Five Democratic state representatives will face off next week for two Wisconsin Senate seats — one representing parts of Milwaukee County and one representing parts of Dane County.
The competitive primary races for the seats come in a year where Democrats have a path to winning majorities in the next four years. Tuesday’s primaries will be decisive as no Republican candidates are running for either seat.
Senate Dist. 4: Drake and Myers go for second round
Rep. Dora Drake (D-Milwaukee) and Rep. Lakeshia Myers (D-Milwaukee) will face off for a second time this year as the lawmakers seek a full term representing the 4th Senate District next week.
The district covers parts of Milwaukee’s North Side as well as parts of Brown Deer, Wauwatosa, Glendale and Shorewood. It became vacant this year after Sen. Lena Taylor, who had represented the solidly blue seat since 2004, resigned to serve on the Milwaukee County Circuit Court.
Drake will serve the rest of Taylor’s term this year, after beating Myers with almost 66% of the vote in a low-turnout special election last month.
“Winning the special election, I think, just shows that there has been support, not just for the vision of what I stress to provide for the 4th Senate district, but also knowing that we did the work,” Drake said in an interview. “As senator for the rest of the year, I’m excited to do that work, and I hope to continue that work for the next four years.”
Drake said that nothing has changed in her campaign for the full term as she continues door-to-door campaigning along with mailers, phone calls and digital marketing.
Myers told the Examiner she wasn’t deterred by losing the special election.
“When you look at the outcome of the election, I’m not sad about it,” Myers said, pointing out the low turnout of the election. “I think that was telling. I mean… Rep. Drake, by far, sent out more mailers for a four-month seat than I did.”
She said she, too, is pursuing the same strategy as in the special election.
“Slow and steady wins the race,” Myers said. “I have not changed anything. I’m doing just about every community occasion that has happened, whether it’s a festival, whether it’s meeting people in restaurants, whether it’s having a meet and greet that I’ve hosted, or going to senior citizens buildings.”
The lawmakers gave similar reasons for running for the seat. Both said they were interested in having the additional staff, resources and time that comes with the Senate seat. They said that it would help them be able to better serve constituents and work on more issues.
Each outlined different priorities for what they’d want to focus on in office.
Drake said that she would want to work on several public safety issues, including addressing reckless driving, improving court systems, decreasing prison overcrowding and investing in diversion programs. She also advocates increased use of red light cameras in public places, calling them the “tools that law enforcement can use to go after bad actors, and that would help us identify who’s actually doing the crime.”
Much of Drake’s work in the Legislature has focused on public safety. She identified as one of her greatest accomplishments helping pass Ethan’s Law, which prohibits the placement of a child in the home of a foster parent convicted of child abuse, even if the conviction has been pleaded down. She said another is a law requiring that when a police officer is hired by another department, the officer’s employment files must be transferred to the new employer as a way of providing police accountability.
She said her experience before being elected to the Legislature working as a social worker at Justice Point, a nonprofit that works with the criminal justice system, has pushed criminal justice and public safety issues to the top of her priorities.
“People deserve a fair second chance,” Drake said. “People have done their time, and they are trying to give back to the community and do better for themselves, too. We should be making that possible for them, and there are people that do want to do better.”
Drake said that she would want to see greater investments in public education, mental health and health equity, including for the state to accept Medicaid expansion, and transit.
Myers said the loss of Taylor was huge for the district, and presents herself as the right candidate to fill the gap. First elected to the Assembly in 2018, and with experience serving as a congressional aide, Myers said her amount of legislative experience sets her apart as a candidate. She noted that she has coauthored four bills that have become law while serving in the minority.
“It speaks to the respect that I have of my Republican colleagues, even when we disagree. The ability to have negotiation power, to be able to go directly to the [Assembly] speaker or to other folks and make sure that we have things that are able to pass,” Myers said. “You have to be effective even when you’re in the minority, and I’ve been able to do that effectively four times.”
Myers said her top priorities for the next legislative session would include addressing the state’s school funding formula, including increasing the special education reimbursement rate, and Medicaid expansion.
“The public is quite frankly pissed off that they continue to have to go to referendum to backfill the negligence of the Legislature, and I think that’s something we have to do,” Myers said. “I also think that we need to look at the special education funding that we give between our choice schools as well as our traditional public schools, which by far educate more special needs students.”
Private schools funded by taxpayer dollars under the state’s voucher systems receive a 90% reimbursement while public schools only receive a 33% reimbursement.
Prior to being elected to the Assembly, Myers worked as a teacher in Milwaukee Public Schools. She also worked as a dean of students at a middle school in Wauwatosa while serving in the Legislature, but she recently resigned after an investigation into complaints from families.
Myers expressed interest in potentially serving on the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee.
“Having a strong voice from Milwaukee on the Joint Finance Committee is something that I have wanted to do and do a good job at,” Myers said. There is currently one Milwaukee lawmaker on the Joint Finance Committee, Democratic Sen. LaTonya Johnson.
Senate Dist. 16: Three Assembly candidates compete
Three Assembly representatives are running for the open 16th Senate District, which covers parts of Dane, Jefferson and Dodge counties including Sun Prairie, Fitchburg, Stoughton and Fort Atkinson. The district is currently represented by state Sen. Melissa Agard (D-Madison), who isn’t running for reelection as she seeks the open Dane County executive position.
In interviews with the Wisconsin Examiner, the candidates — Reps. Jimmy Anderson (D-Fitchburg), Melissa Ratcliff (D-Cottage Grove) and Samba Baldeh (D-Madison) — pointed to their varied experiences and backgrounds as what sets them apart from one another.
