Latest news with #WisconsinElections
CBS News
3 days ago
- Business
- CBS News
Wisconsin lawsuit seeks to ban Elon Musk from ever offering $1 million checks to voters again
A government watchdog group in Wisconsin filed a lawsuit Wednesday seeking to prohibit billionaire Elon Musk from ever again offering cash payments to voters in the battleground state like he did in this spring's hotly contested Supreme Court race. Musk handed out $1 million checks to three Wisconsin voters, including two in person just days before the state's April 1 Supreme Court election, in an effort to help elect conservative candidate Brad Schimel. Two weeks before the election, Musk's political action committee, America PAC, offered $100 to voters who signed a petition in opposition to "activist judges," or referred someone to sign it. It was all part of more than $20 million that Musk and groups he support spent on the race in an effort to flip majority control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. More than $100 million was spent by both sides, making it the most expensive court race in U.S. history. Musk's preferred candidate lost to Democratic-backed Susan Crawford by 10 percentage points. Her victory cemented the 4-3 liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court until at least 2028. Since that election, Musk announced he will spend less on political campaigns and then feuded publicly with President Donald Trump after exiting his administration. The lawsuit filed Wednesday in state court by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign says that Musk's actions create "the risk that Wisconsin elections will become an open auction, where votes go to the preferred candidates of the highest bidders and the election outcome is determined by which candidate has a patron willing and able to pay the highest sum to Wisconsin voters." The lawsuit says that Musk and two groups he funds violated prohibitions on vote bribery and unauthorized lotteries and says his actions were an unlawful conspiracy and public nuisance. The lawsuit asks the court to order that Musk never offer similar payments to voters again. A spokesperson for Musk's America PAC did not immediately return a text message Wednesday seeking comment. There is another Wisconsin Supreme Court election in April. In November 2026, control of the Legislature and the governor's office, as well as the state's eight congressional districts, will be decided. The latest lawsuit was filed on behalf of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign and a pair of voters by the liberal Wisconsin-based Law Forward and the Washington-based Democracy Defenders Fund. It was filed against Musk, his group America PAC that announced the petition and the Musk-funded group United States of America Inc. that made the payments. The court that Crawford joins in August could ultimately hear the new lawsuit. Crawford would almost certainly be asked to recuse from the case, and if she did, the court would be left with a 3-3 split between conservative and liberal justices. The current court, also controlled 4-3 by liberals, declined to hear a similar hastily filed lawsuit brought by Wisconsin's Democratic attorney general seeking to block Musk's handing out of two $1 million checks to voters two days before the election. Two lower courts rejected that lawsuit before the Supreme Court declined to hear it on procedural grounds. Musk's attorneys argued in that case that Musk was exercising his free speech rights with the giveaways and any attempt to restrict that would violate both the Wisconsin and U.S. constitutions. Musk's political action committee used a nearly identical tactic before the presidential election last year, offering to pay $1 million a day to voters in Wisconsin and six other battleground states who signed a petition supporting the First and Second amendments. A judge in Pennsylvania said prosecutors failed to show the effort was an illegal lottery and allowed it to continue through Election Day. A federal lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania in April alleges that Musk and his political action committee failed to pay more than $20,000 for getting people to sign that petition in 2024. America PAC on Monday filed a motion to dismiss. That case is pending.
CBS News
05-06-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Trump administration accuses Wisconsin of violating federal election law
The Trump administration has accused the Wisconsin Elections Commission of failing to provide a state-based complaint process for voters bringing allegations against the commission itself, calling that a violation of federal law and threatening to withhold all federal funding. But the commission's Democratic chairwoman said Thursday there is no federal funding to cut and she disputed accusations raised in a Department of Justice letter a day earlier, saying it would be nonsensical for the commission to determine whether complaints against it were valid. "What they're asking is, if someone files a complaint against us, we're supposed to hold a hearing to determine if we messed up," Ann Jacobs said. "That is not functional." It marks the second time in a week that the Trump administration has targeted election leaders in battleground states. Last week, the Justice Department accused North Carolina's election board of violating federal law by failing to ensure voter registration records of some applicants contained identifying numbers. The latest letter from the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division accused Wisconsin of violating the Help America Vote Act for not having a state-based administrative complaint procedure to address alleged violations by the state elections commission of the 2002 federal law. Actions by the Wisconsin Elections Commission "have left complainants alleging HAVA violations by the Commission without any recourse," attorneys for the Justice Department wrote. "With no opportunity or means to appeal, complainants are left stranded with their grievances." The elections commission just received the letter and has no comment while it is being reviewed, spokesman John Smalley said. But Jacobs, chairwoman of the commission, said the commission can't decide complaints against itself. Jacobs said that position was backed up by a 2022 ruling by the Wisconsin Supreme Court when it was controlled by conservatives. "It appears that they're like, 'How dare you follow state law,'" Jacobs said. "I don't know what it is they want us to do." According to the letter, Wisconsin has received more than $77 million in federal funding from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and the Justice Department threatened to stop any future payments. But Jacobs said that money was allocated years ago and the state currently receives no funding from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and none is proposed, leaving nothing to cut. Nonetheless, the letter could put state funding in jeopardy. Republican leaders of the state Legislature's budget committee delayed a scheduled Thursday vote on how much state funding the Wisconsin Elections Commission will receive over the next two years. "Out of caution, we think we're just going to wait and see," the committee's co-chair Sen. Howard Marklein said. "We need to analyze this and see what implications are made, maybe for the entire Elections Commission, and what impact that may have on the budget." ___ Associated Press writer Todd Richmond contributed to this report.
