Progressive Group to Pump $100,000 Into Wisconsin Recall

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, the man trying to oust Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin's June 5 recall.<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/barrettforwisconsin/7152956709/sizes/m/in/photostream/">barrett4wi</a>/flickr

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With a week to go until election day in Wisconsin’s cash-drenched recall battle, the Washington, DC-based Progressive Change Campaign Committee announced plans on Tuesday to pump $100,000 into get-out-the-vote efforts in Wisconsin to oust Gov. Scott Walker.

As the Washington Post‘s Greg Sargent reports, the PCCC’s latest move comes in the wake of Wisconsin Democrats’ complaints that the Democratic National Committee hasn’t fully invested in the Walker recall effort. The DNC, for its part, says it has directed $800,000 to Wisconsin since November, with $250,000 of it going to the state Democratic Party. DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz will also host a fundraiser this week for Walker’s challenger, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett.

Adam Green, PCCC’s director, said in a statement that the Walker recall is “a top national priority for progressives—and it should be for the national Democratic Party.” Green went on, “When we heard that the Democratic National Committee wasn’t giving Wisconsin Democrats the resources needed to get out the vote, the PCCC made a strategic decision to do less fundraising for our own Wisconsin TV ads and instead focus our attention on righting the DNC’s wrong. We’re proud that in the last 9 days, thousands of PCCC members helped us raise $100,000 for Wisconsin Democrats to get out the vote in the final stretch.”

Green said the PCCC’s new get-out-the-vote cash infusion brings the group’s total investment in Wisconsin to about $230,000. The group has already spent $100,000 on TV ads and contributed $30,000 to local Democratic committees.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

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