Wisconsin Senator Paying Himself Back for Loans He Made to Senate Campaigns

Tuesday, July 18th, 2023 -- 10:01 AM

(Lawrence Andrea and Daniel Bice, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson is paying himself back hundreds of thousands of dollars for loans he made to his prior Senate campaigns, despite claiming he wouldn't seek to recoup the money from donors.

The multi-millionaire Oshkosh Republican received $400,000 from his campaign account in early May, according to his latest filing with the Federal Elections Commission. The payments were made in two installments of $150,000 each and two more of $60,000 and $40,000, all on May 3, for loans from his successful 2010 and 2016 elections. The repayments are legal.

In May 2022, the Supreme Court ruled in its Ted Cruz v. FEC decision that federal candidates are entitled to use an unlimited amount of cash raised after an election to repay loans that they had previously made to their campaign. Federal lawmakers had previously placed a $250,000 cap on the amount of money that candidates could raise after their election to repay old campaign loans.

But Johnson, a former plastics executive, previously said that he wouldn't seek to repay the $8.4 million in outstanding loans he claimed his campaign owes him for loans in his 2010 and 2016 campaigns.

In fact, Johnson had begun to recoup some of those loans two weeks before he made the remarks to the Insider, according to the latest FEC report released this past Saturday. Last week, Johnson sent out multiple emails saying he needed to raise money to pay off old debts.

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