Social Security legislation passed by the U.S. Senate, which would cost more than $195 billion over 10 years, now goes to President Joe Biden for his signature. (Photo by Getty Images).
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate approved a broadly bipartisan bill early Saturday that would increase Social Security benefits for millions of Americans with pensions by ending two of the program’s policies in place for decades — the windfall elimination provision and government pension offset.
The legislation, which would cost more than $195 billion over 10 years, now goes to President Joe Biden for his signature. While he hasn’t released a public endorsement of the bill, extensive support in the House and Senate could signal he’s likely to support the measure becoming law.
The Senate vote was 76-20 and the House vote in November was 327-75.
Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins said during floor debate Wednesday that a fix for the two provisions has been decades in the making, noting she held the first hearing on the issue in the upper chamber in 2003.
Collins later partnered with the late California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein to introduce the first version of the bill in 2005, before working with former Maryland Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski in 2007 on another version.
“Social Security is the foundation of retirement income for most Americans, yet many teachers, firefighters, police officers and other public servants often see their earned Social Security benefits unfairly reduced by two provisions,” Collins said.
The windfall elimination provision, she said, “affects public servants who receive a pension from a job not covered by Social Security, but who also worked long enough in another job to qualify for Social Security benefits.”
The government pension offset affects people who worked in jobs that weren’t eligible for Social Security, but were eligible for a spousal benefit. That pension offset, Collins said, can reduce a spouse’s Social Security benefit by two-thirds of the non-covered pension, leading to 70% of those affected by the GPO to lose the entire Social Security benefit.
“This issue is extraordinarily important in my state of Maine because the state’s pension system does not include a Social Security component,” Collins said. “And among those most affected are Maine school teachers.”
Collins called the WEP and the GPO “an unfair, inequitable penalty.”
Hit to trust fund
North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said the bill’s title made it sound like “motherhood and apple pie,” but argued it wasn’t the right approach to address the problem.
He expressed concern the bill would reduce the Social Security trust fund by an additional $200 billion during the next decade, moving up the insolvency date by six months.
“This chamber needs courage and needs to say what needs to be said — we are about to pass an unfunded $200 billion spending package for a trust fund that is likely to go insolvent over the next nine to ten years and we’re going to pretend like somebody else has to fix it,” Tillis said. “Well, when you’re a U.S. senator and you have your election certificate, that falls on us.”
Tillis said he agreed with Collins and others who support the bill that the WEP and the GPO must be fixed, but said that should be part of a larger conversation about addressing Social Security’s upcoming insolvency.
“We do not disagree with what we ultimately need to do,” Tillis said. “This is a disagreement in how to get here and how to have something that assesses the downstream risk. So it is with some trepidation that I come to the floor and criticize the good work of Sen. Collins. But I do it because there is so much riding on us getting this right and having the courage to fix Social Security over the next few years.”
Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown said during floor debate Wednesday that people who paid into Social Security for the required amount of time should receive their full benefits.
“Social Security we know is a bedrock of our middle class — it’s retirement security that Americans pay into and earn over a lifetime,” Brown said. “You pay in for 40 quarters, you pay in essentially for 10 years. You’ve earned it. It should be there when you retire.”
Brown said it “makes no sense” that workers in certain public service jobs, like teachers, police officers and firefighters, cannot draw their full benefits.
“They protect our communities, they teach our kids, they pay into Social Security just like everyone else,” Brown said.
How do these provisions work?
The pension offset reduces a “spousal or widow(er)’s benefits of most people who also receive pensions based on federal, state, or local government employment not covered by Social Security,” according to a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.
The windfall elimination provision changes the formula to reduce Social Security benefits for people “who are also entitled to pension benefits based on earnings from jobs that were not covered by Social Security,” the report said.
The pension offset affects about 746,000 Americans while the windfall provision affects 2.1 million.
“The share of Social Security beneficiaries affected by the GPO varies widely by state,” the CRS report says. “States with a relatively larger share of GPO-affected beneficiaries are usually those with a larger share of state and local government employees not covered by Social Security or those with more (Civil Service Retirement System) retirees.”
The pension offset has a disproportionate impact on Social Security beneficiaries in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas and Utah.
The windfall elimination provision affects a larger percentage of residents in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Washington, Wyoming.
“Similar to the GPO, the share of Social Security beneficiaries affected by the WEP varies by state,” CRS wrote. “Typically, states that have a larger share of state and local government employees not covered by Social Security or more CSRS retirees have a relatively larger share of Social Security beneficiaries affected by the WEP.”
Bipartisan House support
The U.S. House voted 327-75 in November to approve the four-page bill, sponsored by Louisiana Republican Rep. Garret Graves and Virginia Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger.
Graves said during floor debate that for 40 years, Social Security worked by “treating people differently, discriminating against a certain set of workers.”
“These are police officers, teachers, firefighters, and other public servants,” Graves said at the time. “I worked side by side with these folks. They are not people who are overpaid. They are not people who are underworked.”
Spanberger called the windfall elimination provision and the government pension offset “two misguided provisions that were added to the Social Security Act in 1983 (and) have denied Americans the retirement security they worked for and expected to receive.”
“For more than 40 years, public servants have tirelessly implored their representatives in Congress to listen to their stories and to correct this glaring injustice,” Spanberger said. “Today, for the first time, Congress will vote on the Social Security Fairness Act, to repeal the WEP and the GPO, and to finally put an end to this theft.”
Opposition to bill
Missouri Republican Rep. Jason Smith, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said the two provisions affect around 4% of all Social Security beneficiaries, more than 60% of whom are concentrated in 10 states.
The two provisions, he said, “were put in place more than four decades ago to prevent workers with earnings that were exempt from Social Security payroll taxes from getting more generous treatment from Social Security than workers who spent their whole careers contributing to Social Security.”
“Unfortunately, these policies still result in overly generous benefits for some while unfairly penalizing others,” Smith said, before arguing the bill wasn’t the right way to address the two provisions.
Smith said that getting rid of the two provisions “without a replacement potentially trades unfair treatment for preferential treatment.”
He also expressed concern about how pulling more money from the Social Security trust fund would impact solvency.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill would cost $195.65 billion during the next 10 years and wrote in a letter to Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley that it would likely move up the Social Security insolvency date by six months.
“If H.R. 82 was enacted, the balance of the (Old-Age and Survivors Insurance) trust fund would, CBO projects, be exhausted roughly half a year earlier than it would be under current law,” CBO Director Phillip L. Swagel wrote. “The agency estimates that under current law, the balance of the OASI trust fund would be exhausted during fiscal year 2033.”
The Social Security trustees report for 2024 says that the program will be able to pay full benefits until 2035. After that, if Congress hasn’t brokered a solution, Social Security would be able to pay about 83% of benefits.
“Make no mistake, we still hold the majority,” Felzkowski said. “I hope we have better conversations. I hope we have better negotiations," Senate President Mary Felzkowsi said. (Screenshot via Zoom)
New-elected Senate President Mary Felzkowski (R-Tomahawk) said Tuesday that she hopes for more bipartisan conversations next year, but that her caucus plans to operate in the same way it has previously, since Republicans still hold the majority in the Wisconsin Legislature, even after losing a handful of seats this election year.
The Legislature will return with closer margins next year following elections under new legislative maps. Republicans will have an 18-15 majority in the Senate, down from their previous 22-seat supermajority. In the Assembly Republicans will hold a 55-45 majority. Felzkowski made her comments during a WisPolitics panel Tuesday alongside Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) and two strategists — Keith Gilkes, a consultant and former chief political advisor for Republican former Gov. Scott Walker and Democratic strategist Tanya Bjork.
“Make no mistake, we still hold the majority,” Felzkowski said. “I hope we have better conversations. I hope we have better negotiations.”
Felzkowski said she would “love” to have more meetings with Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, noting that former Gov. Scott Walker used to conduct weekly meetings with lawmakers during his time in office. (During the Walker administration, Republicans controlled both chambers of the Legislature and Democrats accused them of breaking the law by meeting in secret with Walker.)
Democratic leaders have said that they believe there will be more opportunities for work across the aisle next year, and that more competitive legislative districts will encourage that.
