Enlarge / Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. (credit: Getty | Joe Raedle )

Between 2011 and 2012, large, secret donations from a billionaire owner of one of America’s leading lead producers provided critical support to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and the Republican-led legislature as they weathered recall elections. Not coincidentally, around that time the lawmakers passed two laws that would effectively make it impossible for childhood victims of lead poisoning to sue lead companies, according to leaked documents obtained by The Guardian.

Since the laws were passed, federal courts have overturned key elements of them, ruling them unconstitutional and allowing legal challenges to go forward. However, if the laws had stayed in effect, it would have spared lead industries from potentially paying out millions in damages to hundreds of victims who were exposed to extremely high doses of the poisonous metal through paint during childhood.

“These children were perfectly innocent. They entered life with all the gifts and health that God gave them and were devastated by this neurotoxin,” Peter Earle, the principal attorney on 171 cases that are currently ongoing against lead producers and lead paint manufacturers, told The Guardian.