WEC Energy Group’s We Energies Foundation gave $2 million to the host committee that funded this year’s Republican National Convention, according to new filings made with the Federal Election Commission. WEC is the parent company of several electric and gas utilities operating in the Midwest, including We Energies and Peoples Gas. The We Energies Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization with many of the same directors and officers as WEC’s executive management team.
The disclosures showing the contributions to the host committee, 170 Freedom Milwaukee 2024 Host Committee Inc., come roughly two months after Republican representatives from across the country gathered in Milwaukee to officially nominate Donald Trump as their party’s presidential candidate. Spokespeople for the Wisconsin utility company had previously declined to say how much it had given in support of the Republicans’ marquee event. They did confirm, however, that WEC also provided in-kind support to the RNC, including the use of company facilities in Milwaukee.
Corporations are big-ticket benefactors of presidential nominating conventions for both the Republican and Democratic parties. The conventions provide donors a platform to funnel extra cash to political parties and their heavy-hitters who run the conventions through a host committee without limits on those contributions. Each party’s national convention host committee is ultimately required to disclose financial backers of the events, but not until 60 days later.
Along with the We Energies Foundation, other large funders of the RNC’s host committee include Turning Point USA ($3 million), the tobacco company Altria ($2.5 million), and the Heritage Foundation ($1 million). Another monopoly utility, Wisconsin-based Madison Gas & Electric, donated $50,000.
The disclosures made public this week may undersell WEC’s ties to the Republicans’ convention. The Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC), the region’s pro-business group, financially supported the host committee, and businesses opted to donate to that entity rather than directly giving to the host committee. A foundation affiliated with MMAC gave $53.9 million to the host committee.
Some businesses had indicated they would channel their financial support for the convention through MMAC. For example, Milwaukee-based Kohl’s said it did not sponsor any events surrounding the convention and instead said, “We support the business community through the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce.”
The MMAC foundation is not required to publicly disclose its donors, but WEC has ties to MMAC. WEC contributed nearly $200,000 to MMAC last year, according to WEC’s membership dues disclosure page. Recent regulatory filings made by WEC subsidiaries Wisconsin Electric Power Co. and Wisconsin Gas showed that the utilities includedpayments to MMAC in a spending category typically charged to customers. The Commission’s final order removed MMAC payments, along with payments made to other trade associations, effectively ensuring that customers would not cover those costs after Commission staff and the Sierra Club cast doubt over whether the payments provided any benefits to customers.
WEC’s RNC sponsorship adds to GOP, Trump ties
At the Republican National Convention sponsored in part by WEC, Trump gave a meandering speech that affirmed his commitment to fossil fuels, including encouraging more oil and gas drilling within the U.S.
Trump also called for the production of “literally, twice the electricity that’s available now in our country” to accommodate the expansion of artificial intelligence. Expanded capacity is a top-of-mind issue for WEC, which is seeking to charge customers $2 billion for new gas plants and related infrastructure, in part to meet the needs it projects for new data centers in Wisconsin. Such a gas plant buildout would raise rates and, pending regulatory approval, juice WEC’s profits. (In addition to expanding fossil fuel production, the Republicans’ 2024 platform calls to “reduce the regulatory burden.”)
Also at the convention, Trump pledged to end federal programs he described as “Green New Scam ideas” – presumably a reference to the incentives passed under the Inflation Reduction Act designed to reduce energy bills, curb emissions, and address the climate crisis. Several other speakers at the convention affirmed the party’s pro-fossil fuel agenda and made misleading claims about various energy policies.
Campaign finance data shows that two top WEC executives have personally contributed to Trump’s campaigns. Bill Mastoris, the interim president of WEC’s utilities serving Chicaoland, Peoples Gas and North Shore Gas, and WEC’s Senior Vice President of Customer Services John Zaganczyk have contributed to Trump. Zaganczyk donated to Donald J. Trump For President 2024, Inc. in July, while Mastoris donated in 2020 to the Trump Make America Great Again Committee.
WEC subsidiary Peoples Gas gives to Chicago DNC
Peoples Gas, a WEC subsidiary that provides gas service in Chicago, was among the many corporations that gave to the Democratic National Convention which was held in Chicago in mid-August. As with the RNC, a Peoples Gas spokesman refused to say how much the company had given in support of the Democrats’ big event. The Democrats’ convention host committee, Development Now for Chicago, is not required to disclose who sent money in support of the event or how much until 60 days later. Based on that timeline, disclosures will be made public no later than mid-October.
Utilities’ political spending in focus
Monopoly utilities across the country – and the trade associations that represent their interests – have built massive political machines in order to influence elections and policy discussions. Presidential conventions are one of the venues utilities have used to spend corporate dollars, likely in hopes of building influence.
Duke Energy forgave a $10 million line of credit it provided to the DNC for its 2012 convention in Charlotte. Duke Energy’s CEO at the time, Jim Rogers, also co-chaired the host committee. In 2016, FirstEnergy was one of the largest contributors, with $1.25 million, to the Cleveland 2016 Host Committee for the RNC. After Trump won the 2016 election, FirstEnergy began a lobbying blitz to secure a public bailout for the utility company’s coal and nuclear power plants. The utility also secretly ‘engaged’ Trump’s former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski to lobby Trump and arranged for Larry Householder, the Ohio House Speaker at the time and an orchestrator of a bribery scheme funded by FirstEnergy, to attend a presidential roundtable with the purpose of asking Trump to “fix FirstEnergy Corp.’s issues at the federal level.” (Last year a federal judge in Ohio sentenced Householder to 20 years in prison for his role in the scheme.)
But a recent swell in public pushback against utilities’ political operations, and especially political spending, is gaining momentum.
In Michigan, a state where WEC has some operations, state lawmakers have introduced legislation that would prohibit monopoly corporations – including utilities – from making state or local political contributions. Recent polling showed bipartisan support for the measure, with 81% of Michigan voters surveyed supporting it.
“It is much cheaper for these corporations to spend money buying influence in the political process than it is for them to improve the quality of their services,” Michigan State Rep. Dylan Wegela, one of the bill’s authors, said earlier this year.
Additionally, five states – Colorado, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, and Maine – have passed laws prohibiting utilities from charging customers for various political expenses including dues paid to inherently political utility trade associations. The Louisiana Public Service Commission has opened a rulemaking docket to investigate such costs borne by customers. Nearly a dozen more states have introduced similar bills.