“We’ve got some Republicans. We’ve got some Democrats who are in close, 50-50 seats,” Neubauer said during the panel discussion. “I expect that some in Republican leadership want things to continue as they have in the past, but I expect that a lot of those members who are in those difficult seats are going to be pushing to invest in K-12, to lower costs for working families, to take up popular policy.”
The state budget — and potential use of the $4 billion budget surplus — will be a major focus for lawmakers when they return in 2025. Writing the budget is a time when lawmakers discuss potential policy changes on a wide array of issues, and the potential funding that should be placed behind them.
Potential budget proposals and policy changes in wake of school shooting
“This is the deadliest school shooting on record in Wisconsin and it’s just an incredible tragedy. I know that people across the state are sending their good thoughts, of course, to those who were impacted but also really are looking for leadership in this time,” Neubauer said. She said proposals from President Joe Biden, who called for Congress to pass universal background checks, a national red flag law and a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, as well as new proposals from Wisconsin legislators in the state budget could be paths for improving school safety.
“In Wisconsin, for many years, we’ve been talking about red flag laws. We’ve been talking about universal background checks. These are policies that are widely supported by the people of this state, and I think in particular when it hits home for kids,” Neubauer said.
“For my school district here in the Racine area, they would really like to invest in school safety, there are important programs that they run, there are physical improvements that they would like to make, and I know that we’re going to be having a budget conversation very soon,” Neubauer continued. “I do hope that we’re able to keep in mind that investments in K-12 are also investments in school safety, and that’s a responsibility of the Legislature for the coming session.”
Felzkowski stopped short of endorsing the policy changes that Neubauer mentioned. She instead said that people need to look at what has changed in American society, adding that people also took guns to school 30 and 40 years ago.
“We went hunting after school and nobody was afraid. Nobody was afraid that they were going to get shot at school, so society has changed,” Felzkowski said. “I think we need to recognize those factors that have changed in our society.”
“We can pass a lot of different legislation, but we need to start looking at underlying causes…Is it social media? Is it cyberbullying? Is it too much screen time in our children? Is it violence that we’ve allowed them to watch at a young age?” Felzkowski asked. “I hope we can come together with a lot of tough conversations and look at that.”
Felzkowski said increasing weapons screening in schools could also be a point of discussion.
“Those are conversations that we should have in this budget to help fund ideas, so that people can’t walk through the door with no screening,” Felzkowski said.
Spending the surplus, funding priorities
The state’s $4 billion budget surplus will likely be a key point of discussion during the budget writing process. Felzkowski said that when it comes to the surplus Republicans will “do exactly what we did last time,” and don’t plan on using the money for recurring projects.
“If the majority of this is one-time money we’re going to spend it on one-time projects,” Felzkowski said. “One-time money should be spent on infrastructure. Instead of borrowing, we’ll spend it on our roads. We’ll spend it on maintaining our buildings.”
Felzkowski said during the budget process, lawmakers will survey current spending costs and what funding could be needed for other priorities. She said returning money to taxpayers would also be a priority.
“If we have a $4 billion surplus, then we have too much of our taxpayers’ money; we can return it to them,” Felzkowski said.
Felzkowski added that the government didn’t choose for property taxes to rise in certain communities. Her comments follow a Wisconsin Policy Forum report that found gross K-12 property taxes in the state are expected to rise by the largest amount since 2009. She said she voted in favor of raising property taxes in her own community.
“When people vote at the local level to increase their taxes, their property taxes, that’s a decision they make, and that’s a decision they choose to make,” Felzkowski said. “I don’t think that’s government making that decision for them and I think that’s something they can do.”
Neubauer said Assembly Democrats would be open to conversations about tax cuts, if they’re targeted.
“We’re just simply not gonna give a tax cut to the wealthiest Wisconsinites and people who do not need it. We are very open to considering a tax cut that is targeted, that is focused on middle class and working families,” Neubauer said. She said also that people in their communities are being “forced to raise their own property taxes in order to fund their schools.”
Felzkowski didn’t specify what potential tax cut proposals would look like, but noted that Evers “moved the needle” for what he considered a middle class tax cut when he vetoed some tax cut bills lawmakers sent him earlier this year. Those proposals included raising the top income in the state’s second-lowest tax bracket to just over $112,000, exempting up to $150,000 in retirement income from the state income tax and increasing the current maximum marriage tax credit. Evers did sign a law increasing Wisconsin’s child care tax credit.
“If Gov. Evers continues to move the needle on what ‘middle class’ is, then we’re kind of at a loss,” Felzkowski said, adding that some families struggling financially could use a tax cut. “We gave [Evers] the tax cut and he still vetoed it. I’m hoping that that needle doesn’t move again.”
Several policy proposals are likely to be discussed next year in relation to the budget, including for Medicaid expansion and higher education. States that accept the federal Medicaid expansion agree to cover people with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty guideline, and the federal government pays 90% of the cost for the additional Medicaid recipients, more than the 60% Wisconsin currently receives.
Evers has proposed that Wisconsin join 40 other states across the country in adopting the Medicaid expansion every budget cycle, and Republicans have rejected the proposal each time. Felzkowski said that it remains off the table for Republicans.
“We don’t have a gap in Wisconsin, so why would we take people off of private insurance to put them on government insurance and put our hospitals, who are already suffering, into a worse position with a lower reimbursement rate?” Felzkowski said. “We don’t need to create more gaps in health care when we have people covered.”
Neubauer said that Medicaid expansion would continue to be a priority for Assembly Democrats. She said that some insurance remains a “huge strain” on families with private insurance.
“They frankly are not able to afford it. They are cutting in other areas to afford that insurance,” Neubauer said.
Higher education will also be a focus of budget discussions as the UW System has requested an additional $855 million to bring the system up to the national median in state spending. Felzkowski said that she hasn’t heard much support for the proposal.
Other issue areas
Lawmakers may also turn their attention back to medical marijuana legalization this year. Felzkowski said that there was one person standing in the way of getting it done last session: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos.
“That person has some pretty strict ideas on how that bill should be drafted,” Felzkowski said. Vos’ proposal last session included opening a handful of state run dispensaries, an unpopular idea among many in the Legislature. “We’re hoping to have a conversation in early January to see if there isn’t a way that we can come to a consensus between Assembly Republicans and Senate Republicans to negotiate a compromise.”
Felzkowski said that a bill to allow “Monday processing” of absentee ballots could also come forward next session. A proposal to allow election clerks to begin processing absentee ballots on the Monday before the election passed the Assembly last session but never advanced in the Senate.
“There are many senators that were very much in support of that. The chair of the Senate elections committee was not and chose not to hear that. He is no longer a member of the Senate,” Felzkowski said. Sen. Dan Knodl, who served as chair of that committee, chose not to run for reelection under the new legislative maps, but will serve in the Assembly next year. “I’m hoping this year that we will have a committee hearing on that bill if it’s brought back and that we have a robust conversation on that. I personally think that is something that we should be doing in the state of Wisconsin.”
Milwaukee counts absentee ballots at a central location and reports the totals only when they are finished.
Those results were delayed a few hours this year because election officials in Milwaukee recounted about 30,000 absentee ballots during the night of Nov. 3 into Nov. 4 because doors on the ballot tabulators were not properly sealed.
In a Nov. 11 social media post, user End Wokeness claimed a 3:30 a.m. “ballot dump” lost candidate Eric Hovde the Senate race in Wisconsin. The chart in the post shows no evidence of fraud, just Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s vote total increasing when Milwaukee reported its absentee ballot results.
Baldwin received 82% of votes from the city’s absentee ballots and 78% overall, the Milwaukee Election Commission reported.
Wisconsin law requires clerks to post the number of total outstanding absentee ballots by the close of polls.
Baldwin won with 49.4% of the vote to Hovde’s 48.5% statewide, according to unofficial results.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Wisconsin Republican Eric Hovde admitted Tuesday that he lost the U.S. Senate race to Democratic incumbent Tammy Baldwin, but refused to concede and instead repeated misleading claims about the election while he considers a recount.
Hovde preleased a video saying he wanted to gather more information and assess whether to seek a recount. But in a later interview on 1130-AM radio, Hovde admitted he lost while still stopping short of conceding.
“I will definitely pick myself up and move on and fight for our wonderful country and state, which is why I got into this whole thing,” Hovde said. “It’s the most painful loss I’ve ever experienced.”
