"All Children Matter" Send Direct Mail For Leschke

Earlier this week, the Winnebago County Republican Party attacked 54th District Assembly Democratic candidate Gordon Hintz for holding a fundraiser in Milwaukee and taking almost 30% of his individual campaign contributions from people who live outside of Wisconsin. Such criticisms might actually have some merit if the Republicans stood for meaningful reforms of campaign financing in the state. They don't. (Democrats are better on the issue, but as the party in the minority it's easy to be for reform. If the Dems really believed in reform, they would have ran a primary challenger against Jim Doyle--he being one of the biggest obstacles to reform during his first 3 years in office.).

It's ironic that the Winnebago Republicans would be complaining about Hintz's out of state supporters at the same time their candidate Julie Pung Leschke is receiving major help from out of state interests. The other day a mailing arrived on Leschke's behalf from "All Children Matter," a Michigan based group focused mostly on the issue of public school choice. They say that Julie supports "empowering parents with more high-quality educational options" (translation: use more tax dollars to support private schools in Milwaukee so that fewer dollars are available for public schools across the state, including Oshkosh).

Here's what the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign said about "All Children Matter's" role in the 2004 Wisconsin elections:

All Children Matter is a right-wing group formed in Spring 2003 based in Michigan advocating school choice in the form of private school voucher programs and charter schools. Milwaukee school choice advocates, George and Susan Mitchell, represent the group in Wisconsin (see Alliance for Choices in Education). This group reportedly sought to influence about 16 state legislative races. WDC confirms the following efforts. The group ran issue ad campaigns by direct mail in the 22nd, 30th and 32nd Senate districts. The mail pieces supported Republican Senate candidate Dan Kapanke (SD 32) and attacked Democratic incumbent Senators Robert Wirch (SD 22) and Dave Hansen (SD 30). They attacked Wirch and Hansen for their lack of support of a property tax freeze and made a veiled and unsubstantiated charge that they would send tax dollars to schools in Milwaukee at the expense of schools in their own districts. In a separate mailing, ACM quoted a Green Bay Press-Gazette article from November 2002 that called for Hansen's resignation for being a part of "politics as usual in Madison." There were reports of similar activity attacking the opponents of Republican incumbents Senator Sheila Harsdorf (SD 10) and Representatives Mark Pettis (AD 28) and Eugene Hahn (AD 47).

This group is headed by Michigan multimillionaire Dick DeVos, whose family is connected to Amway Corporation. DeVos' wife Betsy served for several years as the chair of the Michigan Republican Party. Her brother, Erik Prince, is the founder and owner of Blackwater Security Consulting, the private tactical training facility providing security forces in Baghdad. School choice advocate George Mitchell represents the group in Wisconsin, and has said ACM spent more than $500,000 to influence state legislative elections in 2004.