Did court candidate Schimel not join 71 Wisconsin counties in suing Purdue Pharma?

There are many issues that have dominated conversation in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election — Act 10, voter ID, abortion laws and the candidates’ handling of past criminal cases. 

But there’s a topic that has rarely come up that’s the subject of a Facebook ad from A Better Wisconsin Together, a liberal group that has run ads critical of Brad Schimel, the conservative candidate in the race.

"71 out of 72 Wisconsin counties filed lawsuits against Purdue Pharma. Brad Schimel refused to join them," the ad states. 

That refers to litigation launched around 2017 in Wisconsin and nationwide that sought to hold pharmaceutical companies accountable for the opioid crisis.

The ad began running on Feb. 24, 2025, according to Meta’s Ad Library. Meta’s data indicates the ad has been seen at least half a million times. 

The ad caught PolitiFact Wisconsin’s attention, because we haven’t seen many mentions of the opioid epidemic in the Supreme Court race. 

And money from lawsuit settlements is expected to flow to Wisconsin through 2038. In recent months, $21 million has gone to treatment and recovery programs, the overdose-reversing drug Narcan and more.

So, as the April 1 election approaches, let’s look at Schimel’s involvement on the issue and whether the claim is correct. 

On first glance, a voter may assume the ad refers to Schimel’s time as Waukesha County’s district attorney. Was Waukesha the only county that didn’t join the litigation?

But the ad isn’t referencing Schimel’s time working at the county level, said Mike Browne, deputy director for A Better Wisconsin Together. 

Rather, it refers to Schimel’s decision not to sue Purdue Pharma and others as state attorney general, a position he held from 2015 to 2019. He was county DA between 2006 and 2015.

Let’s back up, because the timeline is important here. In 2017, many counties, cities, towns and tribes filed lawsuits against opioid manufacturers. Many Wisconsin counties filed in November of that year.

About 200 pending cases were eventually consolidated in federal court in Ohio in December 2017. 

If a voter remembers that rough timeline, it makes sense that the ad is referring to Schimel choosing to not sue on behalf of Wisconsin and join the counties in that effort. 

But that’s a pretty long time ago for the average voter to remember, and the ad does make it sound like he was the only one out of step at the county level. 

As an aside, Waukesha was one of the 71 counties that sued Purdue Pharma. Polk County in northwestern Wisconsin was the one county that did not, according to a WPR report.

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PolitiFact Wisconsin reached out to Schimel’s campaign, and they sent back a statement from Schimel’s former chief deputy attorney general and senior counsel, Paul Connell.

Under Schimel, the Department of Justice "worked in a bipartisan coalition with dozens of other state attorneys general investigating Purdue Pharma, other opioid manufacturers and the primary opioid distributors," Connell said.

"Susan Crawford and her allies misunderstand how attorneys general operate when they work across party lines in a complex multi-state context," he added. 

In the past, Schimel has argued a lawsuit would be a longer, less effective way of getting financial settlements from companies to people in the state, the Cap Times reported.

He preferred Wisconsin’s involvement in a multi-state investigation, which also began in 2017. At one time, 41 state attorneys general were in the group, so Schimel wasn’t an outlier there.

Schimel argued counties would have to use part of the settlement money for private attorney fees, while Wisconsin could get a larger payout if the investigation resulted in a settlement.

Even Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a leader of the investigation and now a rising Democratic figure, said working as a coalition would be more effective than taking legal action as individual states. 

Membership declined when some attorneys general left the investigation to file lawsuits, including Shapiro, who said Purdue Pharma was not working in good faith on a settlement, according to a CBS News report.

Schimel was not one of them. But Wisconsin did file a lawsuit against Purdue Pharma in 2019 after Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, took office after narrowly defeating Schimel. 

Connell, Schimel’s deputy, said evidence uncovered in the investigation was used by Kaul to file the lawsuit.

Finally, the ad also claims Purdue Pharma’s PAC donated to Schimel during his run for reelection in 2018, and gave money to a Republican group, which then donated nearly $3 million to Schimel.

Analyzing those donations is beyond the scope of this fact-check, but a quick look at campaign finance records show the PAC donated $250 directly to Schimel in November 2016.

Schimel has said previously he did not know he received a donation from Purdue Pharma until he read about it in the newspaper.

An ad from A Better Wisconsin Together claims state Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel did not join in when "71 out of 72 Wisconsin counties filed lawsuits against Purdue Pharma."

Waukesha County, where Schimel was a district attorney and now a judge, was involved in that lawsuit. By 2017, Schimel was state attorney general, but that’s a hard detail for the average voter to recall. 

Other claims about campaign donations make clear the ad is talking about Schimel as attorney general. Still, the ad is misleading if voters read it as Schimel being the odd one out at the county level. 

But that’s not the case. And the ad doesn’t mention Schimel’s decision to join a multi-state investigation, which many attorneys general did initially. He ultimately didn’t sue, like other states did.

Our definition of Half True is "the statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context." That fits here.