An arrangement between officials with five Wisconsin cites and a progressive elections group violated both state law and a provision in the U.S. Constitution that gives state legislatures sole authority over the administration of elections, writes talk show host Dan O’Donnell in a perspective piece for the MacIver Institute.
O’Donnell points to recently released emails that show the arrangement between the Wisconsin cities of Racine, Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay and Kenosha, and the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), which received nearly $400 million from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, began last May in preparation for the November 2020 elections. The CTCL presents itself as a nonpartisan, good government group working to ensure safe elections during the pandemic, but critics charge that the progressive activists who run the group are, in reality, part of a get-out-the-vote campaign for Democrats.
O’Donnell wrote that Racine Mayor Cory Mason, “a hyper-partisan Democrat,” initiated the plan for the cities to receive the CTCL grants.
“It quickly became clear that this money came with strings attached,” he said. “According to the agreement the city of Milwaukee signed with CTCL, CTCL set the ground rules for how every penny of the money was to be spent, and Milwaukee was not allowed to 'reduce or otherwise modify planned municipal spending on 2020 elections. In addition the city was not permitted to ‘use any part of [the] grant to give a grant to another organization unless CTCL agrees to the specific sub-recipient in advance, in writing.’”
“This is a major legal and constitutional issue as Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 (which is known as the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution) holds that 'the Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof,'” he added.
Moreover, O'Donnell writes that the Milwaukee Election Commission effectively turned the administration of its elections over to progressive activist Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein with the National Vote at Home Institute, a partner organization to CTCL, O'Donnell argued, adding that Spitzer-Rubenstein also ran the show in Green Bay.
Spitzer-Rubenstein's name shows up in a complaint filed in early April with the Wisconsin Elections Commission by the Amistad Project, a conservative elections watchdog group, on behalf of five Green Bay residents. The complaint charged that Spitzer-Rubenstein and the CTCL took control of the elections there.
"Hundreds of millions of dollars purchased local election offices in 2020 to benefit one political candidate, paying salaries of election officials and literally dictating the manner in which the election should be managed," Phill Kline, director of the Amistad Project, said in a statement. "Evidence in Green Bay proves this shadow government ran the election and now it is time those involved come clean."
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