Plenty of media attention has focused on the millions of dollars Elon Musk has poured into Wisconsin to make sure that extremist judge and former state attorney general Brad Schimel (R) is elected to the state Supreme Court on April 1, ready to support both his and Trump’s agenda in the Badger State.
But an in-state network of right-wing political donors, groups, and operatives has teamed up to spend even more for Schimel than Musk has. Campaign cash from Wisconsin’s right-wing infrastructure has totaled almost $9 million so far to win the judge a seat on the state’s highest court, according to a Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) analysis of campaign filings.
Many of these donors and groups will likely be involved with or have significant interests in cases before the court in the years ahead.
More than a third of this in-state support ($3.8 million) has come from billionaires Elizabeth and Richard Uihlein, co-founders of the Wisconsin-based shipping and packaging supplier Uline. The couple are major donors to the GOP and ranked among the top five individual contributors nationally to federal elections between 2023 and 2024, donating over $144 million to Republicans, according to OpenSecrets.
The Uihleins primarily donate through political action committees (PACs), including their own super PAC, Fair Courts America, which has already spent over $2.5 million on TV and digital advertising and direct mail in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race attacking Schimel’s opponent, Dane County Judge Susan Crawford.
Light sentences for sex offenders, that’s Susan Crawford’s record. Do you think your children are safe with her as a judge? Don’t take the risk. pic.twitter.com/txMS1GogyI
— Fair Courts America (@FairCourtsAm) February 25, 2025
Fair Courts America spent over $5.5 million deploying a similar strategy in 2023 in an attempt to get another extremist, Daniel Kelly, elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court — an attempt that ultimately failed.
Fair Courts America is primarily funded by Richard Uihlein, a staunch opponent of abortion who contributes millions of dollars to anti-abortion groups through his Restoration PAC, as CMD has reported. At a public event in January, Schimel told fellow Republicans that he believes “life begins at conception” and “we have to shut this [abortion] issue down.”
In December, the Wisconsin Supreme Court heard oral arguments in an appeal regarding a Wisconsin law from 1849 that some have interpreted as banning abortion. The new justice elected in April will probably not be involved with the deliberative process in that appeal. However, if the court finds that the law does restrict abortion access, the new justice would most likely hear a related case arguing that the Wisconsin constitution protects the right to an abortion.
In addition to their spending to support Schimel through their PACs, the Uihleins have each given $650,000 to the Republican Party of Wisconsin this year and donated $20,000 each directly to Schimel’s campaign, the maximum individual contribution allowed to support a candidate running for the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
As Schimel touted at a recent town hall meeting, “I’ll be competitive on the money [and] we’ll play this smarter than we did last April.” He urged his donors to “max out” on $20,000 individual contributions and then give more “to the party,” adding, “they’ll send me the check.” The Republican Party of Wisconsin has given nearly $1.7 million to Schimel’s campaign thus far.
In addition to the Uihleins, Wisconsin GOP megadonor Diane Hendricks, along with her family members and employees, have spent $2.1 million to help get Schimel elected.
Hendricks has given just under $2 million to the Republican Party of Wisconsin so far this year and donated $20,000 directly to Schimel’s campaign. As owner of Hendricks Holdings and co-founder of ABC Roofing Supplies, the largest roofing supply company in the U.S., she was among the top 20 donors to federal elections in the last election cycle, spending $30.9 million to get Republicans elected, according to OpenSecrets.
Keith Rozolis, CEO of ABC Roofing Supplies, and Brent Fox, CEO of Hendricks Holdings, each gave the $20,000 maximum to Schimel’s campaign. Kim Hendricks, Diane’s daughter and a former employee of ABC Roofing Supplies, also maxed out.
Diane Hendricks was a major backer of former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R). In January 2011, just days before he was sworn in, she asked him on video, “Any chance we’ll ever get to be a completely red state and work on these unions… and become a right-to-work [state]?” Walker would go on to sign Act 10 as one of his first items of business, banning public sector unions from collective bargaining. Four years later he delivered on her wished-for right-to-work law.
Right-to-work policies undermine unions by preventing them from negotiating contract provisions that require all workers, including non-members, to contribute dues that help defray the costs of worker representation on the job.
Wisconsin’s Supreme Court is expected to hear a challenge to Act 10 after a new justice is seated in August.
Strong Corporate Backing
The issue advocacy arm of Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC), the state’s chamber of commerce, has spent $2.9 million on reserving TV ads through March 19 and has released an ad attacking Schimel’s opponent. The group spent at least $250,000 in 2023 failing to get Kelly elected.
In addition, WMC offers conduit accounts through which people can donate to candidates in Wisconsin. Todd Koss, CEO of the Grand Cheese Company, gave $20,000 to Schimel’s campaign through one such account.
