AN INTRODUCTION TO SEASONED POLITICAL LOBBYING: WISCONSIN INSTITUTE FOR LAW AND LIBERTY (WILL)
Founded in 2011 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and housed in a building owned by the neocon Bradley Foundation, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty has taken up “cause lawyering” for conservative and right-wing organizations and beliefs. Cause lawyering, or public interest, social change, or social interest lawyering is classically defined as when a lawyer/law firm uses their legal expertise on cases that serve the public good - but defined by the WILL founder Rick Esenberg[1], it’s something “pioneered by folks on the left” that he left a teaching position in order to reverse upon both local and federal jurisdictions.
Affectionately nicknamed the “ACLU of Wisconsin’s Right,”[2] WILL claims to focus on pro-Wisconsinite cases, such as arguing for public funds to be used for school choice/private school voucher systems, freedom of pro-Christian speech, the removal of DEI, and advancing federalism. Despite this stated mission, they have inked thmselves to anti-transgender organizations such as Do No Harm and Alliance Defending Freedom, stressed the dangers of “widespread support for socialism[3] among today’s young”, partnered with conservative thinktanks in other states[4], and strained WIsconsin tax dollars[5] for over a decade.
A brief, but not exclusive, highlight reel of their 14 year history
2011: WILL[6] and the National Right to Work Foundation[7] file to have Scott Walker’s Act 10, the Wisconsin law which denied collective bargaining and other union benefits[8] to public sect employees, upheld. The submission of this law triggered Wisconsin Democrats to leave the state[9] for Illinois, to stop the Senate vote.
2013: WILL establishes a team[10] specifically to advance conservative principles in public policy areas.
2016 WILL creates a subsidiary Center for Competitive Federalism. Competitive federalism, considered both poor economics and uniquely American[11], is defined as “conservatives [who] often oppose use of federal authority to rein in anti-competitive behavior by market actors” and“a strong pro-market rhetoric with demands for states’ rights and federal retrenchment”
2016: WILL sues, and loses, to repeal Wisconsin’s minimum markup law. This law states that companies cannot sell merchandise below their cost of purchasing, and mostly breaks into the news cycle in relation to gasoline prices. This law is widely considered to benefit consumers as it prohibits larger organizations with the ability to sell under cost from cutting out smaller companies which do not have this ability (and ensuring a fair market for consumers).
2018: WILL receives[12] a $300,000 donation from the Bradley Foundation and a $285,000 donation from the Walton Family Foundation.
2020-22: WILL challenges[13] the Madison Metropolitan School DIstrict’s guidance that allows students to use different names or pronouns without being outted by school employees (stating that this violates a parent’s rights over their child), but lost to the ACLU[14].
2023: WILL partners with SPLC-designated hate group Alliance Defending Freedom[15] and successfully sues that allowing a student to change their gender identity in the Kettle Moraine School District violates the constitutional rights of the student’s parents.
Jan 2025: WILL partners with Do No Harm to sue Johns Hopkins University Medical School to overturn DEI inittiatives; this case is one of dozens in which DNH[16] will sue an organization or school that offers minority scholarships in order to forcibly expand them to include White men.
Apr 2025: WILL publicly criticizes[17] (State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jill) Underly for not signing new federal DEI guidelines, guidelines which have been strongly criticzied as intentionally vague at best and actively detrimental at worst.