Negative television advertising played a large role in the recent Wisconsin Supreme Court election, according to a study released Tuesday by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.
According to the report, the Wisconsin Education Association Council and the Greater Wisconsin Committee spent a combined total of $1.03 million on television advertisements in the nonpartisan race.
GWC, an independent grassroots group, spent approximately $465,000 to help keep Supreme Court Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson in office, the report said.
However, a representative for GWC said the money the organization spends is not used to elect or defeat a particular candidate.
""We move to encourage a particular public policy … In that campaign we were talking about qualifications of and judicial integrity involving the Supreme Court, and that's what our ads do,"" she said.
According to Beverly Speer, advocacy director for WDC, ""issue ad"" groups like GWC do not have to report their sources of fundraising and their spending like candidates, political parties and independent expenditure groups do.
""Their negative ads, mailers and other activities do not explicitly tell people who to vote for, even though these ads and materials clearly spell out the candidate they want voters to support,"" Speer said.
According to the GWC representative, GWC advocated for the election of the highest-quality judge during the Supreme Court campaigns, which she said is something they have been doing for years and will continue to do in the future.
For Speer, untainted elections will be the key to maintaining a fair democracy.
""It is important to remind ourselves that our democracy requires competitive elections with meaningful choices for voters—that's competing candidates, not competing interest groups,"" she said.
