$6 Million and Rising, Big Labor Pours Big Bucks into Wisconsin Recalls

The latest from the Big Labor efforts to strip Republicans of control of the Wisconsin state senate. State labor unions have always been major players in elections here, however, this kind of outside influence on Wisconsin legislative elections is unprecedented. Six million dollars from one interest group for only nine legislative elections? Note thate most of the recalls are not for a month yet, so this totall is sure to increase, perhaps 2-3 times….

[Madison, Wisc…] MNS …In the first eight days of July nearly three million dollars has been sent to Wisconsin by national liberal organizations and individuals, with more than two million dollars coming from large national labor unions.

Big Labor has now sent more than six million dollars to finance recall efforts in Wisconsin according to a review of campaign finance reports conducted by the MacIver News Service. The figures only account for disbursements reported to the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board; these organizations do not have to report expenditures made for efforts to communicate with their own membership.

The contributions can come in the form of monetary contributions like wire transfers and checks or in-kind contributions. Wisconsin statutes define “in-kind” contributions as a disbursement by a contributor to procure a thing of value or service for the benefit of a registrant who authorized the disbursement.

All told, Big Labor has spent more than $6,419,000 in the recall efforts this year, having delivered $2.2 million to the state since July 1.

The AFL-CIO sent $3,884,170 to the “We are Wisconsin” Super PAC in six monetary disbursements since May, the last one being for $778,431 on July 5.

As previously reported by MNS, The deceptively-named “We are Wisconsin” effort has a decidedly non-Wisconsin infrastructure, with well in excess of 90% of its funds and many of its key operatives coming from out of state.

AFSCME has set up a special account for the Wisconsin recalls and from that delivered $1,855,617 in monetary and in-kind contributions to “We are Wisconsin” in the last eight weeks. On July 7 alone, AFSCME sent an $800,000 monetary contribution to that Super PAC.

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