When politicians and PACs break campaign finance law, regulators enforce penalties. The Badger Project requested every settlement in the history of the regulatory body, the Wisconsin Ethics Commission.

By Peter Cameron and Hallie Claflin, THE BADGER PROJECT

Political candidates and interest groups have paid tens of thousands of dollars in penalties since the 2016 launch of the Wisconsin Ethics Commission, which oversees political campaign finance reporting and lobbying.

The Badger Project requested documents on all campaign finance penalties, which the commission calls negotiated “settlements,” reached in the commission’s 8-year history.

The political action committee for the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association, which mostly donates to Democratic candidates, agreed in 2021 to the largest settlement in the short history of the Wisconsin Ethics Commission, according to the documents The Badger Project received in its request.

That was for a donation it received from its parent organization, the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association, for $15,000 in 2019. Unions, corporations and tribes cannot make donations to political action committees or candidates, per state law.

In 2021, the union’s PAC agreed to pay a settlement of $15,500 after the commission discovered the violation.

The commission conducts audits on an annual basis of the mandatory campaign finance reports candidates, political parties and PACs file with it. The commission releases the results in annual reports available on its website.

Candidates and PACs can violate state law by doing things like failing to file campaign finance reports on time and accepting donations over the limit from an individual or PAC.

In 2022, state Sen. Duey Stroebel, a Republican from the Milwaukee suburbs, agreed to pay the largest settlement for an individual politician after his campaign accepted contributions from three donors over the legal limit of $2,000 per donor per election cycle.

Stroebel’s campaign committee, Stroebel for Senate, agreed to pay $7,700, the amount of the overages, in the settlement. 

Stroebel is facing Democrat Jodi Habush Sinykin, an attorney from Whitefish Bay, in the general election this November in what experts consider to be one of the most competitive districts in the newly drawn state Senate map. So far, is is the most expensive race for the state legislative in this election cycle.

Former state Sen. Alberta Darling, a Republican who retired in 2022 after more than three decades in the legislature, racked up more than $9,000 in settlements for violations of campaign finance law in her last decade in office.

Stroebel is running to win a seat in Darling’s old 8th Senate District.

The campaign committee of former Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, agreed to pay a settlement of $6,500 in 2020 for accepting that amount over the legal limit from the REALTORS PAC in the 2018 election cycle. Political action committees are capped at $86,000 in what they can give to candidates for governor per election cycle, according to state campaign finance limits.

If the Wisconsin Ethics Commission finds evidence that a political candidate, a campaign, or an individual donor violated the law, the regulatory body may ask the courts to impose a forfeiture, said Daniel Carlton, who heads the Commission with the title of administrator. The agency may also compromise and settle the matter.

The Commission does not have the legal authority to impose a fine or forfeiture, Carlton noted. Only the courts do.

Money received from settlements goes into the Common School Fund, the primary, and often only, funding source for school libraries in Wisconsin.

The fines may sound like a lot, said Jay Heck, executive director of the Wisconsin branch of Common Cause, a nonpartisan good government organization, but “when you compare the violations or the overages, they’re very small potatoes compared to the sheer amount of money being raised and spent.”

In the past decade, U.S. Supreme Court cases and legislative action from the Republican-controlled state legislature have greatly loosened restrictions on campaign finance law in Wisconsin, Heck noted.

Below is a list of the largest campaign finance violation settlements in the Wisconsin Ethics Commission’s history.

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