For the first time in 16 years, Democrats will have full control of the Wisconsin state Legislature after Tuesday night’s election flipped both the Senate and Assembly.
And the two presumptive leaders in those chambers say they have big plans for the upcoming legislative session.
Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein, D-Middleton, and Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer, D-Racine, both took the stage Tuesday night at a Milwaukee victory party for Governor-elect David Crowley, to share the news that, coupled with Crowley’s win, Democrats had achieved the state trifecta they’d hoped for all year.
“With this trifecta, we will end decades of Republican obstructionism,” said Neubauer, who is expected to be elevated by her Democratic colleagues to Assembly Speaker. “We will show that government can be a force for good in people’s lives, and that things will be different when Democrats are in charge.”
In postmortem interviews, Neubauer and Hesselbein, who is expected to be tapped by Democrats as Senate Majority leader, offered a range of priorities they’ll tackle upon taking power.
Both said lowering costs for families was a top priority, alongside increasing public school funding, legalizing cannabis and expanding abortion access.
They’ll have a state surplus of more than $3 billion to achieve their goals. But they also have their work cut out for them. With slim margins, the leaders will need to maintain control of diverse caucuses that include progressives and centrists, and lawmakers from safe districts alongside those who Republicans will be all too eager to run against in two years.
In an interview with WPR’s “Wisconsin Today,” Hesselbein said she is willing to work across the aisle.
“I did not appreciate the way that we have been treated for years. Last session alone, only five Democratic bills got a hearing; only two became law. I think that’s terrible,” she said. “I think people in the state of Wisconsin want everyone to try to work together for the common good of everybody.”
When Republicans had a firm grip on legislative power — and when their margins allowed them more wiggle room for dissent in their individual caucuses — there was often an unspoken rule that legislation only moved forward if it could pass without needing Democratic support.
Neubauer was circumspect when asked whether she’d maintain that tradition in reverse now that Democrats are in charge.
“My focus will be getting good policy done, and we will do whatever it takes to pass policy that improves the lives of the people of Wisconsin,” she said. “And I hope to gain Republican support in doing that.”
Outgoing Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, who held that leadership position longer than anyone in state history, posted words of caution to voters, and for his successors, on social media Tuesday night.
“Democrats spent the campaign promising lower costs and relief for families while offering few specifics,” he wrote. “Hold on to your wallets.”
And he predicted that Republicans will soon be back in power.
“Wisconsin’s strengths — our workforce, our communities and our tradition of common-sense governance — are durable,” he wrote. “Republicans will work every day to protect those strengths, highlight what is working and prepare for the moment when voters again choose balance and results over one-party control.”
The last time that Democrats held a trifecta, it was short-lived. They held power in the legislature from 2009 to 2011 while Democrat Jim Doyle was in his second and final term as governor. In that time, they fell short of some major goals, and were swept out by Gov. Scott Walker and all Republicans in the Tea Party wave election of 2010.
There are parallels between that time and this one. Then, Democrats had also waited 16 years for full control. And their caucus had similarly tight margins to the ones they secured on Tuesday.
But Neubauer said she is “very confident” in her party’s ability to take advantage of this moment.
“We have already been working through the big opportunities that we see in front of us and discussing what our first items will be and how the policy we pass can really change people’s lives,” she said. “There’s a lot to do, but we are very hopeful about the opportunity to get big things done.”
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