WisDems Presentation at Chapter Meeting

By Maura H. - August 18, 2022

Julie Fullerton, from the Wisconsin Democrats (known affectionately as the WisDems) distributed organizing team, came to our August chapter meeting to talk about why WI desperately needs our help. Here are our notes from that discussion.

Maura commits to vote.

Wisconsin was always blue, maybe even a little purple, but about the time Scott Walker and Paul Ryan and the other cheeseheads took over, that's when it all went upside down. After Scott Walker lost the 2018 gubernatorial, in the lame-duck season before Tony Evers was inaugurated as the new governor, Walker stripped the governorship of powers so Evers was hamstrung from the get-go. Gov. Evers can only veto the bad stuff.

The State Treasurer's office is in jeopardy. Walker tried a couple times to eliminate this job. The current office-holder, who campaigned to preserve the office, is leaving. The Dem candidate Aaron Richardson has several interesting policy ideas. We need to elect him.

WI's current law on reproductive rights dates back to the 1880's. It doesn't matter that we think bringing this law back is barbaric; What matters is how the law will be enforced. That's why we need to elect Josh Kaul as Attorney General.

Doug LaFollete, who has been in office since the 80s, is a true public servant. We need to re-elect him as Secretary of State.

In the Senate race, we saw 6 or 7 candidates drop out of the primary to rally behind Mandela Barnes. Has a lot of support in the state and from Dems currently in the Senate. We need to elect him to replace Ron Johnson. Everyone knows how bad Ron Johnson is for the state and the country.

What people don't know is that if we don't win the governor's race, it will be very, very challenging for us. The gerrymandered state senate has already said they'll replace popularly elected electors in 2024 with their own preferred electors. They would still like to re-litigate the 2020 presidential election. WI is critical to electing a Dem president in 2024. And re-electing Tony Evers in 2022 is critical for that.

Also, the GOP gubernatorial candidate Michaels is truly frightening. He is talking about making it illegal for people to cross state lines to seek abortions.

OFA Westside LA can help with phonebanking, and we'll be scheduling many events. When we talk to voters, it's important to talk about issues and then talk about how Tony Evers is dealing with those issues. The Evers website is very interactive; it spells out by county what Evers has done for voters in that county.