Hovde can request a recount because his margin of defeat was less than 1 percentage point, at about 29,000 votes. But he hasn’t said yet whether he will request one, explaining in a video directed at his supporters that he wants to review all of the information and options that are available.
“This is a difficult decision because I want to honor your support and, at the same time, bring closure to this election for our state,” Hovde said in the video posted on the social media platform X.
Hovde pointed to what he claimed were irregularities with the vote results. There is no evidence of any wrongdoing in the election, the results of which are still being reviewed by counties before they submit the canvassed totals to the state by Nov. 19 for certification by Dec. 1.
Democrats, and even some Republicans, immediately called out Hovde for what they said was a perpetuation of lies about the integrity of the election.
“Stop trying to erode trust in our elections (and I say that as someone who supported Hovde),” said Jim Villa, a longtime Republican who previously worked in the Legislature and Milwaukee county executive’s office under Scott Walker before Walker became governor.
“That grift needs to stop!” Villa posted on X.
Baldwin campaign spokesperson Andrew Mamo accused Hovde of “sowing doubt about our very democracy.”
“Leaders on both sides of the aisle should condemn the lies he’s spreading and the pathetic campaign he continues to run,” Mamo said. “Tammy Baldwin has won this race and there is only one thing for Eric Hovde to do: concede.”
John D. Johnson, a Marquette University researcher and data scientist, reacted to Hovde’s video on X by saying, “Reckless disregard for the actual facts here.”
Hovde also raised concerns about precincts in Milwaukee where turnout was higher than the number of registered voters posted on the county’s website. That’s because the original number posted didn’t account for people who registered to vote on Election Day, something that happened in both Republican and Democratic parts of the state in the election.
The bipartisan Milwaukee Election Commission put out a statement refuting Hovde’s “baseless claims.” The commission said it was “fully confident that Mr. Hovde’s accusations lack any merit.”
Andrew Iverson, executive director of the Wisconsin Republican Party, said that “Hovde has the right to request a recount and pursue legal remedies to address whatever concerns he may have regarding the election.”
Although there is no evidence of wrongdoing in the election, many Hovde supporters have questioned a surge in votes for Baldwin that were reported by Milwaukee around 4:30 a.m. the morning after the election. Those votes put Baldwin over the top.
The votes were the tabulation of absentee ballots from Milwaukee. Those ballots are counted at a central location and reported all at once, often well after midnight on Election Day. Elections officials for years have made clear that those ballots are reported later than usual because of the sheer number that have to be counted and the fact that state law does not allow for processing them before polls open.
Republicans and Democrats alike, along with state and Milwaukee election leaders, warned in the days and weeks leading up to the election that the Milwaukee absentee ballots would be reported late and cause a huge influx of Democratic votes.
The reporting of those absentee ballots swung the 2020 presidential election to President Joe Biden, fueling baseless conspiracy theories that the election had been stolen from Donald Trump.
This year, the number of Democratic absentee votes in Milwaukee was not enough to sway the race for Vice President Kamala Harris, but it did put Baldwin over the top.
Hovde said before those ballots arrived that it “appeared” he had won and since last Wednesday, “numerous parties” had reached out to him about alleged inconsistencies.
But on election night, Republican strategists posted on X that Hovde was likely to fall behind Baldwin once the absentee votes from Milwaukee and other Democratic-heavy cities were posted. That is what happened.
To seek a recount, Hovde would have to request one within three days after the last county completed its canvass of the vote. Those are due by Nov. 19, but counties could complete the task sooner.
Hovde, a multimillionaire bank owner and real estate developer, first ran for Senate in 2012 but lost in the Republican primary. He was backed by Trump this year and poured millions of dollars of his own money into his campaign.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) speaks to reporters after testifying on April 25, 2023. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)
Devin LeMahieu was reelected Thursday to serve as Senate majority leader. He’ll lead a smaller Senate Republican caucus than in previous years.
“I am honored by the trust they have placed in me to lead our caucus,” LeMahieu said in a statement. “I’m looking forward to working with everyone and having a successful session.”
Under new legislative maps that were put in place by the Legislature and Gov. Tony Evers after the Wisconsin Supreme Court determined previous maps were an unconstitutional gerrymander, Democrats flipped four Senate districts during Tuesday’s election, ending Senate Republicans’ 22-seat supermajority and giving Democrats the opportunity to flip the chamber in 2026. The Senate makeup now includes 18 Republicans and 15 Democrats.
“The No. 1 issue we heard from voters was the effect of rising costs and inflation,” LeMahieu said. “Senate Republicans’ top priority will be returning the state’s surplus to hardworking families.”
LeMahieu was first elected to the Senate in 2014, and has served as the majority leader since 2021.
Sen. Mary Felzkowski (R-Tomahawk) was elected as Senate president, replacing Sen. Chris Kapenga (R-Pewaukee).
“The Senators in our caucus represent 18 vastly different areas of the state, and each have their own unique perspectives on the challenges that face Wisconsin,” Felzkowski said in a statement. “My focus this session will be continuing to promote successful conservative policies that will enrich the lives of the people of Wisconsin.”
"Fire Duey Stroebel" sign at Habush Sinykin Election night party. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)
Tuesday’s election results for the Wisconsin State Legislature were mixed. Wisconsin Democrats won several key state Senate races, breaking the Republican 22-seat supermajority and laying the groundwork for Democrats to compete for a majority in 2026. In the Assembly, Republicans appear to have held their majority with many incumbents defeating their challengers.
New legislative maps, which were adopted in February after the state Supreme Court ruled the old maps were an unconstitutional gerrymander, gave Democrats the opportunity to run in competitive districts in many cases for the first time in over a decade.
Half of the state Senate was up for reelection this year, and Democrats ran in each Senate district.
Democrats won five districts they were targeting on Tuesday — ousting Republican incumbents, winning newly created open seats and keeping a Democratic incumbent in office. The results bring the Senate makeup to 18 Republicans and 15 Democrats. The previous makeup was 22 Republicans and 10 Democrats.
Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) celebrated in a statement Wednesday morning.
“Senate Democrats defeated Republicans’ manufactured supermajority, and we are on a pathway to the majority in 2026,” Hesselbein said “Our candidates knocked on thousands of doors, listened to voters, and clearly articulated their vision for Wisconsin. Senate Democrats will tirelessly defend our shared values and uplift working families.”
Democrat Jodi Habush Sinykin of Whitefish Bay declared victory over Sen. Duey Stroebel of Saukville, ousting the lawmaker who has served in the Senate since 2016. The race was one of the most expensive state legislative races in the state with spending surpassing $10.2 million, according to a review by WisPolitics.
The district sits north of Milwaukee and includes Whitefish Bay, Fox Point, Bayside, River Hills, Menomonee Falls, Germantown, Mequon, Cedarburg, Grafton and Port Washington.
This will be Habush Sinykin’s first time holding public office. She ran for office once before in a special election for an open seat in 2023, but lost to Sen. Dan Knodl.
Hesselbein welcomed Habush Sinykin in a release, saying that she and her team ran an “incredible” campaign.
“As the underdog, she did not shy away from the hard work necessary to win this race,” Hesselbain said. “Jodi’s deep ties to the community, thoughtful decision-making, and experience as an attorney will allow her to effectively legislate for the needs of this community.”
At an election night party in Theinsville, Habush Sinykin started the night greeting, thanking and talking to her supporters, though results of the race hadn’t been called by 2 a.m. when the party ended. Signs declaring “Fire Duey Stroebel” were placed throughout the party.
Habush Sinykin started the night greeting, thanking and talking to her supporters, though results of the race hadn’t been called by 2 a.m. when the party ended. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)
Democrat Sarah Keyeski, a mental health provider from Lodi, declared victory over incumbent Sen. Joan Ballweg just after midnight in the race for the 14th Senate District. Keyeski is a political newcomer, and this will be her first term in office.
The district sits north of Madison and covers parts of Dane, Columbia, Sauk and Richland counties, including the cities of Deforest, Reedsburg, Baraboo, Lodi, Columbus, Portage, Richland Center and Wisconsin Dells. The district changed under new legislative maps, and Ballweg, who has served in the Senate since 2021, was drawn into another district but decided to move to remain in the 14th district.
Hesselbein said she is “confident that Sarah will be a strong voice for folks living in the 14th Senate District.”
