In 1970, the Kenosha News reported that La Follete, while campaigning in the Democratic Primary in Wisconsin’s First Congressional District against Les Aspin, produced a brochure supposedly full of quotes from average citizens who played up his family ties to ‘Fighting’ Bob La Follette. The Wisconsin newspaper revealed that those quotes were stolen from the campaign literature of Michael Harrington, a Massachusetts Democrat.

In 2006, La Follette was fined $500 by the Wisconsin State Ethics Board after he admitted to using a state-owned computer and email system to create and send campaign-related documents.

On July 14, 2015, LaFollette filed a lawsuit against Gov. Scott Walker over the budget for the secretary of state's office. He requested a judge to stay the budget changes, as LaFollette claimed it impeded his ability to carry out the constitutionally-mandated duties of his office. Circuit Judge Rhonda L. Lanford declined to issue a temporary injunction to stop the budget cuts on September 4, 2015, after ruling La Follette had not demonstrated his lawsuit against Walker was likely to succeed. Lanford's ruling did not dismiss La Follette's claim that Walker's budget had infringed on La Follette's ability to carry out his constitutionally-mandated responsibilities outright. Instead, her 17-page ruling noted that the evidence before her court at the time of the ruling was not sufficient to substantiate La Follette's claim.