June 5, 2012

The Dark Money Behind the Wisconsin Recall

Some startling stats about the election to decide the future of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker:

$63.5 million: The minimum amount spent by both sides in the recall

70 percent: How much more expensive the governor’s recall election is than the state’s second-most expensive race (the 2010 gubernatorial campaign)

$30.5 million: Amount raised by Walker to fight off the recall effort

$3.9 million: Amount raised by his challenger, Tom Barrett, the Democratic mayor of Milwaukee

About 2/3: Proportion of Walker’s donations that have come from donors outside Wisconsin

About 1/4: Proportion of Barrett’s donations that have come from donors outside Wisconsin

Unlimited: Maximum individual donation Walker may accept under state law

$10,000: Maximum individual donation Barrett may accept under state law

$18 million: Amount spent on pro-Walker independent expenditures and issue ads

$15.5 million: Amount spent on pro-Barrett independent expenditures and issue ads

Some of the biggest contributions and expenditures in support of Walker:

• $510,000 to Walker from Diane Hendricks, Wisconsin’s richest businesswoman and a member of Charles and David Koch’s million-dollar donor club

• $490,000 to Walker from Bob Perry, a Houston homebuilder who with his wife has spent more than $8 million on the 2012 elections

• $260,000 to Walker from David Humphreys, a member of the Kochs’ million-dollar donor club

• $250,000 to Walker from former Amway CEO Dick DeVos of Michigan, a member of the Kochs’ million-dollar donor club

• $250,000 to Walker from Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who with his wife has spent more than $25 million on the 2012 elections

• $100,000 to Walker from Wyoming investor Foster Friess, a member of the Kochs’ million-dollar donor club

• $100,000 to Walker from New York billionaire Louis Bacon, a media-shy hedge-fund trader

• $100,000 to Walker from Dallas oil and gas billionaire Trevor Rees-Jones

• $6.5 million on ads spent by Americans for Prosperity, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, and the anti-labor Center for Union Facts

• $9 million on ads spent by the Republican Governors Association‘s Right Direction Wisconsin PAC; only about $7,000 was raised in-state since April 23. The RGA got $1 million from David Koch in February. It’s also received $500,000 from the US Chamber of Commerce

 

Some of the biggest contributions and expenditures in support of Barrett:

• $200,000 to the America Votes Action Fund, a Democratic super-PAC, from Fred Eychaner, a reclusive media mogul and Obama bundler from Chicago*

• $1 million to the We Are Wisconsin Political Fund, an independent expenditure group run by state AFL-CIO president Phil Neuenfeldt, from the National Education Association’s super-PAC

• $500,000 to We Are Wisconsin from the Service Employees International Union; $500,000 from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; and $350,000 from the American Federation of Teachers

• $1.3 million to Greater Wisconsin, an independent expenditure shop, from We Are Wisconsin; $900,000 from the Democratic Governors Association; $500,000 from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees

• $2 million on ads spent by the Greater Wisconsin Committee, GW’s 501(c)(4) branch

Correction: This post originally stated that Fred Eychaner donated directly to Tom Barrett, who was limited by law to maximum individual donations of $10,000.

This post has been revised.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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