According to a recent press release, Madison-area attorney Joel Winning, one of three challengers to the seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court currently held by Justice David Prosser, has qualified for a public financing grant of $100,000 for the primary for the Winnig for Justice campaign. Over one thousand people gave small dollar donations (typically $5 or less) to the Winnig campaign.
“This is only the beginning of getting my message out to the people of Wisconsin,” Winnig said. “I am grateful for the support and generosity of the thousands of Wisconsinites who believe I am the right candidate to return independence and integrity to the State Supreme Court. From now until the election, they can be sure I will conduct an energetic and thoughtful campaign, pressing forward to work for an independent Court and to restore faith in the integrity of our justice system.”
Winnig continued, “Now is the time to elect a truly independent candidate who represents the interests of all Wisconsinites, not powerful special interests.”
“Throughout my career I have been a voice for the working people of Wisconsin, who do not have the same access to justice as the powerful special interests,” Winnig commented. “I do not intend for my campaign to be any different.”
Didn’t Winnig violate the rules in raising the original money to qualify? I would be interested in seeing what the board’s justification was.
How exactly did Winnig violate the rules?
According the to the staff memo prepared by the GAB, Winnig collected over the maximum amount of cash allowed to be accepted. This is to prevent a campaign from just handing out $5 bills to people to get the correct number of donations. I believe the total cash someone can take is $500 and Winnig was thousands over that.
Not claiming there was funny business, just interesting that the rules were violated and he was still allowed to receive financing.
I thought he had to have one thousand contributors of at least $5 each with a cap on the amount per person…
Well here’s the GAB website explanation:
http://gab.wi.gov/campaign-finance/public-funding/democracytrustfund
Only a maximum of $500 in cash. Everything else has to be by check or credit card. Winnig exceeded that, and was initially denied by staff. Like I said, I would be interested in seeing what the rational was.
Where on the GAB site does it say $500 in cash? Personally I wouldn’t want to bother to write a check for $5 and card processing fees are a pain on amounts that small.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/113145949.html
The GAB just has a summary, not the entire law. He is one of the many articles that mentioned it.