WMC has been one of the most significant dark money funders of right-wing candidates in Wisconsin Supreme Court elections this century and was deeply involved in the campaign finance scandal surrounding the elections to recall former Governor Walker and state senators in 2011 and 2012. WMC boasted of spending $6.75 million to elect three state Supreme Court justices who would later rule to dismiss the subsequent criminal probe and effectively rewrite the state’s campaign finance laws. (CMD filed an amicus brief in support of the prosecutor’s unsuccessful appeal of that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.)
In 2010, WMC and the Wisconsin Realtors Association petitioned the Supreme Court to adopt new rules they wrote themselves stating that being the beneficiary of independent expenditures by a party in a case would not require recusal. The conservative justices — elected with help from WMC — voted to adopt the new rules.
WMC pushed for the right-to-work law in 2015, supported Act 10, and helped reestablish sweeping changes of law to allow limits on medical malpractice awards and punitive damages, along with a repeal of a lead paint liability ruling at the heart of the Walker scandal.
Right-Wing Leaders Rally Behind Schimel
Leaders of the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, whose coffers have been weaponized to develop and maintain a right-wing “infrastructure” to influence policies and politicians in Wisconsin and state houses nationwide, are also backing Schimel.
Patick J. English, chair of the foundation’s donor advised fund, the Bradley Impact Fund, and a member of the Bradley Foundation board, gave the $20,000 maximum to Schimel’s campaign. Richard W. Graber, president and CEO of the Bradley Foundation, added $6,000. Jason J. Kohout, secretary of the Bradley Impact Fund, gave $2,000 to Schimel’s campaign, while James T. Barry, a member of the Bradley Foundation board, contributed $1,000.
A primary component of Bradley’s “philanthropic” strategy is to fund litigation centers to defend its favored policy proposals and politicians. In Wisconsin, Bradley has given the “MVP” of its Wisconsin network, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL), $10.2 million (2011–23) and funneled another $1.6 million (2013–23) through its Impact Fund to do just that.
WILL has worked to defend a central Bradley agenda item — school privatization — and to privately enforce Walker’s union-busting Act 10 bill against local governments. In 2020, WILL also initiated several legal actions against Covid shutdown orders in Wisconsin.
In addition, Schimel has received individual contributions from WILL leadership. Michael W. Grebe, a member of WILL’s board and a former CEO of the Bradley Foundation, gave $10,000 to his campaign, while Michael White, a member of WILL’s board, gave the $20,000 maximum. Cathy White, who provided the same address as Michael White and made donations of the same amount on the same day, also gave the $20,000 maximum to Schimel.
Leaders of the Bradley-funded MacIver Institute have also sent cash to Schimel’s campaign. MacIver is a right-wing think tank that occasionally files lawsuits and primarily produces research in order to lend academic legitimacy to extreme, unpopular policies. During the pandemic, the organization was linked to misinformation being spread about the virus.
Kathryn Burke, a member of the MacIver Institute board, gave $12,500 to Schimel’s campaign, while James (Jim) Leef, a member of both the MacIver and WMC boards, gave $6,000.
Peter Farrow, a member of the School Choice Wisconsin board, has chipped in more than $10,000 to Schimel’s campaign. School Choice Wisconsin, another Bradley grantee, promotes school vouchers, charter schools, and school privatization.
Other notable right-wing contributors to Schimel’s campaign include Representative Robin J. Vos (R), speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly, who gave $600, and Kelly Ruh, treasurer of the Wisconsin GOP and a former fake elector for President Trump after the 2020 election, who chipped in $500.
Schimel’s campaign also received $161 from Daniel J. Miller, state director of Pro-Life Wisconsin, an organization that recently spent just under $4,000 on printing and postage in support of Schimel.
National Right-Wing Support
Beyond the right-wing infrastructure in Wisconsin, Schimel is also drawing support from far-right donors and operatives on a national level. Elon Musk has spent $5.2 million, while the State Leadership Committee, a national organization of Republican state leaders, has spent more than $1.3 million as part of a proposed $2 million investment to help Schimel get elected.
Charles Koch’s Americans for Prosperity (AFP) has spent over $2.3 million for Schimel, according to a CMD analysis of campaign filings.
Overall spending in this race for a seat on Wisconsin’s highest court may surpass the $51 million spent on the Supreme Court election in the state in 2023, which marked the highest amount ever spent on a state judicial contest in the U.S.
Keith Douglas, founding editor of State Court Report, said that a change in the majority of the court after the election this April “could quickly result in dramatic shifts in the jurisprudence,” as happened in North Carolina after an election there in 2022 flipped that state’s Supreme Court to a conservative majority.
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