Budget Traitors
The curtains closed with the 2025-2027 Wisconsin State budget passing 19-14 in the State Senate, and 59-29 in the Assembly. The budget is a disappointment to many, including us. The concessions that were made were far from what the people called for:
Closing down Green Bay Correctional Institution without building any new prisons: Evers literally line item vetoed the closing date before he signed.
Adequate funding for childcare: the budget only provides short-term/temporary relief, not a long term solution for Child Care Counts.
Adequate K-12 funding: public schools were essentially abandoned.
Medicaid expansion (including postpartum): nope.
The UW System was perhaps the one bright spot, getting a substantial funding boost.
Did it have to go this way?
Some will argue it could have been worse, that the Democratic senators who voted yes only did so after getting something from their Republican colleagues. But it also could have been so much better, and 11 Democratic senators voted no because they knew that was the case, and recognized that their constituents deserved better. Here are the the five Democratic senators who voted yes (district party lean is based on 2022 voting information):
Diane Hesselbein District 27- Middleton (76.9% Democratic lean
Kristin Dassler-Alfheim District 18- Appleton (55.5% Democratic lean)
Brad Pfaff District 32- Onalaska (54.2% Democratic lean)
Jeff Smith District 31- Brunswick (53.6% Democratic lean)
Jamie Wall District 30- Green Bay (52.6% Democratic lean)
While perhaps the political strategy of a yes vote from those five senators made some calculating sense, the yes votes of Democratic Assembly representatives were simply an egregious disconnect from what truly matters to people. Because of the Republican majority in the Assembly, no additional yeses were necessary, and yet these representatives decided that it made sense to do so. The seven Democratic Assembly Representatives who voted yes were:
Maureen McCarville District 42- DeForest (59.1% Democratic lean)
Sylvia Ortiz-Velez District 8- Milwaukee (80.4% Democratic lean)
Tara Johnson District 96- Shelby (56.7% Democratic lean)
Lori Palmeria District 54- Oshkosh (55.4% Democratic lean)
Jill Billings District 95- LaCrosse (55.4% Democratic lean)
Jodi Emerson District 91- Eu Claire (54.8% Democratic lean)
Steve Doyle District 94- Onalaska (53.6% Democratic lean)
We would also like to note these Republicans who voted against the budget, not because they recognized the value in investing in the constituents who elected them, but because they were holding out for even bigger handouts to rich people and cuts for the rest of us:
Rob Hutton Senate District 5- Brookfield (51.7% Democratic lean)
Steve Nass Senate District 11- Whitewater (65.1% Republican lean)
Chris Kapenga Senate District 33- Delafield (70.1% Republican lean)
Scott Allen Assembly District 82- Waukesha (57.5% Republican lean)
In case it isn’t crystal clear: we think this will be important to remember come election time.
