This is important because:
1. The WRA endorsed the incumbent governor several days after approximately one million Wisconsin residents signed a petition to recall him. This came before the petitions had been certified, before an election date had been set and before the identity of the governor’s challenger was known. In doing so, the WRA may very well have alienated and angered thousands of potential property buyers and sellers.
2. Over the past few years, the WRA has funneled about $5,000,000 of members’ dues to WHA, Inc. to be spent in the broad political arena, including cash contributions to partisan organizations, which have no clear real estate related goals. These expenditures of very large sums of money are made without accountability and without consideration of the opinions of the very members who pay the dues.
3. The WRA and the WHA disclose their political expenditures and cash contributions only to the minimal extent required by law. Real estate professionals, however, are ethically bound to aspire to a higher level of openness and disclosure and, therefore, expect the same from their leadership.

It is important that the Board of Directors of the Wisconsin Realtors Association and the Board of Directors of the Wisconsin Homeowners Alliance, Inc. do the following:

1. Stop endorsing candidates for political office, regardless of their party affiliations.
2. Stop the allocation of members’ dues to WHA to be spent in the broad political arena without input from, and accountability to, membership.
3. Stop concealing information on how members’ dues are being spent and embrace the same standards of disclosure expected of all Realtors®.