Anderson, who was first elected to the Assembly in 2016, said his eight years of experience would be essential. The lawmaker turned to public service following a car accident caused by a drunk driver that killed his brother and father and paralyzed him — an experience that showed him first hand all the “all the holes in the healthcare system.”
“I know how to do this job well. I know how to best serve my constituents. I think that I’ve been a pretty effective Assembly person,” Anderson said. He also said he thinks it’s important “someone with a disability has an opportunity to still be in the building being able to be a voice for those who often go voiceless.”
During his time in the Legislature, Anderson has advocated for himself in the Legislature (once getting into a fight with Assembly Speaker Robin Vos over an accommodation request that Vos denied) and for the consideration of people with disabilities in policies, including pointing out to his colleagues when a bill that would have expanded the use of Uber and Lyft that the app-based rideshares aren’t legally required to provide a wheelchair-accessible vehicle. Anderson said he hopes there will one day be a disability caucus in the Legislature.
Anderson said health care would continue to be a top priority of his in the Senate, and that Medicaid expansion should be the “first step” in expanding access to health care in Wisconsin. The state is one of 10 in the country that haven’t accepted the federal Medicaid expansion, which the Republican majority in the Legislature has repeatedly opposed.
“The Medicaid expansion would bring hundreds of millions of dollars back to the state of Wisconsin, money that we sent to the federal government and then ends up being distributed to other states,” Anderson said. “It doesn’t make sense from a conservative standpoint. It doesn’t make sense from a liberal standpoint.”
Anderson said that improving the state’s school funding formula and increasing special education reimbursement would be a top priority. He said the state’s budget surplus makes it “unconscionable” that so many communities in the state have had to go to referendum and raise local property taxes to cover their needs.
He noted that he has previously introduced legislation to provide a 90% special education reimbursement to schools. At that rate, Anderson said that it would free “up a lot of their budgets, and a lot of the budget deficits have to be made up simply by guaranteeing a 90% reimbursement rate for special education,” Anderson said. “Just by doing that, you kind of level the need that public schools have throughout the state.”
Anderson said that the potential for a more evenly split Legislature is one of the reasons that it could be important to have someone with his experience in the seat. “Having the years in the Legislature has helped me grow [my] relationships,” Anderson said. “I know where my lines are in the sand, and I know where my values are, and I know I would never do anything that would be contrary to the interests of my constituents, but would never turn out an opportunity to move forward legislation in a divided government.”
Ratcliff, who was first elected to the Assembly in 2022 and is also a member of the Dane County Board of Supervisors, said her first term in office provided opportunities for her to work on issues in a bipartisan way.
“With these new maps, with them being more 50-50, we have the opportunity to actually have conversations with our colleagues now, which hasn’t really been happening in this very, very gerrymandered Legislature that we’ve been under,” Ratcliff said.
Ratcliff pointed to a bill that she worked on that would have prohibited foreign contributions to referendum campaigns and received a hearing in the Republican-led campaign elections committee.
“[It] gained bipartisan support and passed unanimously out of committee. It also had a hearing in the Republican-led committee in the Senate on campaigns and elections,” Ratcliff said. “Unfortunately, it wasn’t able to be brought to the floor because Speaker [Robin] Vos prevents good legislation from coming through at times. I think that shows my ability to form relationships, not only with my Democratic colleagues, but also across the aisle.” She would want to bring the bill back if elected to the Senate.
The first bill that should be brought forward in the next legislative session, Ratcliff said, is one to repeal the state’s 1849 law that was widely interpreted as banning abortion following the overturn of Roe v. Wade.
“[We] need to protect people’s right to reproductive health,” said Ratcliff, calling it the No. 1 issue that she hears when she’s knocking doors. “It’s not just about abortion. It’s about miscarriages. It’s about having access to contraception. It’s about deciding when you want to have a family.”
Ratcliff said other priorities would include improving funding for the state’s public schools and universities, working to protect the air, water and the environment, preventing gun violence, expanding access to broadband and protecting LGBTQ people. When it comes to the state’s ongoing budget surplus, she said that she would want to see the state invest in public education and child care initiatives, including Child Care Counts — ongoing state support for better wages for child care workers while holding down the cost of care for parents.
Baldeh said his experience in the state Legislature, where he has served since 2020, and on the Madison City Council for six years, including two as council president, has equipped him to work with an array of people from various backgrounds and helped him be an effective advocate.
“I know how to bring people together,” Baldeh said. “These issues that we talk about and deal with are neither Republican nor Democratic issues in many cases. If the water is polluted, it’s polluted not only for Democrats or Republicans, it’s polluted for everybody. When the ground where our food grows is polluted, it’s not polluted for Republicans or Democrats, it’s polluted for everybody. When our kids are not educated, they are not just [not] educated for their parents. They are not educated for the United States.”
Baldeh is an immigrant from The Gambia and said it’s also important to continue to have that representation in the state Legislature.
“As an immigrant, looking from outside into this country, I understand the importance of this country, not only to its people, but to the globe, the whole world,” Baldeh said. “With some of the things that are happening, we need to have serious legislators, serious policymakers, to make sure that our democracy is intact, to make sure that we are not losing our future generations to lack of education.”
Baldeh said his top priorities would include protecting democracy, ensuring that child care is affordable for families, protecting the environment, especially when it comes to fighting PFAS, increasing affordable housing and access to health care.
When it comes to the state’s ongoing budget surplus, Baldeh said that he would want some of that to go towards tax relief. “I believe in fair taxes,” Baldeh said. He noted that millionaires should pay their fair share, but that the tax burden could be lessened for the middle class.
“Write a check and say to somebody ‘You paid too much taxes. For one time, we are giving you some back…,’” Baldeh said. “We know people are struggling with food, with everything, and so giving them that $1,000 can go a long way in providing food, in making sure their child gets what they need to go back to school.”
Add comment