MADISON, Wis. — Staunchly conservative groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Wisconsin Realtors Association have refused to support Brian Hagedorn’s state Supreme Court campaign, finding his vile homophobia too much to stomach. According to media reports, the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) doesn’t have any such qualms and has launched a week long media campaign on Hagedorn’s behalf. The RSLC also appears to lack a sense of irony as the right-wing, Washington D.C. based group’s ads decry the influence of out-of-state, ideologically driven campaign spending on the Wisconsin Supreme Court race.
“Major conservative groups who have traditionally supported right-wing candidates have drawn a line and decided the vile, homophobic views Brian Hagedorn holds to this day are too much and that they won’t support him,” said One Wisconsin Now Research Director Joanna Beilman-Dulin. “With their ad campaign the RSLC has shown that they have no sense of decency. And no sense of irony.”
Beilman-Dulin noted the RSLC previously spent significant sums in Wisconsin in support of homophobic Justice Rebecca Bradley in 2016. Prior to the RSLC’s campaign on her behalf, on the record newspaper writings authored by Bradley came to light in which she called LGBTQ individuals “degenerates” and “queers” who engage in “abnormal and immoral” behavior,” claimed “homosexual sex kills” and mocked the AIDS epidemic.
The spending of the RSLC on candidates like Hagedorn with unsavory, discriminatory views is fueled by similarly unsavory contributors. The RSLC has raked in significant support from the likes of tobacco companies, big drug companies and their special interest lobbying association Pharma, the National Rifle Association, and right-wing billionaires the Koch brothers.
