‘Money Badger’ Minions Fight to Save Voter Suppression Efforts

MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin’s right wing noise machine, larded with cash from “Money Badger” Michael Grebe’s Bradley Foundation, is attacking the non-partisan Government Accountability Board (GAB), overseen by a panel of retired judges, for estimating Republican legislators’ efforts to repeal Wisconsin’s same day voter registration law will cost the GAB at least $7.2 million over the next two years.

“The right wing noise machine, funded by ‘Money Badger’ Michael Grebe is in full attack mode, questioning the integrity of retired judges and attacking non-partisan government staff, all because they’re not giving the politicians seeking to make it harder to vote in Wisconsin the answers they want,” commented One Wisconsin Now Executive Director Scot Ross.

According to cost estimates prepared by the GAB, eliminating Wisconsin’s popular and successful same day voter registration law will cost $5.2 million immediately and $2 million every two years thereafter. These cost estimates do not include costs other government agencies would incur because they will have to process voter registrations if the ability to register to vote at polling places on Election Day is eliminated as Republicans are calling for. The cost projections appear to have, momentarily, slowed GOP momentum to eliminate the nearly four decade-old same day registration law.

The Bradley Foundation has generously underwritten the efforts of right wing communicators attacking the GAB and recent voter suppression efforts. Over four million dollars have been doled out to the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute that employs right wing radio squawker Charlie Sykes and $530,000 went to the MacIver Institute which employed Sykes’ new Journal Communications-funded employee and author of an article bashing the GAB and their cost estimate. In addition, a joint investigation by the news service theGrio and the progressive advocacy organization One Wisconsin Now showed that the Bradley Foundation financed a voter suppression billboard campaign in Wisconsin that included the words “Voter Fraud is Illegal” and the penalties.

Ross concluded, “The ‘Money Badger’ does not care about voting rights in Wisconsin and will do what it takes to suppress the vote, be it intimidating minority voters or supporting changing the law to benefit the politicians that support his right-wing, anti-accountability agenda.”