Democrat Jamie Wall, a business consultant from Green Bay, declared victory over Republican Jim Rafter in the race for the open 30th Senate District. The newly created district sits in Brown County, representing Green Bay, Ashwaubenon, De Pere, Allouez, Bellevue.
Democrat Kristin Alfheim, a member of the Appleton Common Council, defeated Republican Anthony Phillips, a cancer physician, in the race for the 18th Senate District in the Fox Valley, including Appleton, Menasha, Neenah and Oshkosh.
Democratic Sen. Brad Pfaff of Onalaska, won reelection over Republican challenger Stacey Klein, clinching his second term in office. Pfaff was first elected to the Senate in 2020, and previously served as the secretary-designee of the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, after being appointed by Gov. Tony Evers, though Republicans later denied his nomination.
Highly contested Assembly races
All of the Assembly’s 99 seats were up for election this year, and after the new maps were implemented, Democrats saw an opportunity to make gains, and potentially flip the body. The new majority is likely 54 Republicans to 45 Democrats.
While Republicans held onto enough seats to retain their majority this year, Democrats cut the previous 64-seat Republican majority by 10 seats and had all their incumbents reelected.
“Fair maps have allowed voters to hold legislators accountable, and this will change how policy is written and what bills move through the legislature,” said Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) in a statement Wednesday. “I hope and expect that this shift will result in more collaboration and bipartisan work in the legislature, because that is what the people of Wisconsin have asked us to do.”
The Assembly Democrats will add 23 new members to their caucus.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester), told reporters Wednesday afternoon that the party was proud of those who won. He said the Republican Assembly caucus will have eight new members in the Legislature.
“We are at 54 strong,” Vos said. “Many people, especially the minority leader, spent the last three months telling everybody, they were going to be in the majority. They were clearly wrong, and again now we get the chance to set the agenda for the rest of the state with our colleagues in the state Senate.”
Vos and Assembly Majority Leader Tyler August (R-Walworth) said the results were a sign of Republican strength, and that Democrats were only able to pick up seats because the maps, which were proposed by Evers and passed by the Republican-majority Legislature, were drawn to favor them.
“The only way that Democrats picked up seats was by having a map that was clearly gerrymandered to give them a result,” Vos said.
“We were able to fight against that because we have better candidates, a better message and we are right on the issues when it comes down to it,” August said.
Vos, the longest speaker in state history, said he will run to lead Assembly Republicans again. He said the caucus’ priorities for the session will need to be discussed in the coming weeks, but one will likely focus on the state’s budget surplus.
“We are not going to spend that. It’s going to either go back to the taxpayers as relief, or it’s going to stay in the budget as a surplus because I am not going to support a plan that says if Evers vetoes tax cuts, we’re going to spend it on growing the size of government,” Vos said.
Many Republican incumbents defeated their Democratic challengers. Republican Rep. Jessie Rodriguez of Oak Creek defeated Democratic challenger David Marstellar in the race for the 21st Assembly District, which sits in Milwaukee County.
Republican Rep. Todd Novak of Dodgeville defeated Democratic challenger Elizabeth Grabe in the race for the 51st Assembly District, which represents part of Lafayette, Iowa and Grant counties.
Republican Rep. Shannon Zimmerman of River Falls defeated Democrat Alison Page in the 30th Assembly District, which represents the cities of Hudson and River Falls as well as the towns of Troy and St. Joseph. Zimmerman has served in the Assembly since 2016.
Republican Rep. Bob Donovan defeated Democrat LuAnn Bird in their rematch to represent Assembly District 61, which covers Greendale and Hales Corner in Milwaukee County.
Republican Rep. Patrick Snyder defeated Democratic challenger Yee Leng Xiong, executive director at the Hmong American Center and a member of the Marathon County Board, in the race for the 85th Assembly District. The district represents Wausau and other parts of Marathon County. Snyder has served in the Assembly since 2016.
Republican Rep. Clint Moses, who has served in the Assembly since 2020, defeated Democratic challenger Joe Plouff, in the race for Assembly District 92, which covers Menomonie and Chippewa Falls.
Democratic candidate Joe Sheehan, former superintendent of the Sheboygan Area School District and executive director of the Sheboygan County Economic Development Corporation, defeated Republican Rep. Amy Binsfield, a first-term representative from Sheboygan, in the race for Assembly District 26.
Democrat Tara Johnson, a former La Crosse County Board member, defeated Rep. Loren Oldenburg (R-Viroqua), who was first elected to the Assembly in 2018, in the race for the 96th Assembly District.
Democrat Ryan Spaude, a criminal prosecutor, defeated Republican Patrick Buckley, who serves as the Brown County Board chairman, in the race for the 89th Assembly District, which covers parts of Brown County including Ashwaubenon and Green Bay.
Democratic Rep. Jodi Emerson of Eau Claire defeated Republican challenger Michele Magadance Skinner in the race for the 91st Assembly District.
Democrat Christian Phelps defeated Republican James Rolbiecki in the race for the 93rd Assembly District, which represents part of Eau Claire. The seat represents a gain for Democrats in the area.
Democratic Rep. Deb Andraca, who flipped a district when she was first elected in 2020, said Tuesday night at the Election party in Thiensville that Democrats adding seats in the Assembly was a “different day” and Democrats in the Assembly would no longer be trying to just save the governor’s veto. She declared victory in her reelection bid on Tuesday night.
“The gerrymander is dead,” Andraca said. “We’re no longer saving the veto. We are going to go back in the Wisconsin State Assembly with more seats than we have had in over a decade. We are going to be looking at the ability to negotiate, bring our bills forward and it’s going to be a completely different day.”
“We are going to be able to make much more of a difference in the Wisconsin State Assembly, and that’s because of all of the hard work that people in this room have done election after election and year after year.”
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, the national organization that works to elect Democrats to state legislatures, celebrated the Wisconsin results in a statement.
“Thanks to fair maps and a smart strategy, the GOP’s stranglehold on Wisconsin’s Legislature is coming to an end,” DLCC President Heather Williams said. “Our 2024 wins mark just the beginning. Seat by seat, the DLCC is committed to continuing to build and defend Democratic power in the Wisconsin Legislature. Republicans have been put on notice: the DLCC is poised to make Wisconsin a future Democratic trifecta.”
Wisconsin State Capitol (Wisconsin Examiner photo)
Control of the Wisconsin State Senate is unlikely to change this year even with new legislative maps in place, as only half of the seats are up for election. However, a handful of the Senate races will be key to determining how much the current 22-seat Republican supermajority changes and will set the stage for either Republicans or Democrats to win the majority in the 2026 election cycle.
Wisconsin’s state legislative races are the most competitive they’ve been in over a decade due to the new legislative maps that were adopted in February after the state Supreme Court ruled the old maps were an unconstitutional gerrymander. Democrats are running candidates in all 16 Senate seats up for election, while Republicans are running in 11 districts. Senators serve for four-year terms and make a salary of $57,000 per year.
With just over two weeks until Election Day, the Wisconsin Examiner took a look at four state Senate races, which are among the most competitive, happening across the state.
Senate District 8
The race for Senate District 8 pits Republican Sen. Duey Stroebel against Democrat Jodi Habush Sinykin, an attorney and environmental advocate from Whitefish Bay. The district sits north of Milwaukee and includes Whitefish Bay, Fox Point, Bayside, River Hills, Menomonee Falls, Germantown, Mequon, Cedarburg, Grafton and Port Washington.
An analysis by John Johnson, a fellow at Marquette Law School, shows the seat has a 53% Republican lean when compared to 2022 election results. CN Analysis rates the race a toss-up.
Stroebel was first elected to the state Senate in a 2015 special election after serving four years in the Assembly. In his last two elections, he faced no opposition in either the primary or the general election.
Sen. Duey Stroebel
If elected, it would be Habush Sinykin’s first time holding public office. She ran an unsuccessful but close campaign for the state Senate last year in a 2023 special election against Sen. Dan Knodl. With the new maps, Knodl decided to run for the Assembly this year to avoid running against Stroebel, who currently represents Senate District 20 under the old maps.
It is already one of the most expensive legislative races in state history with close to $2 million in spending as of October.
Democrats in the race have sought to highlight reproductive health — and Stroebel’s record on the issue.
