Progressive Thinking

MADISON - If you’ve got an absentee ballot, it’s too late to safely put it in the mail.

The best thing to do it is to deliver it to your clerk’s office this week, or certainly by Election Day next Tuesday.

I just delivered mine today!

And if you’re a voter with a disability, please remember that you have the right to get assistance in the delivery of your absentee ballot.

For everyone voting with an absentee ballot, make sure you sign your name and fill in the date, and make sure that your witness signs the form and fills in their address completely.

If you’re not voting absentee by mail, you can still vote early (absentee in-person) this week. Check with your local clerk’s office about their hours.

And remember, if you’re not registered to vote, you can still register and vote at your polling place on Election Day, April 4. Bring your driver’s license or passport or other valid government ID, and if you’re registering, bring proof of residence, such as a utility bill.

This is a crucial election so please vote, and bring two friends or family members with you!

Thanks for your civic activism!

Best,

Matt Rothschild
Executive Director
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Senator Smith writes about the importance of protecting reproductive freedom in Wisconsin by repealing the 1849-era criminal abortion ban.

MADISON - The word freedom is tossed around quite a bit. It’s a convenient word to use when trying to make others fear they will lose their freedom. Some politicians will scare voters about losing their freedom to own a gun, or losing control over their children’s education. They beat that same drum and many take the bait.

This time, it’s different. Freedoms for women have been taken away. When the United States Supreme Court made the cowardly decision to overturn the 1973 case that recognized the right to choose when and if they bear children, they stripped women of their freedom to determine their own path. Justices who had declared that they would not rule against past precedent did just that. Justices who hold such a high office in the UNITED States divided us by which state we live in. Now a woman’s freedom is determined by where they live or their financial status and ability to travel.

Wisconsin is one of 28 states that ban or severely restrict abortion. A law outlawing abortion was adopted by Wisconsin in 1849 – 70 years before women were finally granted their voting rights. This law was designed to control women at a time when women did not have a voice in this country.

Every credible poll I’ve seen shows most people believe women should have the choice whether to carry a pregnancy or not. Most recent polls show sixty percent of Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Seventy percent believe the government should butt out of this issue, and voters should decide through a ballot initiative. ¹

I realize that this is a divisive issue that many are passionate about. We all know someone who has been personally affected. Many of you have been in touch with me with diverse takes on this issue, and I welcome your thoughts and opinions.

But repealing Wisconsin’s criminal abortion ban is a matter of personal liberty. This past Sunday, I attended the Rally for our Rights in Eau Claire. At this event and many others, I have been honored and grateful that so many shared their stories, some of which broke my heart. Hearing these heartfelt personal accounts, it saddens me that so many have used this issue as a political gambit.

I have said for many years that reproductive freedom has been transformed into a wedge issue, designed by unscrupulous politicians to garner votes and hold on to power. These politicians – overwhelmingly men – have cynically harnessed people’s strong emotions around this issue to accumulate power and influence.

They didn’t really think it would actually happen, but now that the Supreme Court has reversed 50 years of precedent Republican responses are all over the place. The voters have told them that they should repeal the abortion ban. Already this session, some have offered very limited exceptions, but anything less than full repeal is simply unacceptable.

Half measures get us nowhere. Either you have reproductive freedom or you don’t. Either ALL men AND women are equal or we aren’t. Either we all have freedom to choose our life paths or that freedom can be denied us.

I will continue to oppose Wisconsin’s criminal abortion ban because by doing so, I am doing my part to protect Wisconsinites’ personal liberties. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but no one is entitled to control over another’s body.

¹ “Most Americans say overturning Roe was politically motivated, NPR/Ipsos poll finds,” NPR, Jan. 22, 2022

The flood of money continues, as outside groups have spent $18.1 million on reported independent expenditures and secret phony issue ads in the Supreme Court race, more than three-and-a-half times the previous record.

MADISON - Two weeks away from the April 4 elections, candidate and group spending in the race for Wisconsin Supreme Court stands at more than $20.2 million – smashing state and national records for spending in a judicial contest.

Outside group spending for Daniel Kelly now exceeds that for Janet Protasiewicz by $4.2 million.

About 30 outside electioneering groups have spent $18.1 million on reported independent expenditures and secret phony issue ads in the race, more than three-and-a-half times the previous record. Groups backing Kelly or opposing Protasiewicz have doled out $9.9 million. Groups backing Protasiewicz or opposing Kelly have spent $5.7 million. (About $2.5 million in group spending was directed at the two candidates who lost in the primary.)

The top-spending groups behind Protasiewicz were:

A Better Wisconsin Together Political Fund, $5 million on television and online ads and mailings;

Wisconsin Conservation Voters, $785,836 on campaign literature and brochures and payroll expenses;

Organizing Empowerment PAC, $532,500 on phone and other voter mobilization activities;

Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin, $476,755 on radio and digital ads, canvassing, and mailings;

One for All Committee, $450,000 on videos and online advertising.

The top-spending groups behind Kelly were:

Fair Courts America, $4.6 million on television and radio ads and mailings;

Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC), $3.1 million on broadcast advertising;

American Principles Project PAC, $795,894 on digital ads;

Wisconsin Alliance for Reform, $600,000 on television ads;

Americans for Prosperity, $374,531 on online advertising, mailings, and canvassing.

Both WMC and the Alliance for Reform spent most of their money on television ads. In two instances – here and here – the groups used the same television ads, which accused Protasiewicz of handing down a light sentence for a man convicted of kidnapping and raping a 15-year-old girl.

