Group Targets GOP State Senators For Bucks Arena Vote

A third-party group is targeting three Republican state senators for their votes supporting public funding for a new Milwaukee Bucks arena, a move that recalls the political fallout that followed a similar vote for a baseball stadium by other lawmakers in the mid-1990s.

According to Federal Communications Commission records, the Wisconsin Freedom Alliance has purchased more than $100,000 in television ad space in the Madison and Green Bay media markets targeting Sens. Luther Olsen, R-Ripon, Sheila Harsdorf, R-River Falls, and Tom Tiffany, R-Hazelhurst.

All three senators joined the bipartisan vote in favor of $250 million in public funding for the basketball arena in downtown Milwaukee. Fifteen Senate Republicans and six Democratic senators voted in favor of the bill last year.

In 1996, Republican state Sen. George Petak became the first Wisconsin lawmaker to be successfully recalled from office after he voted in favor of public funding for a new Milwaukee Brewers stadium.

According to Mordecai Lee, political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, votes on public funding of athletic stadia typically don’t fall along party lines.

“Generally speaking, public funding for major league stadia is very controversial,” Lee said. “It divides up the politics of a state or a city very differently from just Dems versus the GOP.”

However, according to Lee, the 1995 vote for public funding of the Brewers stadium ultimately became a partisan issue.

“The Democrats were sort of sitting in their chairs with their arms folded saying to the Republicans in the state Senate, ‘Your Republican governor wants this, well, you pass it,’” Lee said. “Unusually, this became a partisan issue where Gov. (Tommy) Thompson had to round up enough votes in the state Senate at the time to pass it.”

The ads targeting Olsen, Harsdorf and Tiffany contrast their support for the Bucks’ public financing with allegations of votes against spending for veterans issues.

There are no political ads targeting Democrats for their votes in support of the arena funding.