MADISON - Wanted to drop you a quick note about some of the great things that are happening at the Democratic Party of Wisconsin this week.

Welcome, Emma!

The DPW was thrilled to welcome our new finance director, Emma Lowry, to the team this week. A Wisconsin native, Emma comes to us with tremendous experience having worked for Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, the Obama campaign, and at the White House. Emma will also be supervising our membership department and with it the new membership coordinator that we are in the process of hiring. I know she's going to be a tremendous asset in helping our team have the resources we need to elect our next Democratic president, send Russ Feingold to the Senate, and elect Democrats up and down the ticket.

Joint Fundraising Agreement

Some of you expressed concern over a report in today's New York Times that the DPW, along with several other state parties, has entered into a joint fundraising agreement with the Hillary for America campaign.

This is a standard type of fundraising agreement that allows the state party to generate more resources in advance of the general election, money that will be spent electing Democrats up and down the ticket. In no way does it imply any sort of endorsement of Sec. Clinton's campaign. Any candidate can pursue an agreement like this. Should any other Democratic candidates for president request that the DPW enter into a joint fundraising agreement we would be happy to do so.

Some typical expenditures for these types of funds are voter registration drives and voter ID education. In 2012 the DPW entered into a joint fundraising agreement with Tammy Baldwin's Senate campaign.

FEC Training

The beginning of this week took me, DPW Treasurer Randy Udell, and DPW Compliance Director Amanda Brink to Chicago for a training from the Federal Election Commission. The training has been incredibly informative in making sure party staff and elected officers understand the ever-changing world of campaign finance so we know that we're playing by the rules.

DNC Summer Meeting in Minneapolis

After one more morning in Chicago tomorrow, Amanda and I are off to join the rest of the DPW staff in Minneapolis for the DNC's annual summer meeting. At the meeting we'll get to connect with finance, political, communications, data, and compliance staff from the DNC, as well as other state parties, to share best practices, receive top-notch training from leaders in the field, and talk about services we can offer candidates up and down the ticket.

Messaging Summit in Wisconsin Rapids

We also want to hear from you. Do you have messaging that you feel is working in your community on one or more of the issues we will be discussing at our upcoming Messaging Summit? Please share it with me today. We would like the opportunity to review all the wonderful ideas ahead of time.

As an example: Planned Parenthood helped me during my senate campaign with the following messaging on choice.

Message: “I am the mother of three beautiful children that are the greatest gift I have ever been given, but I believe that a woman’s decision to have a baby, give a baby up for adoption or terminate a pregnancy is a decision a woman should make with her family, her faith and under her doctors guidance.”

Please share your values driven messaging ideas by responding to this email. Remember our topic issues for this forum are:

• Issues Involving Women
• Education – Both K12 and Higher Education
• Healthcare
• Labor
• Economy
• Environment

Thanks, Martha