Meet the benefactor who clinched the 2020 DNC
Health care CEO underwriting line of credit required to get gig for Milwaukee
It’s been one of the most closely guarded secrets in Wisconsin politics.
For nearly a year, local officials have been offering praise for — but never identifying — the individual who is underwriting the bulk of a $10 million letter of credit that made it possible for Milwaukee to host the 2020 Democratic National Convention.
“We have some really good people in Milwaukee and other places that have recognized how important this is to our community,” Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said in January. “They’ve stepped up, and are stepping up.” So who was the mayor talking about? We now know the answer: Cynthia LaConte.
And your next question is: Who is that?
LaConte, 58, is the low-key CEO of The Dohmen Co., a 161-year-old health care firm in the Third Ward that rarely grabs headlines. And she isn’t particularly political. In recent years, she’s given to three candidates: one Republican and two Democrats, including $2,575 to Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign in May.
In a statement to the Journal Sentinel, LaConte said it was a “civic privilege” to lend a major helping hand to the convention.
“We were delighted to help bring this historic event to Milwaukee and are excited for our city to share one of the best-kept secrets in America with a global audience — a secret we’ve known for generations,” said LaConte, whose firm is a sixth-generation family business.
Apparently, LaConte won’t be a passive player as the host committee works to raise up to $70 million for the event.
Dohmen’s general counsel, Michael O’Neil, will be on the host committee’s five-member board. Also on the board are Joan Prince, UW-Milwaukee’s vice chancellor of global inclusion and engagement; John W. Miller, founder of Arenberg Holdings; and Liz Gilbert, president of the host committee.
Securing LaConte’s financial backing was so important because the Democratic National Committee required a letter of credit of at least $10 million for cities bidding on the fourday convention.
Under the arrangement — the final details of which are being hammered out — the letter of credit will serve as a backup payment plan for the convention, much like an insurance policy. If officials overseeing the event run into a financial emergency, LaConte has agreed to provide up to $7.5 million, and two national unions are ponying up an additional $2.5 million. In such an emergency, vendors would be paid by a bank drawing on those funds.
Only once in recent years have Democrats been forced to tap into the emergency fund to pay the convention’s bills.
That occurred in 2012 during the Democratic convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, when officials used the full $10 million from a line of credit provided by a local electric power company.
Barrett said in a statement that LaConte represents the “very essence of civic dedication.”
“The 2020 Democratic National Convention … simply would not have been possible without the commitment and leadership of Cynthia LaConte,” Barrett said. “Cynthia cares about only one thing — how to empower and advance our greater Milwaukee community.”
Suffice it to say, LaConte wasn’t the first person the mayor approached about underwriting the emergency account.
At the outset, Barrett boxed himself in last year when he said he did not want city taxpayers to be on the hook for the letter of credit. In the past week, the mayor has recommended the city slash police positions — and warned of even deeper cuts — to balance the city’s strapped budget.
In most of the recent Democratic conventions, the host city has agreed to provide the backup funds for the event’s finances, even if that’s not been a popular decision locally.
Working the phones to find benefactors
Without that option here, Barrett and a couple of close advisers — campaign aide Patrick Guarasci and mayoral spokeswoman Jodie Tabak — began working the phones to find a benefactor or two.
That meant hitting up the usual suspects, meaning state officials, deeppocketed Democrats, long-established businesses and local banks. All said no without some city support, or they offered to help the convention in other ways.
That had the mayor’s team sweating it out.
“You could taste the anxiety in your mouth,” Guarasci said this week. “You knew the whole convention was resting on this.”
It also had some high-ranking Democrats in Milwaukee debating among themselves whether they should attempt an end-run around the mayor and ask Common Council President Ashanti Hamilton to have the council provide the financial backstop.
“That was a real discussion,” said one Democrat familiar with the talks. But the move proved unnecessary. Barrett and his staff had briefly discussed LaConte and Dohmen early in the process but thought they would be less receptive than others because of their general lack of political involvement. Plus, it wasn’t clear if they had the necessary funds.
On Dec. 13, 2018, the mayor and his two aides sat down with LaConte for the first time.
“Within 15 minutes of talking to her, she got how important this would be to the city, and she said that if the numbers bore it out that she would be there for the city and would do this,” Guarasci said. “The mayor, myself and Jodi were shocked . ... I think we may have even gotten up and hugged her.”
Barrett announced on Jan. 22 that he had lined up an unspecified individual to underwrite the majority of the letter of credit, the last major hurdle for the city’s convention bid.
But there was still a lot of work to be done with just weeks before the DNC selected a host city in early March. Not only did LaConte and the unions have to sign a letter laying out their intentions, but the DNC required the city to put together a draft letter of credit with a local bank laying out the logistics of the deal.
At the same time, LaConte was leading Dohmen through a “revolutionary change” by converting its organizational structure from a family-owned business to a company wholly owned by a private foundation.
As a result, Dohmen, a multi-subsidiary provider of software and services for the health care industry, will donate 100% of its profits to the Dohmen Company Foundation for charitable purposes.
“I will tell you that there was a huge amount of pressure behind the scenes to deliver those documents to the DNC and we went right up until the wire,” Guarasci said.
Officials close to the host committee say they expect to finalize the deal in the next week or so. A public announcement will be made soon.
Nearing the finishing line on the deal, Gilbert, the president of the host committee, put the focus back on LaConte — now that the secret is out.
“Cynthia’s confidence in the convention and its lasting, positive impact is motivational,” Gilbert said. “