Gerard Randall, a top Wisconsin GOP official, continues to influence budgets and serve at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Tommy G. Thompson Center on Public Leadership despite a high-profile business scandal that prompted his resignation from the Republican National Convention.
Alexander Tahk, Thompson Center director, told The Daily Cardinal that Randall is still a member of the conservative-leaning Thompson Center’s public leadership board.
Randall faced widespread scrutiny after a Wisconsin Public Radio and Wisconsin Watch report in November found his nonprofit organization, the Milwaukee Education Partnership, provided vague, incomplete or redundant services on specialized no-bid contracts totalling $1.2 million since 2012. The organization, of which Randall is the director and sole employee, also falsified prominent board officers on tax returns.
Randall was first vice chair of the Republican Party of Wisconsin before becoming host secretary for the RNC. He is still listed as first vice chair on the party’s website.
Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, a member of the state Legislature’s budget-writing committee, told the Cardinal it’s disappointing Randall remains on the Thompson Center’s board despite his reputation as a “fraudster.”
Roys said she doesn’t think Randall should be allowed to remain on the board.
“You don’t want someone who is implicated in financial misdealings or fraud to be involved in budgeting for any business, whether it’s a public institution or a private entity,” Roys said.
Speaker grants, scholarships under Thompson Center board purview
Through the Thompson Center’s public leadership board, Randall provides input and direction on the $1.5 million budget the Thompson Center operates under annually.
Tahk said Randall is the designee of the Thompson Family Charitable Foundation’s president, former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson. That means Randall serves a permanent term, unlike other three-year term board appointees.
Other board members include:
- Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester
- Kimber Leidl, a senior policy advisor for former Gov. Scott Walker and current state government relations manager for Lexia Learning
- Dean Stensberg, former executive assistant to former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Patience Roggensack
- Jason Thompson, a partner at Michael, Best, and Friedrich LLP
- Scott Jensen, a senior strategist for school-choice organization American Federation for Children
The board also handles the Thompson Center’s budget approvals and approves expenditures for grants to proposed recipients. With board permission, the Thompson Center’s director can make substantive budgetary changes.
The Thompson Center allocates at least $500,000 annually for speakers to non- UW-Madison campuses, provides faculty grants and distributes student scholarships, among other expenditures.
Randall’s work at the Thompson Center also intersected with his involvement in RNC planning. Months prior to his resignation, Randall was described in a June 8, 2023 meeting as the point of contact for Thompson Center staff to arrange a “reasonable” speaker to come to UW-Milwaukee during the July 2024 RNC.
At the center of Randall’s recent controversies is the Milwaukee Education Partnership, a nonprofit education organization dedicated to boosting teacher retention and student achievement. Its website showed a host of outdated information as of March 2024, with the last available monthly report filed in August 2017.
Randall involved the Thompson Center in at least one instance of his organization’s work for Milwaukee Public Schools.
The Thompson Center hosted a Dec. 13 webinar featuring the National Center for Teacher Residencies’ “successful educator development program for African American males.” Randall cited the activity in a quarterly financial summary he provided to the Milwaukee Public School board, according to WPR.
Following WPR’s report, Milwaukee Public Schools cut ties with the Milwaukee Education Partnership. Randall later resigned from his position as 2024 RNC host committee secretary in the same month.
Thompson Center leaders aren't calling for resignation
When asked about Randall’s controversies, Tahk said he doesn’t generally provide assessments of members of the Thompson Center’s Public Leadership Board or Faculty Advisory Committee or activities outside the Thompson Center.
Tahk said it would be “inappropriate” for him to comment on who should or shouldn’t serve on the board, given his service as director.
“I appreciate Mr. Randall’s service and contributions on the Public Leadership Board,” Tahk said. “No one has expressed concerns to me.”
When asked if he believes Randall should resign, Thompson Center board member Scott Jensen told the Cardinal via email he’s grateful for Randall’s continued service to the board and called him a “very valuable member.”
Other board members did not respond to requests for comment.
Although Roys said proper accountability procedures for a Thompson Center removal should take place, that doesn’t mean, in her view, that Randall should remain in the “prominent” position.
“He has no right to be on the board,” Roys said. “It doesn't speak well of the leadership that they're allowing this to continue, given what has already been pretty strongly established about his other mistakes.”
Brelynn Bille, a Morgridge Center for Public Service intern and UW-Madison La Follette School of Public Affairs student, questioned whether Randall’s pattern of being involved with organizations whose funds that are “meant for one thing seemingly disappear or are not properly allocated” made him a proper fit for the Thompson Center.
“Any person could see that this pattern is detrimental to the organizations he has been involved with in the past,” Bille said. “It seems like a clear red flag to the rest of the center’s board that he should resign or be removed before similar situations arise.”
The Thompson Center was created in 2017 by Republicans on the state Legislature’s budget-writing committee and distributes grants for faculty research on public leadership. It also hosts outreach events across many UW System campuses.
The center is nonpartisan in legislative language. However, when announcing the center in 2017, Vos said he hoped it would “offset” liberal thinking at UW System campuses.
Questions around the Milwaukee Education Partnership aren’t the first time Randall’s work has faced backlash.
In 2001, Randall faced criticism for inaccurate reimbursement claims — which were tied to retreats and restaurant visits — during his time as CEO of the Private Industry Council, a position former Milwaukee County Executive Thomas Ament appointed him to in 1998. That led to a 2007 ouster from the position and the city taking over the council, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Randall did not respond to requests for comment.
Liam Beran is the former campus news editor for The Daily Cardinal and a third-year English major. He has written in-depth on higher-education issues and covered state news. He is a now a summer LGBTQ+ news fellow with The Nation. Follow him on Twitter at @liampberan.
