Leadership Milwaukee, or Chris Abele directly, has funded numerous local politicians without apparent regard for their policy positions, values and qualifications. Longtime Democratic leader Fred Kessler contends that Abele “has no ideology” and backs politicians for transactional purposes.
Stephanie Stein, a retired longtime director of Milwaukee County’s Department of Aging, said “Abele works to get people elected who can somehow help him consolidate his power, or act on his behalf. He fails to acknowledge that Wisconsin Republican legislators he has bankrolled have voted for policies that have done irreparable harm to Milwaukee County residents.”
Here are a few of the local candidates Abele has backed who support policies that contradict precepts Abele ostensibly espouses, including reproductive freedom and LBGTQ rights.
Jason Fields
Despite Chris Abele’s frequent touting of “best practices,” he is spending lavishly to put longtime political ally Jason Fields in Milwaukee’s Comptroller office. Fields lacks the basic credential for that job--a Certified Public Accountant license. Fields’ opponent, Aycha Sawa, is a CPA and Milwaukee’s Deputy Comptroller. Ironically, Abele previously pushed for state legislation requiring Milwaukee County’s Comptroller to hold a CPA license. The Legislature agreed.
Abele donated the individual maximum contribution of $6,000 to Fields late last year, in addition to recent contributions through his Leadership MKE political action committee (PAC). Ballotpedia also lists Abele as one of Fields’ major donors in 2016. Other previous big donors to Fields’ campaigns are Amway heir Betsy DeVos and her husband Richard, Michigan-based far-rightists and voucher-school promoters. Their American Federation for Children PAC called Fields a “school choice champion” in 2016. The DeVoses and Abele are now spending massive amounts to defeat Chris Larson. Betsy DeVos is President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Education.
Despite Abele’s dissing of career politicians, Fields has served in the Wisconsin State Assembly since 2004, except for one term, when Mandela Barnes defeated him in 2012. Fields filed for bankruptcy in 2016. Daniel Bice recently reported in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that in 2016 Fields “had a mere $6,000 in assets and more than $271,000 in liabilities.” Fields’ bankruptcy settlement magically erased most of the debt, including credit-card balances.
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Bice also reported that in 2015, “Fields was convicted of his second drunken driving offense after crashing his van into a median...His blood-alcohol level was 0.305, nearly four times the legal limit.”
Joe Sanfelippo and Dale Kooyenga
Two Abele-funded Republican state legislators, Joe Sanfelippo of West Allis and Dale Kooyenga of Brookfield, introduced and helped pass legislation that dramatically increased Abele’s power as county executive.
Abele’s accrual of power happened in phases. First, the power of elected county supervisors was slashed, their pay halved and their role reduced to part time. Later, Abele was granted unilateral power to sell or dispose of any property owned by Milwaukee County--without county board approval. The latter legislation was introduced in 2015 just before the 4th of July holiday. It stealthily included a conspicuously specific property that Abele could sell—listing coordinates of O’Donnell Park but not its name. Kessler said, “It was clearly Abele who sought these powers” and helped word the law. O’Donnell Park references were removed from the final bill, reportedly after eleventh-hour lobbying by advocates for the Milwaukee Art Museum. The park’s sale could have reduced unfettered access to the neighboring museum. Nonetheless, Abele still gained unprecedented control of public property, unlike any other Wisconsin county executive and contrary to state land-use laws.
Through Leadership Milwaukee, Abele injected big bucks into Kooyenga’s campaign for the State Senate in 2018. Despite that imbalance in funding, Julie Henszey came close to defeating Kooyenga, which would have added a Democratic seat and increase the potential to pass progressive legislation by Democrats, potentially helping Milwaukee County get its fair share of state funding.
Richard Schmidt
Abele backed Richard Schmidt, who became acting Milwaukee County Sheriff after David Clarke resigned in 2017. Challenger Earnell Lucas, who had announced before Clarke resigned, had heroic credentials in law enforcement and stellar management experience. Lucas’s wide-ranging community support and progressive values keyed his big win against Schmidt. Abele threw heaps of cash at Schmidt’s unsuccessful campaign. It was incongruous that he bankrolled a right-wing Christian-fundamentalist homophobe. Abele’s dollars made no sense.
Rebecca Bradley
Abele endorsed Rebecca Bradley, an extreme opponent of women’s reproductive self-determination, in her re-election bid for a Milwaukee County judge seat in 2012. After Gov. Scott Walker promoted Bradley to Wisconsin’s Supreme Court in 2015, Abele spoke at her swearing-in ceremony. In 2006 Bradley wrote in the now defunct MKE that opponents of the pharmacists' conscience clause in fulfilling birth control prescriptions valued “women's convenience over pharmacists’ objections to being a party to murder.”
Bradley won a 10-year seat on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court in 2016, despite disturbing revelations that she had published numerous hate-filled essays as a Marquette University student in the 1990s. Bradley called gay people “queers” and “degenerates,” and stated that those dying from HIV/AIDS deserved no sympathy. U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Madison’s U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan immediately rebuked Bradley’s remarks. Abele said nothing.
Deanna Alexander
In another unlikely alliance, Abele hosted a 2013 fundraiser for Milwaukee County Supervisor Deanna Alexander, along with State Rep. Jason Fields. Alexander, the most conservative supervisor, was endorsed by the anti-gay group Wisconsin Family Action, and organizations opposed to reproductive rights for women.
In 2018, Abele donated $1,000, just short of the maximum individual contribution to Alexander, who did not seek re-election this year. Abele’s most loyal ally on the board, Alexander has been a vocal advocate for the sale of county parks, including Downtown Milwaukee’s O’Donnell Park, an Abele scheme the board defeated in 2014.
Editor's Note: This story accompanies a longer piece titled Chris Abele: 'You're Stuck with Me'. Read that story here.