The most recent reports filed by the candidates showed they spent a total of $2.12 since they entered the race last year, through Feb. 6. Spending was led by Protasiewicz who has doled out $1.37 million, which is nearly six times the $237,719 spent by Kelly.

Whoever wins will determine the ideological balance of the court, which is currently controlled 4-3 by conservatives. Protasiewicz, who is viewed as a liberal, and Kelly, a former conservative Supreme Court justice, are vying to replace a retiring conservative justice.

Protasiewicz and Kelly moved on to the April ballot because they were the top finishers in the Feb. 21 primary, knocking off two other candidates who had spent a combined $507,699 through Feb. 6.

The next batch of fundraising and spending reports by the candidates are due March 27 and will likely show that several million dollars more in candidate spending. (Other news outlets, such as WisPolitics, have reported higher figures than the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. Our numbers are based only on figures already reported to the state by candidates and independent expenditure groups or that we could estimate from so-called “issue advocacy” groups.)

But spending to date has already surpassed the record $10 million spent in 2020 on a Wisconsin Supreme Court race as well as the national record of $15 million spent on an Illinois judicial race in 2004.

For more information about all of the groups involved in the 2023 Wisconsin Supreme Court race, please visit the Democracy Campaign’s Hijacking Campaign 2023 feature. For more information about candidate fundraising and spending and their top contributors, please go here.

MADISON - I hope your week is going well. Here are a couple of great articles that my colleague Iuscely Flores has written for us in the past few days.

The first is essentially the text of a brief talk she gave in Milwaukee at a press conference on the need to make legislators retain all of their records:

Wisconsin Democracy Campaign Supports New Sunshine Law

And the second is a story she wrote after attending an inspiring event in the Wisconsin Capitol:

State Reps Hong and Shelton Reintroduce Economic Justice Bill of Rights

For my part, I’ve been giving talks to several groups recently about all the money in our Wisconsin Supreme Court race and how we got in this predicament. Here’s one version of it:

Recusal and the Wisconsin Supreme Court

And if you’re free this Saturday, please attend the Wisconsin Grassroots Festival. My colleague Carlene Bechen will be giving a talk during the morning breakout session about fair voting maps as a path toward representative government, how every issue that faces Wisconsin is impacted by the heavily gerrymandered voting district maps, and what we can do to end gerrymandering. The festival starts at 9:00 a.m. and is at Wisconsin Heights High School, 10173 US Highway 14.

Have a nice weekend!

Best,

Matt Rothschild
Executive Director
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While women make up a growing majority in the workforce, their pay lags behind that of men doing the same jobs. Senator Smith discusses what we can do to move towards pay equity.

MADISON - “WHEREAS, Equal Pay Day occurs each year on the day that symbolizes how far into the new year women must work full time to earn the same wages that their male counterparts earned the previous year…”

That’s the beginning of a joint resolution I recently coauthored with my colleagues in the legislature. The resolution recognizes Wednesday, March 15, 2023 as Equal Pay Day in Wisconsin. I was proud to sponsor this resolution in 2021 and 2019 and co-author equal pay legislation during my service in the State Assembly.

Although it’s only been in the last several decades we have been bringing attention to the pay gap with Equal Pay Day, the fight for equal pay has been going on for well over a century now. While there are states that have explicitly recognized equal pay for equal work, Wisconsin is not among them.

Paying women less than men for the same work is wage theft, plain and simple. The gap is even more significant for women of color, women with disabilities and women who did not graduate with a high school degree.

In 2009 the Wisconsin Legislature passed the Equal Pay Enforcement Act, of which I was a co-sponsor. That law increased penalties for people and businesses that break workplace anti-discrimination laws. It protected women from discrimination, but also covered anyone who encountered discrimination in the workforce. Unfortunately, Governor Walker and a Republican legislature repealed the law just two years later.

There’s not much chance of similar legislation passing in this legislature, but the people of Wisconsin have put their trust in us to do the right thing. That’s why we must do all we can to right this wrong and ensure equal pay for all. That includes taking thoughtful and concrete action to address very real problems for women and families in the workforce.

We are going through a serious crisis that disproportionately affects women and helps contribute to pay inequity. We have a serious problem with child care availability, both in Wisconsin and on a national level. It’s simple: parents can’t work if they can’t find anyone to take care of their children. Child care must be high-quality, accessible and affordable.

During the pandemic, the American Rescue Plan Act provided supplemental funding so child care centers across the nation could afford to keep their doors open. With the end of the emergency declaration, that funding will end, and child care centers are wrestling with how to avoid passing that cost onto the families.

Governor Evers proposed a $340 million investment to make this support permanent with a portion of the $7 billion surplus. Child care is a public good and child care providers are the backbone of our economy. We can give working mothers and fathers the support they need to excel in the workplace and ensure the well-being of their kids.

Another big driver of pay equity is education. Women are now participating in higher education in growing numbers and make up the majority of college graduates. Education is a proven source of economic mobility. We must make sure that higher education is accessible to all.

Life happens. Sometimes, a person can’t go to school full-time because they are caring for a child, a family member or a loved one. If your care responsibilities prevent you from taking classes at least half-time, you won’t qualify for some types of student aid. Governor Evers’ budget increases eligibility to those who are going to school at least a quarter time. It also allows for aid to be used over the span of more semesters, reducing barriers to entry for those caring for family members and loved ones.

We are working for a world in which equity can be achieved, but first we must name our goal and take bold steps to accomplish it. Equal pay for all is long overdue – we must do everything we can to make it a reality.