Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) announced Tuesday that she would be appointing a lawyer heading multiple liberal 501(c)(4) dark money groups to sit as a district court judge.
Following Whitmer’s announcement, Reid Felsing is set to take the bench at the 56A District Court in Eaton County, Michigan, effective Jan. 6, 2025, a position he will hold until Jan. 1, 2027. Felsing has held leadership positions at four anonymously funded and politically involved left-of-center nonprofit organizations which, in their most recent tax years alone, spent roughly $1 million on operations.
Capital Research Center investigative researcher Parker Thayer, who was the first to flag Felsing’s links to the dark money groups after his appointment was announced, told the Washington Examiner that Whitmer’s move represented “mind-boggling hypocrisy.”
“In 2018 Governor Whitmer ran, in part, on her ‘Michigan Sunshine Plan’ that included ‘reversing’ a piece of ‘Citizens United on steroids legislation,’” Thayer said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. Citizens United refers to the Supreme Court case that gave the green light for unlimited dark money to flow into elections.
“Now, she is awarding judgeships to a Democrat fixer who sat on the boards of four different left-wing ‘dark money’ groups,” Thayer continued.
The Michigan Center Of Accountability For Republicans, where Felsing serves as treasurer, describes itself as an organization "fighting back against the lies, the corruption, the conspiracy theories, and the racism” allegedly promoted by the GOP. It has produced multiple ads accusing Republicans of sexual crimes and corruption. In 2022, the organization spent over $590,000 with the bulk of the funds going toward advertisements and “research.”
The organization also has links to the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group that works to elect Democrats to political office. Jeff Timmer, a senior adviser to the Lincoln Project, serves as the Michigan Center Of Accountability For Republicans’ president. Similarly to the Lincoln Project, the organization directed $185,000 to a public affairs firm headed by Timmer in 2022.
Felsing also serves as the president of Citizens For A Better Michigan, an organization reportedly linked to Speaker of the Michigan House of Representatives Joe Tate, a Democrat. The group in 2022 was funded primarily by Citizens for Energizing Michigan's Economy, a dark money group doling out funds to high-powered Democrats in the state, according to the Detroit News.
Citizens For A Better Michigan spent approximately $293,000 in 2022. Included in that sum was roughly $8,000 spent on “travel or entertainment expenses for any federal, state, or local public officials.”
Michigan Deserves Better Fund, where Felsing serves as treasurer, and Residents For Good Governance, where he holds the position of president, collectively disclosed over $170,000 in spending in their most recent tax forms. Michigan Deserves Better has been responsible for an array of messaging campaigns to influence local elections.
The full extent of Felsing’s involvement in the Michigan dark money world is not known to the public as, even though he and his staff manage at least a dozen nonprofit accounts, many raise less than $50,000 a year, meaning that they do not need to disclose their revenue or how they spent their funds, the Detroit News reported.
“Gretchen Whitmer has a history of using her office to reward Democrat campaign operatives,” Thayer told the Washington Examiner. “In 2020, her office attempted to award lucrative COVID contact-tracing contracts to two different Democratic data firms. Awarding a ‘dark money’ fixer like Felsing with a judicial nomination is sadly not a break from the norm.”
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“With his years of experience as a magistrate, professor, and legal practitioner, I know he will uphold the rule of law and serve his community with distinction,” Whitmer said of Felsing in a press release.
The Michigan governor’s office did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.