“Couples across Wisconsin are worried whether they will have the availability of IVF in the future. Doctors are worried about whether they could provide life-saving care to patients under Republican abortion bans… Students considering Health Care careers worry about the possibility of not being able to safely practice without threat of prosecution and women worry about whether or not they will be able to make decisions about their own bodies,” Habush Sinkykin said at a recent roundtable event. “I am running to help alleviate these worries and to secure reproductive freedoms across the state.”
Habush Sinykin has been critical of Stroebel’s past record on abortion and other reproductive health issues, pointing to his cosponsorship of a failed proposed amendment in 2019 that would have included fetal personhood in the state constitution.
The amendment would give embryos the same rights as pregnant women, she said. “This is important because, as we heard and saw in Alabama, this would deprive women and families of opportunities for IVF here in Wisconsin,” Habush Sinykin said.
Stroebel was also the only senator to vote against a bill that would have expanded postpartum Medicaid coverage. He, along with other Republicans senators, also rejected Democrats’ attempts to bring a bill to the floor that would have implemented protections for contraception and fertility treatments.
Stroebel’s campaign recently sent a cease and desist order to Habush Sinykin’s campaign because of an ad, which accused the lawmakers of voting to end IVF.
“I have never voted to restrict access to IVF, and I never will. Any assertion otherwise is a lie,” Stroebel said in a statement.
Habush Sinykin’s campaign has stood by the statement.
Stroebel, meanwhile, is seeking to place his work in the Senate at the centerpiece of his campaign. He has served on the powerful Joint Finance Committee since 2019, and has recently helped advocate for the passage of a massive expansion of Wisconsin’s school choice program, a new literacy law that changes how reading is taught in the state and repealing the personal property tax, which was included in Act 12.
Stroebel said during an interview on the Political Power Hour on 620 WTMJ that inflation is the issue that he is discussing the most with voters at their doors. He said that he has knocked over 25,000 doors this election year.
“The cost of living is really crushing people. I mean, we’re talking about people on fixed incomes, we’re talking about retired people, we’re talking about young families,” Stroebel said. “We, as government, can do a lot more to help that situation out.”
Stroebel said that the state’s budget surplus should be given back to taxpayers. The most recent report from the Department of Administration found that the state ended its 2024 fiscal year with a $4.6 billion state budget surplus — outpacing previous projections. He noted that the Legislature sent Gov. Tony Evers several tax cut proposals — many of which were vetoed.
Stroebel said he supports a “middle class tax cut” — meaning one that wouldn’t touch the state’s highest tax bracket and would also focus on taxes on retirement income.
Habush Sinykin said in an interview with WisEye that the state’s budget surplus needs to be used to invest in Wisconsin’s K-12 schools, including increases to per-pupil and special education funding, and the university system as well as workforce development. She has said that tax cuts should be targeted towards working families and retirees.
Senate District 14
Republican incumbent Joan Ballweg and Democrat Sarah Keyeski, a mental health provider, are running against each other in the race for Senate District 14. The district sits north of Madison and covers parts of Dane, Columbia, Sauk and Richland counties, including the cities of Deforest, Reedsburg, Baraboo, Lodi, Columbus, Portage, Richland Center and Wisconsin Dells.
An analysis by Marquette Law School showed that the seat is a 53.3% Democratic lean. CN Analysis rates the district as ‘Tilt .’
Ballweg has served in the Assembly from 2004 to 2018 and was elected to the Senate in 2020. During her time in the Legislature, she has served in leadership positions, including currently as majority caucus vice-chair and is also a member of the Joint Finance Committee. She also previously served as the mayor of Markesan.
Under the new maps, Markesan was drawn into the new 13th Senate District, which is represented by Sen. John Jagler (R-Watertown). Ballweg has said she now lives in Pardeeville.
Keyeski is a mental health provider from Lodi, and a political newcomer.
Reproductive health care is again one of the issues at the center of the race. At a candidate forum hosted by Lodi Optimists Club last week, both candidates were asked whether they would vote to “protect women’s reproductive health” by putting legal abortion into law.
Keyeski, who supports codifying Roe v. Wade protections into law, said people have the right to make choices over their own bodies. Ballweg, meanwhile, sought to focus on other parts of reproductive health care, rather than abortion.
Sen. Joan Ballweg. Official legislative portrait.
“Before you get to the abortion, first of all, I totally agree that women should be participating or using whatever type of contraception processes that they are comfortable with… in consultation with their doctors, of course,” Ballweg said.
Many Republican candidates at the state and federal levels have stepped back from restrictive abortion positions this election cycle. A recent poll found that most Wisconsinites oppose criminalizing abortion.
Ballweg has previously talked about her opposition to abortion.
According to the Ripon Commonwealth Press, Ballweg explained that she was anti-abortion at a listening session in 2022 and she didn’t think that the 1849 law, which stopped abortion care in Wisconsin for over a year, should be changed to include exceptions for rape and incest.
“I believe that life begins at conception. … Even if it is started in a very terrible way, that’s still life,” Ballweg said. “… If a woman is raped and it results in a pregnancy, that person who raped her was terrible, but she wasn’t.”
“I believe there are options. … She has the choice to love that child and keep that child with her, or she can leave that baby at the hospital, walk out the door and that baby will be taken care of.”
In an interview with WisEye, Ballweg said the issue isn’t currently the responsibility of the Legislature. The Wisconsin Supreme Court has accepted two cases filed by Attorney General Josh Kaul and Planned Parenthood that will determine if Wisconsinites have a right to abortion care.
“I expect that we’ll be getting an answer from them in the not too distant future, so it’s out of the Legislature’s hands at this point,” Ballweg said. When asked again about whether she has a position on whether abortion should be limited after a certain number of weeks, Ballweg noted that she supported a 20-week limit a couple of years ago.
Ballweg has said one of her top priorities if reelected would be to help pass a bill to extend postpartum Medicaid coverage to a year. Wisconsin is one of two states that hasn’t accepted it. She was the lead Senate author on a bill that would have done this last year, but it never received a vote in the Assembly.
“It’s important that we have mom there for our youngest Wisconsinites, so that mom and baby can be healthy together,” Ballweg said in an interview with WisconsinEye.
Keyeski, meanwhile, has said she supports full Medicaid expansion. Wisconsin is one of 10 states that haven’t accepted the federal Medicaid expansion. Medicaid eligibility, under the expansion, would be extended to adults under age 65 with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level.
“Approximately 90,000 people, if we expanded Medicaid, would have better access to care and that’s really important. One of the things that’s also really important about expanding this is that our rural communities really depend on our small clinics, our small hospitals, really depend on Medicaid money,” Keyeski said at the forum. “Many of our rural communities have people that are on Medicaid and so that is what keeps those smaller hospitals and clinics viable. We’ve seen some having to close down now in the Eau Claire area Chippewa Falls area, and that is a travesty and that could have been somewhat helped by having this Medicaid expansion.”
Democratic candidate Sarah Keyeski, a mental health professional from Lodi, speaks at a forum hosted by Main Street Alliance, the Wisconsin Farmers Union and Wisconsin Early Education. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)
Education funding has also represented a key issue in the race. The focus comes as more than 100 school districts across the state will go to voters to ask for additional funding in November.
Keyeski has said that she wants additional state funding to go towards public schools across Wisconsin, including by increasing special education funding.
“We need to change the school funding formula, so that we have more money coming toward our schools,” Keyeski said at the forum, noting that the state has a significant budget surplus.
Keyeski has also said she doesn’t believe that private schools should receive public funding.
Ballweg also said she supports increasing special education funding.
“We’re at about 33% of coverage right now. School districts can have a problem if they have one or two really difficult cases, and we do some things for those high cost special needs students also, but in general, the No. 1 stressor on our school districts is filling the need for special needs kids, so yes, keep making sure that we increase that,” Ballweg said during the WisEye interview.
Senate District 30
Republican Jim Rafter and Democrat Jamie Wall are running against each other in the race for the newly created 30th Senate District, which covers Green Bay, Ashwaubenon, De Pere, Allouez, Bellevue.
The district has a 52.6% Democratic lean, according to the Marquette Law School analysis. CN Analysis rates the race as “Lean D.”
