Exclusive: Three Candidates Violated Wisconsin Campaign Finance Laws in Lead-Up to Today's Election for Antigo School Board
Three Antigo School Board candidates - Danny Pyeatt, Jennifer "Jenny" Kressin, and Scot Peterson - violated Wisconsin campaign finance laws in the lead-up to today's election.
Three Antigo School Board candidates—one of whom is an incumbent—violated Wisconsin campaign finance laws in the lead-up to today’s spring election of candidates running for the Unified School District of Antigo School Board, a review of the candidates’ respective campaign registration statements1 that were recently obtained by Wisconsin Jurisprudence shows, when coupled with the answers Wisconsin Jurisprudence received from the Unified School District of Antigo in response to its multiple open records requests for the candidates’ respective campaign finance reports filed in 2024.
Wisconsin campaign finance laws require school board candidates to file campaign finance reports with the local filing officer—who “is the clerk for the office in most cases”—unless the candidates claim a valid statutory exemption to the reporting requirement in their campaign registration statements.
Three candidates running for the Unified School District of Antigo School Board—Danny Pyeatt, who currently serves as president of the Unified School District of Antigo School Board and is an incumbent running for reelection, Jennifer “Jenny” Kressin, a non-incumbent candidate who is running for election to the Unified School District of Antigo School Board, and Scot Peterson,2 another non-incumbent candidate who is running for election to the Unified School District of Antigo School Board—did not claim a statutory exemption to the reporting requirement in their respective campaign registration statements.
And because Pyeatt, Kressin, and Peterson did not claim a statutory exemption to the reporting requirement in their respective campaign registration statements, Wisconsin campaign finance laws required each of the three candidates to file a 2024 spring pre-election campaign finance report with the Unified School District of Antigo School Board no later than eight days preceding today’s spring election—in other words, by no later than March 25th.
However, in response to multiple open records requests by Wisconsin Jurisprudence—including one sent yesterday—an employee with the Unified School District of Antigo said the school district did not have any campaign finance reports in its custody that were filed by Pyeatt, Kressin, or Peterson in 2024.
Wisconsin Jurisprudence emailed each of the three candidates who violated Wisconsin campaign finance laws in the lead-up to today’s spring election with a request to answer several questions for this article. Wisconsin Jurisprudence also provided the three candidates with an opportunity to respond with a statement.
Although Pyeatt and Kressin did not respond to Wisconsin Jurisprudence’s emails in time for publication of this article, Peterson did respond to Wisconsin Jurisprudence’s email.
“I filed a form with the school district and did as the people at [the school district] central office instructed me to do,” wrote Peterson.
Peterson also wrote that he only “spent about $800 dollars” on his campaign for Antigo School Board, with “much of it [his] own personal money.”
Under Wisconsin campaign finance laws, a school board candidate whose aggregate campaign activity—that is, the sum of the candidate’s campaign contributions (both made by the candidate and received by the candidate), campaign expenditures, and loans incurred by the candidate’s campaign—does not exceed $2,500 in a calendar year may claim the statutory exemption to the reporting requirement at any time.
However, if the candidate does not claim the statutory exemption to the reporting requirement in their campaign registration statement—including an amended campaign registration statement—then the candidate is “still subject to campaign finance reporting requirements,” according to an individual employed by the Wisconsin Ethics Commission who responded to a question from Wisconsin Jurisprudence.
Wisconsin Jurisprudence also emailed the other three candidates running for the Unified School District of Antigo School Board—Jill Mattek Nelson, an incumbent who is running for reelection to the Unified School District of Antigo School Board, Jennifer Welch, a non-incumbent candidate who is running for election to the Unified School District of Antigo School Board, and Leigh Roehrig, another non-incumbent candidate who is running for election to the Unified School District of Antigo School Board—with a request to answer several questions for this article.
Although Mattek Nelson did not respond to Wisconsin Jurisprudence’s email in time for publication of this article, Welch and Roehrig separately responded to Wisconsin Jurisprudence’s emails.
A candidate running for the Unified School District of Antigo School Board who violated Wisconsin campaign finance laws in the lead-up to today’s spring election should not only resign if elected, but should also immediately drop out of the race, said both Welch and Roehrig.
“Something needs to be done about the blatant corruption going on,” wrote Roehrig. “But as usual, nothing will be [done]. It’s just not right on so many levels.”
A correction was made on June 2, 2024: An earlier version of this article incorrectly said that three Antigo School Board candidates were required to file a 2024 spring pre-election campaign finance report with the Unified School District of Antigo School Board by March 25th. The three Antigo School Board candidates were required to file a 2024 spring pre-election campaign finance report with the Unified School District of Antigo School Board by no later than March 25th.
In an effort to prevent the three Antigo School Board candidates who violated Wisconsin campaign finance laws in the lead-up to today’s spring election from being doxxed as a result of the publication of this article, Wisconsin Jurisprudence has redacted non-relevant information contained in the three candidates’ respective campaign registration statements.
(Disclosure: I was a member of the Antigo High School football team when I attended Antigo High School from September 2004 until June 2008. During that time, Scot Peterson was one of my football coaches.)