Pro-Amendment Spokesperson Involved In Political Scandal
Milwaukee - Less than a week after making her debut as the new campaign manager of the “Vote Yes For Marriage,” a prominent political blogger has tied Lorri Pickens to a 1997 scandal that resulted in the harshest penalties ever handed down for political skulduggery.  Bill Christofferson, writing in his Xoff Files blog on July 12, documented Pickens’ involvement in an “independent” group, the Wisconsin Coalition for Voter Participation (WCVP). WCVP raised $200,000 to mail 354,000 postcards and conduct a phone campaign disguised as a non-partisan get-out-the-vote effort for the Supreme Court race that year. The group illegally coordinated its efforts with the campaign of Supreme Court Justice Jon Wilcox and helped him defeat challenger Walt Kelly.
  Mark Block, a right-wing operative who served as the  leader of WCVP, was banned from politics for three years, and fined $10,000 for his role in an illegal scheme.  Block recently re-emerged at the head of another “non-partisan” group called Americans For Prosperity. Pickens served both on the board of the WCVP and as an associate director of Block’s current operation.
  Pickens’ husband Brent helped set up the WCVP and was later investigated, fined $35,000 and banned from politics for five years. Pickens herself appears to have escaped prosecution because she was married.
  A March 11, 2000 report in the Wisconsin State Journal stated: “Dane County Circuit Judge Dan Moeser on Friday ruled that the state’s marital-privilege law bars investigators from asking Lorri Pickens about statements made privately by her husband, Brent Pickens, an organizer of the Wisconsin Coalition for Voter Participation (WCVP). Lorri Pickens was an officer in WCVP, which raised and spent about $200,000 on postcards and phone calls in the 1997 state Supreme Court election.”
    Christofferson noted that with Justice Wilcox’s $10,000 fine added, “the $60,000 total was the biggest penalty ever paid in an elections case in Wisconsin.” Christofferson also noted that Pickens couple earned $34,000 from the WCVP in part for the renting of mailing lists used in the direct mail operation. Lists of voters identified as likely to vote a particular way on an issue are critical tools in campaigns such as Fair Wisconsin’s and “Vote Yes For Marriage.”
  The pro-amendment group appears to be the Milwaukee-based operation for the Family Research Institute of Wisconsin, the lead organization supporting the civil unions and marriage ban. The “Yes” group lists a phone contact with a 414 area code, though it has a Madison mailing address. “Vote Yes For Marriage” does not appear to have a web presence at this time.
  FRI also operates another group called the “Wisconsin Coalition For Traditional Marriage” which currently appears to be inactive. The Coalition website has not been updated since late 2005.
  Christofferson noted the irony of Pickens’ use of “marital privilege” in the investigation of the 1997 scandal and her current position supporting the civil unions ban. “And Lorri is now working to make sure that if a gay couple ever engages in illegal campaign activity, they will have to testify against each other. Some things are just better left between a man and a woman, the way God intended,” he wrote.