LINCOLN — Nebraska is suing six national nonprofits and a key funder of the organizations, alleging he and the groups illegally spent more than $10 million boosting progressive state ballot initiatives with “foreign money.”

It is the first time the state has sued under a 2022 law the Legislature passed banning foreign nationals from funding ballot question campaigns in Nebraska.

State Attorney General Mike Hilgers, a Republican, announced Wednesday that his civil attorneys had traced money from Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss given to American nonprofit organizations and found that they had helped seven ballot initiatives by passing the donated money through local nonprofit groups that advocate for related issues in the state.

The national nonprofits named in the lawsuit are the Wyss Foundation, Sixteen Thirty Fund, Berger Action Fund, New Venture Fund, Hopewell Fund and The Fairness Project. Hilgers said the groups had sent more than $10 million into the state since mid-2022, including more than $7 million in 2024 alone.

A spokesperson for the Wyss Foundation and Berger Action Fund said the allegations by the attorney general are “false.”

“We are confident the facts will demonstrate that the Wyss Foundation and Berger Action Fund have always complied with the law,” the spokesperson said.

The Fairness Project declined to comment. Sixteen Thirty Fund, New Venture Fund and the Hopewell Fund did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

The state filed the lawsuit in Madison County District Court, where it asked the Norfolk-based court to block the sued groups from funding future ballot campaigns directly or indirectly.

The state lawsuit alleges that Nebraska advocacy nonprofits were used as pass-throughs for the money, including anti-poverty group Nebraska Appleseed and voting-rights organization Civic Nebraska. The local groups were not sued.

Appleseed, reached Wednesday, declined to comment on the litigation. A spokesman for Civic Nebraska had no immediate comment.

“The idea that we shouldn’t have foreign funding in our local elections is something that cuts across party lines and ideological lines,” Hilgers said.

Wyss has been considered a major force in Democratic politics nationally, donating to numerous causes. The Wyss Foundation also invested in journalism projects to expand environmental journalism at the Los Angeles Times.

The Wyss Foundation also donated to States Newsroom, the parent organization of the Nebraska Examiner. The foundation is among the listed donors on the States Newsroom website who have contributed more than $1,000 and listed on its 990 tax forms. Annual fundraising exceeds $20 million to support nonprofit news operations in 39 states.

States Newsroom has said it follows all laws regarding nonprofits and does not accept donations from foreign-based entities. Donors don’t dictate news-related decisions.

While Hilgers said he hadn’t seen the same type of foreign money spent on ballot initiatives he considered conservative, dark money in political campaigns has been an issue for both Democrats and Republicans in Nebraska.

Former U.S. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, a Nebraska Republican, for example, was convicted of lying to federal investigators in a case stemming from taking money from a Lebanese billionaire for his 2016 congressional campaign. The conviction was later overturned on a technicality, and the second Trump administration opted not to try to prosecute him again.

Hilgers said he has no intention of using his lawsuit to upend ballot measures that voters have already approved.

Nebraska has seen a wave of progressive ballot measures, including increasing the minimum wage, requiring companies to pay sick leave and legalizing medical marijuana that passed in recent years.

Sixteen Thirty Fund, the Fairness Project and Hopewell Fund gave a combined $2.25 million to the paid-sick-leave campaign, Hilgers’ lawsuit alleges. New Venture Fund, Hopewell Fund and the Fairness Project gave a combined $4.65 million to the abortion-rights initiative, the lawsuit alleges. Some of the groups gave nearly $190,000 to the anti-school-voucher initiative campaign, the suit claims. And one gave $100,000 to the medical-cannabis effort.

A mostly conservative group of state lawmakers in the officially nonpartisan Nebraska Legislature often brought up out-of-state funding of the ballot initiatives when pushing back against some of what voters approved in the last legislative session, including efforts to weaken sick leave protections.

While federal election law bans foreign nationals from spending on federal, state and local elections, a Federal Election Commission ruling from 2021 found that foreign nationals could contribute to ballot initiative committees in states.

Thirteen states, including Nebraska, have banned direct and indirect contributions from foreign nationals to ballot measure campaigns at the state level. Another six states ban foreign nationals from directly contributing.

This story was published by Nebraska Examiner, an editorially independent newsroom providing a hard-hitting, daily flow of news. Read the original article: https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2025/11/05/nebraska-sues-nonprofits-key-fun...