Shankland campaign: Cooke continues lying about Shankland, this time attacking support from school shooting survivor

STEVENS POINT – In response to yet another knowingly dishonest, desperate attack from fellow candidate Rebecca Cooke, James Cersonsky, Campaign Manager for Katrina Shankland, State Rep. and leading Democrat for Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, released the following statement:

Katrina is proud to be endorsed by Leaders We Deserve, a grassroots-funded, financially transparent organization. Leaders We Deserve is co-founded by David Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland, Florida school shooting and a leading national voice for gun safety. The organization joins our winning coalition of 19 unions and scores of issue-based organizations, Wisconsin and Midwest delegation members, and local and state elected officials. 

It’s unfortunate to see Rebecca Cooke double down on her dirty pack of lies about Katrina’s record—already denounced by Governor Evers’s office and Democratic leaders across the region, including most recently Assembly Democratic Leader Greta Neubauer—while spreading fresh lies about Leaders We Deserve and their support for Katrina. This pattern of dishonesty follows Cooke’s lies about her own background. It should raise red flags for all Democrats and defenders of our democratic process.

It’s true, as Cooke notes, that Katrina has continually decried the influence of dark money special interest groups on our democracy—especially when a Democrat begs for nasty, false attacks from conservative dark money partners in a Democratic primary, as Cooke has done. That said, these same concerns in no way apply to Leaders We Deserve’s support for Katrina.

Whereas the dark money PACs attacking Katrina on Cooke’s behalf are fueled by a consortium of corporate lobbyists and conservative interests, the grassroots PAC started by Hogg, a school shooting survivor, is funded by small dollar donors from across the country and are publicly disclosed.

Whereas Cooke solicited direct, false attacks on Katrina on her website, Katrina has done nothing like this, only stating proudly, as she has throughout the campaign trail, that she’s the only candidate in the race to hold public office, pass a bill (225 of them), or win an election (6 of them). 

Legally, too, the expenditures are apples and oranges. Both the PACs that have filed FEC expenditures on Cooke’s behalf, Welcome PAC and New Democrat Majority PAC are, by definition, dark money super PACs—they aren’t required to disclose their donors. (This is contrary to Cooke’s false denial of dark money support in a WSAW interview yesterday.) On the other hand, Leaders We Deserve is a hybrid PAC that discloses all its donors. In fact, the organization’s average donation is $28, and the $7,365,059 it has raised has come from an incredible 266,092 contributions. 

Far from Cooke’s accusations, Katrina has been clear and consistent in her statements. Katrina told Civic Media, “In a Democratic primary, to ask an out-of-state, dark money group to go negative against another Democrat, that is the key here…. That’s something we haven’t seen before in Wisconsin, at least not something I’ve seen, and so that’s really disappointing.” She told WKOW, “[Cooke] asked at least one independent expenditure to knock my legislative record and distort it, and that’s really disappointing…. This is a Democratic primary. I want us to be united to defeat Derrick Van Orden.” On social media, Katrina shared, “Calling on dark money to attack another Democrat in a Democratic primary is not who we are as Democrats or Wisconsinites.”

Cooke also notes that Katrina has received support from independent expenditures in her past State Assembly campaigns. Here, too, none was used to attack a fellow Democrat or at all in primaries—it was to defend the seat from Republican attacks in a general election. If Cooke is suggesting that organizations like the League of Conservation Voters should not have engaged to re-elect her and protect Governor Evers’ veto, that is especially disturbing.

David Hogg, Leaders We Deserve Co-Founder, shared:

We’re proud to endorse Katrina Shankland for Congress in this critical Red to Blue district in Wisconsin. It’s weird that her opponent is attacking Katrina for accepting our support. 

My organization, Leaders We Deserve, is fueled by over 200,000 grassroots donors from all across the country who give an average of $28.

I’m used to being attacked by Fox News and Alex Jones, but this is a new one for me. Let’s elect Katrina on Tuesday to bring Midwest Nice to WI-03 and replace Van Orden.