Democrat Jamie Wall at the Democratic Party of Brown County office. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)
Wall is a business consultant from Green Bay. He helped create New North, an economic development organization that seeks to promote business growth in Brown County and northeast Wisconsin. He ran for public office once before in 2012 for Wisconsin’s 8th Congressional District seat, losing to former U.S. Rep. Reid Ribble 55% to 44%.
Wall said Wisconsin’s new maps are a major reason he felt he could step into the race this year. The new maps placed three lawmakers in the 30th Senate District together. Sen. Eric Wimberger (R-Green Bay), who is the current incumbent, decided to move to another district because of the new maps under, while the other lawmakers are leaving the Senate.
“I wouldn’t have bothered under the old system, since that would have been a fool’s errand,” Wall said in an interview. “The Green Bay Metro here was kind of the poster child for the old gerrymander.”
Wall said he hasn’t been happy with the direction of the Legislature for the last 15 years.
“They made it so it was illegal for them not to be in power and they got to be their bad selves. They didn’t have to think about the voter in the middle… They could just go straight down the far right side of the highway and only worry about their primary voters… I don’t think it was good for the state,” Wall said.
Wall said the costs of housing, health care and child care are three of the issues that he would want to work to help address.
“We need to take a hard look at barriers to building more houses and not just houses, but apartments, condos, duplexes, to increase the housing supply,” Wall said. He said more could also be done with programs that the Wisconsin Economic Development Association (WEDA) has to help first-time home buyers afford down payments and their first mortgage.
When it comes to health care, Wall said he supports Medicaid expansion and would also want to have conversations about ways of streamlining and making care more efficient, though he said that doesn’t mean depriving people of care.
Rafter said in a WisEye interview that he is running for the Senate so that he can help bring people together to work towards finding solutions to issues facing Wisconsinites. He said that his experience as village president would help him do this.
Jim Rafter. Photo courtesy of campaign.
His campaign did not respond to an interview request from the Examiner.
Rafter said his top priority in the Legislature would be to work on bills that would help with the cost of living including the cost of housing, food, clothing, child care. One potential bill to do this would be a tax cut bill. He said that most, if not all, of the budget surplus needs to go back to taxpayers.
“The state of Wisconsin has overcharged or overtaxed its citizens,” Rafter said. “We’ve got to figure out how not to do that.”
Wall has said that when it comes to the budget surplus he would also support some tax relief.
“The state’s running record surpluses and we should give some of that money back to the people who need it to help them at a time where many people rightly feel a little bit pinched,” Wall said. He said he liked Evers’ middle class tax cut proposal for the 2023 budget, which was rejected by Republican lawmakers.
Rafter said that there need to be conversations about increasing funding to schools, and he noted that Green Bay is one of the schools going to referendum.
Senate District 18
Democrat Kris Alfheim and Republican Anthony Phillips are running against each other in the race for the 18th Senate District in the Fox Valley, including Appleton, Menasha, Neenah and Oshkosh.
The open district has a 55.5% Democratic lean, according to the Marquette Law School analysis. The current 18th Senate District incumbent Sen. Dan Feyen (R-Fond du Lac) was drawn into the 20th Senate District under the new maps.
Alfheim has served on the Appleton Common Council since 2020. She previously ran a campaign for the state Senate in 2022, losing to Sen. Rachael Cabral Guevara (R-Appleton) 54% to 45.9%.
Kris Alfheim, a member of the Appleton Common Council, is running for the 18th Senate District against Republican Anthony Phillips, a cancer physician who wants to keep the district red. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)
Alfheim has said that she is running for the Senate on the “simple idea” that “people in Wisconsin like me are tired of the bickering, of the gridlock, of the dysfunction and are ready to actually get things done.”
Alfheim has said that, if elected, she will be a “pragmatic” legislator . One of her goals is using the state’s budget surplus to invest in schools and municipalities.
The best way the state can help lower taxes is to invest in local needs, Alfheim said during an interview with WisEye. “When you hold back revenue from the state, to our school systems, to our municipalities, that forces the school systems and the municipalities to then raise taxes. The best way to control those rising costs are to actually fund the systems that we account for on a regular basis.”
Phillips, a cancer physician in the Fox Valley, is a political newcomer. He has said that he wants to help keep the district in Republican hands and has described himself as a “right-center” candidate. His priorities for office include keeping law enforcement funded, income and property taxes low, bolstering parental oversight of education and ensuring families have access to health care.
Anthony Phillips. (Photo courtesy of Phillips)
Phillips has made transgender issues a focal point of his campaign. In his campaign announcement, he highlighted Evers’ veto of a bill that would have barred transgender girls from participating on girls athletic teams. The issue also came up in a primary debate where Phillips talked about Alfheim.
[Alfheim has] “got to normalize this crazy notion of biological males playing girls’ sports,” Phillips said during the debate.
Alfheim is a member of the LGTBQ+ community, and a spotlight candidate for the LGTBQ+ Victory Fund, which is a political action committee dedicated to growing the number of out LGBTQ+ public officials in the U.S.
Democrats have also highlighted abortion and reproductive health issues in the race. Alfheim has said that she wants to work towards restoring women’s access to reproductive health care. Phillips, meanwhile, lists “advocating for a culture of Life to protect the lives of the unborn” as one of the issues that matter to him, and has previously said he would support a referendum on abortion restrictions, and believes people would favor some level of restriction on abortion access.
Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Republican challenger Eric Hovde repeatedly accused each other of lying over the course of their closely watched Senate race during an often testy and confrontational debate Friday.
Here are eight takeaways from the debate, held in Madison and hosted by the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association:
Repeated allegations of lying
In their back-and-forth, each candidate accused the other of playing fast and loose with the truth, both on the campaign trail and during the debate itself.
“The one thing you’ve perfected in Washington is your ability to lie,” Hovde said during an exchange about Social Security.
His comment came after Baldwin pointed out that Hovde supports returning the federal budget to 2019 levels, which she said will result in massive cuts to popular programs like Social Security.
“He supports spending, just not for you,” Baldwin said.
Baldwin noted that more than a dozen independent fact-checkers found that Hovde made false statements during the campaign.
Hovde responded by alleging that “Every single one of her ads has been false.” He offered no evidence to back that up.
Republican candidate Eric Hovde before the debate against Sen. Tammy Baldwin. (Patricio Crooker for Wisconsin Watch)
Hovde gets personal. Baldwin tells him to mind his own business
Hovde repeatedly called on Baldwin to disclose more information about the investments and business dealings of her partner, Maria Brisbane, ranked by Forbes as one of the nation’s top female wealth advisers. There is no requirement for Baldwin to release that information.
“They don’t disclose those investments and how much they’re profiting from it,” Hovde said, calling it a conflict of interest for Baldwin. “That’s fundamentally wrong.”
“Eric Hovde should stay out of my personal life,” Baldwin shot back. “And I think I speak for most Wisconsin women that he should stay out of all of our personal lives.”
If elected, Hovde would be one of the richest members of the Senate based on his campaign finance report, which showed he has assets worth between about $195 million and more than $564 million. Baldwin listed assets between $601,000 and nearly $1.3 million.
Baldwin supports national abortion law. Hovde wants states to decide Baldwin voiced her support for passing a federal law that would make abortion legal nationwide, as it was before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
“Women are dying because of the current situation,” she said. “Harrowing things are happening to women in this state.”
Hovde previously said he supported the overturning of Roe v. Wade, but now says he would not vote for a federal ban on abortion. Instead, he says, states should decide. That is a change of position from 2012, when Hovde last ran for Senate as someone “totally opposed” to abortion.
“I’m not for a national abortion ban,” Hovde said during the debate. “I never have been.”
Former President Donald Trump, who has endorsed Hovde, has suggested that he would support a federal ban.
Hovde produces utility bill to prove he doesn’t live in California
Baldwin and her supporters have tried to paint Hovde as more California than Wisconsin because he owns a $7 million estate in the Pacific seaside city of Laguna Beach and owns Sunwest Bank, which operates on the West Coast.
Hovde was born and raised in Wisconsin.
“I’m supposedly a jerk from California,” he said before pulling from his pocket a document that he said was a utility bill for his Madison. He challenged Baldwin to produce 10 years of utility bills to prove where she lives.
Baldwin backs Obamacare. Hovde wants changes Baldwin voiced strong support for the the national health care law, while Hovde called for changes.
