Supreme Court race
April 2, 2025 -Bill Lueders, Isthmus How Wisconsin became the 'tip of the spear' in skyrocketing spending on judicial elections
April 1, 2025 - Mitchell Schmidt, Wisconsin State Journal
Friday, April 25, 2025
Spring Has Finally Arrived in Wisconsin and With It — Required Action on the Democracy Front at both the State and Federal Level!
For release: Friday - April 25, 2025
Image: Wisconsin Capitol with a banner overlaid "Holding Power Accountable"
We have been busy here at Common Cause Wisconsin (CC/WI) in the aftermath of the historic and pivotal April 1st election — with its unprecedented campaign spending, record voter turnout and decisive rejection of the richest person in the world, Elon Musk, and his failed attempt to buy our Wisconsin Supreme Court election with more than $25 million. CC/WI is proud to have played a leading role in informing Wisconsinites about Musk's outside interference in our state election, and in driving him to step down from his destructive position as the genesis of "DOGE" and all the cruelty and misery that DOGE has caused in our state, nation and around the world.
Since then, CC/WI has been actively participating in advising and advocating for the very much needed and critical Wisconsin Election Commission Election Observer Rule over the past two years before the Wisconsin Legislature. Why? Because election observers need clear rules in order to carry out their critical tasks at polling locations and currently the rules are very vague and uncertain. Having this rule in place will help ensure the safety of voters, observers, and election officials. The rule strikes a careful and important balance between the election officials being able to carry out their jobs, an observer’s access and ability to be able to view the voting process, and a voter's right to privacy and confidentiality while casting a ballot. This past Tuesday the Joint Committee of Review for Administrative Rules held a public hearing as they now consider adoption or rejection of the rule. Here is my testimony on that rule and why we need it.
Also, as the Wisconsin Legislature's all powerful Joint Committee on Finance wraps up its public hearings (the final two meetings are this coming Monday and Tuesday), CC/WI has submitted the following testimony in support of funding election administration and operations in our state. The Wisconsin Election Commission, as well as county and municipal clerks, need the necessary resources to meet the increased demands on their staff and to their workloads so that they can carry out their jobs and to strengthen confidence in state elections. The request for election funding is modest and ought to be fully supported by the full legislature. Here is my testimony.
Earlier this month the US House of Representatives passed the so-called SAVE Act - a harmful anti-voter bill that will put millions of currently eligible voters’ registration at risk and lose their voting rights and access to the ballot. This piece of legislation is now being scheduled for a vote by the full US Senate. Please join the thousands of Americans all over the nation who have signed this petition to demand that Wisconsin US Senators Tammy Baldwin and Ron Johnson know that this bill must be resoundingly rejected, by voting NO on the SAVE Act. Common Cause will continue to track the harmful ramifications of the SAVE Act and let you know what actions can be taken next, so be on the lookout for more to come. Thanks for speaking out and signing on!
Finally, our partners at the Wisconsin Conservation Voters are hosting a lobby day at the Madison Capitol on May 6, 2025, and would like to invite you to join them. Their advocacy includes many pro-voter and pro-democracy issues that we champion with them. For more information and to sign up go to https://conservationvoters.org/events/cld-2025.
As I said at the outset, Spring has finally arrived in Wisconsin. Hurray! Take time to enjoy it, get outside and find some joy! For me, it is hiking through the beautiful and quiet environs of Cherokee Marsh, just northeast of Madison. Take care of yourselves and each other. Thanks for your continued dedicated vigilance and action in support of our democracy.
On Wisconsin,
Jay Heck
Executive Director, Common Cause Wisconsin
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Jay Heck
608/256-2686 (office)
608/512-9363 (cell)
608/512-9363 (cell)
Common Cause in Wisconsin
152 Johnson St, Suite 212
Madison, WI 53703
www.commoncausewisconsin.org
152 Johnson St, Suite 212
Madison, WI 53703
www.commoncausewisconsin.org
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