MADISON, Wis. (Legal Newsline) - More than 60 Democrat donors on the coasts - two of whom have welcomed Barack Obama to their home for a six-figure-per-plate fundraiser - threw $330,501 into the Midwest to support liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Janet Protasiewicz in the weeks before her February primary.
More than $163,000 came from the West Coast to support the liberal cause to gain a majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and another $167,000 came from New York and New England. The fundraising push started paying off on Feb. 7 - two weeks before Protasiewicz and conservative Daniel Kelly advanced to an April 4 election that will determine the balance of power on the currently 4-3 conservative court.
In contrast, Kelly took in only $61,024.59, with the only out-of-state contribution being $20,000 from Leonard Leo, a conservative activist whose ability to pour money into elections has already received plenty of attention.
In an election that one state lawmaker has called "tainted with bribery" as the result of an app that rewards users who encourage others to vote early for Protasiewicz, the stakes are high. Protasiewicz herself acknowledges the makeup of the court could play a part in the 2024 Presidential election. The state flipped from selecting Donald Trump in 2016 to Joe Biden in 2020.
Post-election disputes often make their way to state supreme courts. This - plus issues like abortion rights - has seemingly caught the attention of several champions of Democrat causes who see an opportunity in Wisconsin. It leaves questions about whether out-of-state donors have Wisconsin's best interests in mind, or their own. Here's a look at a few of the donors who gave the most to Protasiewicz in February.
Joanne Witty, New York
Witty contributed $10,000 to Protasiewicz. She and her husband, KPS Capital Partners co-founder Eugene Keilin, last year sold a brownstone in Brooklyn for $17 million, 36 years after buying it for $1.3 million. Months earlier, they bought an 8,700-square foot house in Westchester County for $4.85 million
Witty's given more than a half-million dollars to Democrat candidates all over the country, and 2023 isn't the first time she's put her money into Wisconsin.
In addition to state office candidates in the state, she gave $10,000 to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin in each year from 2020-2022. In 2020, she also pledged $10,000 to liberal Jill Karofsky, who won election to the seat vacated by Kelly after he spent four years on the bench.
It was the most she's spent on one candidate in an election, besting the $5,750 she spent on disgraced former New York governor Eliot Spitzer. She has donated to candidates in 30 states, plus plenty of federal causes.
Her occupations include homemaker, self-employed and lawyer/civic volunteer. She's described as a long-time environmental activist who served on the boards of the National League of Conservation Voters and the Environmental Defense Action Fund.
Keilin has spent plenty on Democrat candidates and causes, too, but mostly at the federal level.
Yaron Minsky, New York
Minsky gave Protasiewicz $20,000, in addition to $100,000 for the Wisconsin Democratic Party in 2022. Followthemoney.org shows more than $1 million in donations through the years, with only $20,000 not headed to a Democrat. That person is Protasiewicz, as elections in Wisconsin are officially nonpartisan.
Separate from those donations is the $1 million he gave to the pro-Biden Super PAC Unite the Country in 2020.
Minsky is the leader of the technology group at Jane Street Capital, an international trading firm with an office in New York. The address he lists on his donations is a six-bedroom Manhattan penthouse that last sold for nearly $9.7 million in 2017.
Lee and Luis Lanier, California
The mystery combo, owners of a seven-bedroom house in the Bel-Air region of Los Angeles, gave a total of $40,000. They have little other history of donations.
The address listed on their Protasiewicz donations carried a hefty $57,118 property tax last year, as it was assessed at a value of almost $4.8 million.
Jeff and Erica Lawson, California
Jeff is the CEO of Twilio, a company headquartered in San Francisco that provides technology for phone calls and text messages. In 2019, Forbes welcomed him to the billionaire club. Three years later, he welcomed Barack Obama to his home for a $250,000-per-seat fundraiser.
He and wife Erica, a doctor, have decided to use some of their money to boost the Democrat cause, giving heavily to political action committees and candidates in several states. This year, they pledged $40,000 to Protasiewicz.
It's not the first state supreme court election that piqued their interests, having given money in Ohio, North Carolina and Michigan last year. Each state had multiple spots up for grabs, with their balances of power at stake.
All totaled, they spent $75,600 on seven candidates (one of whom was Ohio's Jennifer Brunner, whose spot on the court was safe but she sought the position of chief justice) in those states. They also gave $2,800 to incumbent justice Ingrid Gustafson in Montana.
Erica gave $3 million to Future Forward USA in 2020, a PAC that supports Democrat candidates.