“We need to build upon the Affordable Care Act,” Baldwin said.
Hovde said the law has not slowed health care cost increases, improved access or allowed people to keep their doctors.
“I’m a believer in results, and if you look at the results, every one of those promises has failed,” he said.
U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin before the debate against Republican candidate Eric Hovde. (Patricio Crooker for Wisconsin Watch)
Hovde opposes absentee ballot drop boxes
Hovde questioned the use of the drop boxes, which the Wisconsin Supreme Court banned in 2022 but then allowed again this year after the court became controlled by liberal justices.
“We have to create confidence in our voting system,” Hovde said. “It is causing too much tension in our country. And let me tell you, it doesn’t help when our state Supreme Court brings back drop boxes, when those were only used for a pandemic. So why are they being brought back?”
Drop boxes have been used for years in Wisconsin, but they became more prevalent in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
More than 500 boxes were used in 2020, but this year the Wisconsin Elections Commission said it is aware of only 78 in use. There could be more since communities don’t have to report them.
Presidential race is largely absent from the debate
There was only one passing reference to Trump and not a single mention of Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris during the hourlong debate. Hovde backs Trump and has appeared at his rallies. Baldwin supports Harris and has spoken at her events in the state.
The stakes
Democrats must hold onto the Wisconsin seat if they hope to maintain their slim majority in the Senate. Democrats are defending 23 seats, while Republicans have just 11 up for grabs this election.
Republicans see an opportunity in swing-state Wisconsin, and both sides have poured money into the campaign, making it one of the five most expensive Senate races this year.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
Democratic candidate Sarah Keyeski, a mental health professional from Lodi, answering questions at a forum hosted by Main Street Alliance, the Wisconsin Farmers Union and Wisconsin Early Education. Her opponent, Sen. Joan Ballweg didn’t attend. Organizers set up a vacant chair in the Yahara River Learning Center classroom next to Keyeski. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)
Christy Updike, a farmer and full-time health care professional from Plain, Wisconsin, said she’s been avoiding the television and news this election cycle — she doesn’t necessarily trust the information being shared this way. She said she’d rather hear from candidates directly.
One of Updike’s top concerns is bringing more resources to rural communities, especially mental health support.
Updike also works with the Farmer Angel Network, an organization dedicated to suicide prevention and mental health for rural communities in Wisconsin. She said that she is open to hearing from candidates across the political spectrum.
“I am not straight down ever. I look at individual people and if they happen to be a politician already, I look at their history,” Updike said.
With Wisconsin’s new, more competitive legislative maps changing the dynamics of state-level races this year, rural voters like Updike will play a decisive role in shaping the state Legislature. Democrats, seeking to pick up additional seats in the state Assembly and Senate, are looking to win them over in November by meeting voters where they are.
Wisconsin’s 14th Senate District sits north of Madison, covering parts of Dane, Columbia, Sauk and Richland counties, including the cities of Deforest, Reedsburg, Baraboo, Lodi, Columbus, Portage, Richland Center and Wisconsin Dells. It is one of Democrats’ top targets this year as they look to lay the groundwork for flipping the state Senate in future election cycles.
Democrat Sarah Keyeski, a political newcomer, and Republican Sen. Joan Ballweg, who is seeking her second term in the Senate, are vying for the seat. Updike attended a candidate forum last week focused on rural and small business issues hoping to hear from both candidates.
Signs in Baraboo for SD 14 Democratic candidate Sarah Keyeski and AD 40 Democratic candidate Karen DeSanto.
Ballweg didn’t attend the forum, however, which was hosted by Main Street Alliance, the Wisconsin Farmers Union and Wisconsin Early Childhood Association. Organizers set up a vacant chair in the Yahara River Learning Center classroom next to Keyeski.
Keyeski, a mental health professional from Lodi, told attendees her work has mostly focused on helping people when they were “drowning.” In the state Legislature, she would want to go “upstream” to “keep people from falling in.” She expressed support for increasing the minimum wage, making health care more accessible by expanding Badgercare and for increasing funding for public schools. She also emphasized her rural roots — she grew up on a small dairy farm in Cashton.
While Updike said it’s not a done deal, she left the forum leaning toward voting for the Democrat in November.
“The Republicans aren’t at the table discussing the things that are important to me,” Updike said.
Democratic newcomers seeking to connect with rural voters
To succeed in rural parts of the state, “what it boils down to is that we have to engage with people in rural communities, and we have to listen to them,” said Wayde Lawler, chair of the Vernon County Democratic Party.
Lawler described the county, which is in the Driftless region in western Wisconsin, as a “swing county in a swing region in a swing state.” He said the county, which continues to have a strong family farm presence, is no different than the rest of rural America in that it has been trending red for the last decade.
The county voted for Gov. Tony Evers in 2022, and liberal Justice Janet Protasiewicz in 2023. But the county also voted in 2022 for Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson over Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden over Democratic state Sen. Brad Pfaff. In the state Legislature, the county is currently represented by Pfaff in the Senate, but hasn’t been represented by a Democrat in the state Assembly in decades.
Lawler said he believes there is an “underlying truth” to the idea that the Democratic Party has become more of a party of urban centers, of college educated folks, of suburban areas, and has, to some extent, stopped paying attention to rural and working class voters. He said the dynamic can change, but it takes a commitment of time and resources.
“Political campaign operations are always a question of how best to use a set amount of resources, and what that translates to generally is people focusing on denser, more urban areas, and even out here in a rural county, you know, that looks like door knocking in Viroqua or Westby or some of the villages, rather than going out into the rural areas,” Lawler said.
As a result, he said many rural voters are only exposed to candidates via ads and social media.
“That is not a great way to learn about a candidate. It’s not in depth. It’s not nuanced. It’s not real. It’s a caricature based on what opponents want to say or what that candidate wants to say,” Lawler said. “If you make that commitment to go talk to people most of the time, you can find some common ground, and that’s another thing we’re focusing on.”
Breaking the trend
Under the new maps, Vernon County is included in Assembly District 96, which also covers part of La Crosse and leans Democratic. The race also represents a test of Democrats’ commitment to reaching some of those rural communities.
Rep. Loren Oldenburg (R-Viroqua), who was first elected to the Assembly in 2018, faces Democrat Tara Johnson, a former La Crosse County Board member.
Lawler said a win in the district is not a given, and Democrats are focusing on making the commitment to go down the “gravel roads” and talk to voters.
“We have had decades and decades of various kinds of maps and not had a Democrat in the State Assembly,” Lawler said. “This time around I think many of us are hopeful that we will break that 70-year trend in the State Assembly and elect a Democrat there, but that wouldn’t be able to happen without a solid candidate who is willing to put in the work.”
Tara Johnson for Wisconsin Assembly District 96 – June 06, 2024 (’Matt Roth)
Johnson said she thinks some voters in the rural parts of the county “feel neglected.” She said she had one conversation with a voter whose door hadn’t been knocked since former President Bill Clinton ran for office.
“It isn’t just Democrats, it is any politician doing that kind of outreach, and I mean, to me, that’s just kind of human nature, right?” Johnson said. “You want somebody to come and introduce themselves and tell you what they stand for and answer your questions and ask for your vote. … I think a lot of rural doors have not been knocked on in a long time by anybody.”
Johnson decided to enter the race for the district because of the new maps, the potential for Democrats to win a majority in the Assembly and because she wanted to help “get sh*t done.” During the primary Johnson’s opponent questioned how well her progressive positions would play in rural Vernon County, though she won the Democratic primary handily, including with about 60% of the Vernon County votes.
Johnson, who described herself as a “radical pragmatist,” was critical of the idea that the term “progressive” was being used in a negative way. She said many progressive ideas are popular throughout the rural areas where she is speaking with voters.
Rural communities “care about clean air and clean water,” she said, “and the way that clean air and clean water happens is that there are expectations and standards put into place.”
She also hears from a lot of voters “that comprehensive health care, including reproductive care, including dental and vision and mental health care, is something that everybody has a right to,” Johnson added. “That’s a progressive idea that is very popular.”
“This state was built on progressive ideals, and when I talk to voters at doors, when I talk to voters at events, when I hear from people, they are supportive of those very common sense, very progressive, all-boats-rise ideas,” Johnson continued.
