I’m just taking a look at MPS candidate ReDonna Rodgers’ campaign finance forms—unfortunately, I don’t have them in digital form—and a couple of things are jumping out at me:
While Rodgers is campaigning as the voice of her district, a quick calculation of donations from individuals shows that Rodgers has heavy support from people outside of Milwaukee. Not just people outside of her district, but from non-Milwaukeeans. Rodgers took in $16,599.01 from individuals, $5,735 of which (35%) came from people who can’t even vote for anyone on the MPS board. But, hey, if nonvoters want to influence this election, this is how they’re going to do it. In contrast, the man Rodgers is trying to oust, MPS board president Peter Blewett, accepted $2,480 of $16,214.01 contributed by individuals, or 15%. (Feel free to check my math.)
ASA-ers are represented on Rodgers’ forms. Kevin Ronnie donated $800 throughout the course of Rodgers’ campaign; non-Milwaukeean Anne Curley, who wrote Rodgers’ campaign lit, gave $250; ASA advisory board member Michael Hatch, gave $100; Richard Pieper, who coughed up $18,000 for ASA, gave Rodgers $300; Mequon grandmother Suzanne Pieper, who I’m going to assume is related to the aforementioned Richard, contributed $790; and George Mosher, who also donated to Annie Woodward, gave Rodgers her biggest contribution, $799.01.
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Business types and real estate types also gave heavily to Rodgers, which isn’t surprising when you consider that ASA promoted their candidates to the Realtors PAC and MMAC. MMAC president Tim Sheehy gave Rodgers $500 in conduit funds, while MMAC director Steve Bass only came up with $50 for Rodgers. (But who knows? Maybe he made good on ASA’s efforts to obtain his highly valuable walk list of the districts for door-to-door campaigning.) Uber conservative Michael Grebe, of the rabidly right-wing Bradley Foundation, gave $500.
Most committee money seems to be directly tied to ASA or vouchers. Rodgers received $600 from ASA-PAC, $500 from the Milwaukee Fund for Public Education, $600 from pro-voucher soon-to-be-ex MPS board member Danny Goldberg’s PAC, and $600 from the Concerned Realtors. PAC money from Polly Williams ($25) and Bama Brown Grice ($250) also appear on Rodgers’ forms.
