Tommy Washbush
A graph showing the comparison between Richard Uihlein's donation to Fair Courts America PAC and all other Supreme Court candidate donations.
A single PAC donation from right-wing Illinois megadonor Richard Uihlein outweighed all donations from Wisconsin residents to all four Wisconsin Supreme Court candidates combined, an analysis of campaign finance reports shows.
Uihlein’s recent $1.5 million donation to a political action committee called Fair Courts America — he is the committee’s only donor — was more than everything Janet Protasiewicz, Everett Mitchell, Dan Kelly and Jennifer Dorow have raised from the entire state of Wisconsin and the rest of the country combined since the first of the year. The PAC donation and campaign donations were reported in a Feb. 13 filing with the Wisconsin Ethics Commission. Uihlein’s influence could have a big impact in a hotly contested race that could swing the balance of the court, affecting issues from abortion rights to redistricting maps. He is backing Kelly, a conservative candidate like Dorow. Mitchell and Protasiewicz are running as liberals.
The candidates for Wisconsin’s Supreme Court released sunny press releases ahead of the state’s most recent campaign finance reporting deadline, boasting of hundreds of thousands of dollars raised for their campaigns. The reports submitted to the Wisconsin Ethics Commission on Feb. 13 cover the period from Jan. 1-Feb. 6. Janet Protasiewicz maintained the money lead she built in December, raising $725,000 over the roughly five-week reporting period. Dorow was next with $365,000, then Kelly with $100,000 and Mitchell with $70,000 in total funds raised.
The money in Madison favored Protasiewicz by an even larger margin. Protasiewicz raised $117,000 from Madison, more than five times the amount any other candidate raised in the city. Mitchell raised $23,388 from Madison residents, while Dorow raised about $14,000 and Kelly just $700, according to an Isthmus analysis.
But every Madison donation added together pencils out to just one-tenth of Uihlein’s massive spending. Uihlein’s PAC money has already been used for $800,000 in pro-Kelly radio and TV advertisements in late January and early February. Odds are good that Uihlein will spend millions more in the general election. Fair Courts America, in a statement attributed to a spokesperson, has said it will spend millions of dollars to support Kelly this election.
Richard Uihlein and his wife, Liz, are among the top Republican megadonors in the country, having contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to conservative candidates and causes over the last decade after the Supreme Court’s Citizen United decision opened the doors to unlimited “independent expenditures” by political action committees in campaigns — these entities are officially prohibited from coordinating with candidates. A Financial Times profile last summer called Uihlein “a megadonor with the potential to take up the mantle of the once pre-eminent Koch brothers.” Charles and David Koch previously spent nearly $900 million on political causes during the 2016 election cycle.
Richard and Liz Uihlein founded Uline in 1980 and it grew into a massive shipping materials company with revenue in the billions of dollars. Richard is also an heir to the Schlitz fortune. While they are both conservatives, the two sometimes disagree. In 2022, Liz supported Rebecca Kleefisch for governor while Richard praised challenger Kevin Nicholson.
The state of Wisconsin gave Uline as much as $18.6 million in tax credits to move its headquarters less than 15 miles from Waukegan, Illinois, to Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, in 2010.
On Feb. 14, the day after the Ethics Commission’s most recent campaign finance reporting deadline, Women Speak Out PAC, a pro-life group that has received millions from Uihlein, also announced a six-figure spending campaign in support of Kelly. Independent expenditures surpassing $2,500 must be reported to the Ethics Commission within 72 hours.
Lynde Uihlein, a cousin of Richard Uihlein, is known for her giving to liberal groups and shows up as a big-dollar donor in the Supreme Court race. She gave $250,000 to A Better Wisconsin Together Political Fund, which ran $829,000 in anti-Dorow ads in early February. Protasiewicz max donor Gaye Pigott, a liberal megadonor, also gave the same PAC $230,000.
Protasiewicz has a few billionaire families in her corner as well, though they have mostly contributed through the campaign rather than a PAC. Campaign contributions are limited to a combined total of $20,000 for the primary and general election campaigns. These donors include Elizabeth Simons and Mark William Heising; Gwendolyn Sontheim, heiress to the Cargill fortune; Pat Stryker, heiress to the Stryker medical device company fortune; and Alida Messinger, a Rockefeller. Longtime Wisconsin Sen. Herb Kohl was also one of Protasiewicz’s new donors who gave the $20,000 maximum.
Despite some eye-popping individual donations in the race, the average donation to Protasiewicz was $121, second-lowest after Mitchell’s $72. Dorow had an average donation of $249. Kelly’s average donation was $160, but if you count Uihlein’s donation as pro-Kelly spending, that “average donation” would jump to more than $2,500.