In August, Lawler recalled door knocking at a house with a Trump sign in the yard. The person, he learned, was a supporter of Bernie Sanders two election cycles ago and this year is likely to vote for former President Donald Trump. He said the voter expressed concerns about women’s ability to access abortion and protecting the environment.
“I would imagine that [Johnson] would find a lot of common ground with that person, and maybe even earn their vote even if they still voted for Trump at the top of the ticket,” Lawler said. “That’s the kind of approach that we’re adopting — listening to people, searching for that common ground.”
Former Boys and Girls Club exec comes out of retirement
Karen DeSanto, the Democratic candidate for Assembly District 40, is taking a similar approach throughout the district — leaning on her ability to converse and connect with people. DeSanto faces Sauk County Republican Party Chair Jerry Helmer in November for the seat that represents parts of Sauk and Columbia counties, including Spring Green, Portage and Baraboo.
On a Monday afternoon in downtown Baraboo in mid-August, a woman yelled from her car at DeSanto, who was explaining to the Examiner how she decided to go to clown college in her 20s.
DeSanto is depicted in a mural on one of the buildings in downtown Baraboo. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)
“Karen! Good luck with everything,” the woman said.
“Thank you,” DeSanto yelled back. The woman quipped that she would vote for her as mayor of the town as well if she could. DeSanto laughed. It was not the only time throughout the day that DeSanto, who is depicted in a mural on one of the buildings downtown, was stopped by people in town.
When asked about the interaction, DeSanto said that she has met a lot of people through her work in the Boys and Girls Club of West Central Wisconsin. DeSanto retired as CEO last year after 12 years with the organization and in her retirement, Rep. Dave Considine (D-Baraboo), who decided he wouldn’t run for reelection this year, approached DeSanto about running for the seat.
“I said ‘Get out of my house, Dave. I’m retired,’ ” DeSanto said. Then, she said, she did some soul-searching.
“Here’s what I discovered is — I believe in peace and I believe strong communities make great places to live and our schools are better and our kids and families are better,” DeSanto said. Those values brought her to the decision to run, she said.
DeSanto said her conversations at the doors were a major part of her success and she’s continuing that in the general election. She said she thinks her values and understanding of issues resonated with voters. Through her work with the Boys and Girls Club, she said she saw the hurdles that families in rural parts of the state face, including having access to broadband internet access, food disparities, and she’d like to see some of those issues addressed in the Assembly.
Candidate signs are present in many yards throughout Baraboo, including for DeSanto’s Republican opponent Jerry Helmer and former President Donald Trump. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)
“I love looking at states that provide lunches to every kid. Food is a real disparity for many, many, many families in Wisconsin,” DeSanto said.
One sitting Democratic lawmaker tries to expand her reach
Experienced lawmakers running for reelection are also being pushed into rural parts of the state in a way they haven’t been in previous years.
When Rep. Jodi Emerson (D-Eau Claire) was first elected in 2018, the 91st Assembly District covered only the city of Eau Claire. The new 91st district includes part of Eau Claire as well as smaller cities, towns and villages including Altoona, Seymour, Fall Creek, Ludington, Bridge Creek and Otter Creek.
While Emerson won in her prior general elections with more than 60% of the vote, the new district has only a slight Democratic lean. Emerson will face Republican Michele Magadance Skinner, an Eau Claire County Board supervisor, in the race for the seat in November.
“It’s a very tight district now, but it should be,” Emerson said.
Rural voters in new parts of the district could play a key role in whether Emerson retains the seat. She said she’s been knocking on a lot of rural doors this year, which means a change in logistics “Doing doors is a big piece of how we, as Democrats, do things for an election,” Emerson said. “Last weekend, I was in an area where it was like, ‘OK, go knock out a door, get back in the car, drive a half mile to the next door.”
Emerson said there has been a “learning curve” with the new district. She said she’s been taking the time to meet new voters and to learn more about issues, including rural broadband, the way that townships interact with cities and counties and looking at school issues from a new perspective. Her old district included just one school district, while the new one includes all or part of eight.
Despite the shift, Emerson said, “I think at the same time we all have the same Wisconsin values of hard work and wanting our communities to be better. And that doesn’t change, no matter whether you’re in a city or in a rural area.”
The Dome of the U.S. Capitol Building is visible as protective fencing is erected around construction for the 2025 inauguration platform on the West Front on Capitol Hill on Sept. 17, 2024 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The country’s next president will need a friendly Congress to make their policy dreams a reality, but control of the two chambers remains deeply uncertain with just weeks until Election Day — and whether the outcome will be a party trifecta in the nation’s capital.
Recent projections tilt in favor of Republicans taking the U.S. Senate, an already closely divided chamber that is sure to be near evenly split again next Congress.
And though Vice President Kamala Harris injected a jolt of energy into the Democratic Party, prognosticators still say the prizewinner of the House is anybody’s guess.
“The House is highly close and competitive, and really could go either way. And I say the same thing about the presidential race,” Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, told States Newsroom on Thursday.
A ‘district-by-district slug fest’
Control of the 435-seat House remains a toss-up, with competitive races in both the seven swing states and in states that will almost certainly have no bearing on who wins the top of the ticket.
Sabato’s, an election prognosticator, currently ranks nine Republican seats of the roughly 30 competitive races as “toss-up” seats for the party — meaning the GOP incumbents are locked in competitive races.
The GOP has held a slim majority this Congress, and Democrats only need to net four seats to gain control.
“It really is right on the razor’s edge,” Kondik said. “It’s pretty crazy that, you know, we’ve had two straight elections with just 222-seat majorities. And it’s pretty rare historically for there to be, you know, majorities that small twice in a row — unprecedented.
“Usually you’d have one side or the other breaking out to a bigger advantage, and I think both sides are viewing this, really, as a district-by-district slug fest.”
Sabato’s adjusted its ratings on five races Thursday, including moving Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola of Alaska to the “toss-up” category from a safer “leans Democratic.” Kondik also nudged the race for Republican Rep. Mike Lawler of New York to “leans Republican” from “toss up.”
“The big ones are probably Peltola, and then Mike Lawler, who holds one of the bluest seats held by a Republican, but I moved him to ‘leans R.’ It seems pretty clear to me that he’s in a decent position,” Kondik said.
The National Republican Congressional Committee, the party’s fundraising arm for House races, announced in June nearly $1.2 million in ad buys in Alaska. The organization launched a new ad in the state this month that accuses Peltola of not supporting veterans.
It’s always about Pennsylvania
In addition to Peltola, Kondik ranks nine other Democratic incumbents — of the nearly 40 competitive races — as toss-ups.
Among the toss-ups is the seat currently held by Rep. Matt Cartwright of Pennsylvania, a key swing state in the presidential race. Cartwright’s Republican challenger, Rob Bresnahan, runs an electrical contracting company in the northeastern Pennsylvania district that he took over from his grandfather.
Democrats are investing in the seat: Cartwright is running a new ad featuring union workers praising him, and just last week Harris hosted a rally in the district, which includes Scranton.
But the NRCC thinks they have a pretty good chance of flipping his seat.
Breshnahan’s company is “a union shop,” said NRCC head Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina. “So he can talk union talk. He’s a great candidate for us.”
“Matt Cartwright is in trouble,” Hudson said on the conservative “Ruthless Podcast” on Sept. 12.
“I think the way we’ve structured it, the type of candidates we recruited across the country, from Maine to Alaska, from Minnesota to Texas, regardless of top of the ticket, we’re going to pick up seats,” Hudson said.
Van Orden targeted in Wisconsin
But Sabato’s also nudged three seats toward the Democrats’ favor on Thursday.
Kondik moved Rep. Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin from the safety of “likely Republican” to the weaker “leans Republican” category.
Rep. Suzan DelBene, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, sees an “important opportunity” in Van Orden’s district. The GOP congressman, who represents central and western Wisconsin, became known for his profanity-laced outburst at young Senate pages for taking photos of the Capitol rotunda.
The Democrats are running challenger Rebecca Cooke, a small business owner, in the hopes of unseating him.
“We have an incredible candidate in Rebecca Cooke (against) one of the most extreme, which is saying a lot, Republicans in the House,” DelBene told reporters on a call Monday.
“We have put Rebecca Cooke on our Red-to-Blue list and are strongly supporting her campaign. She’s doing a great job, and this absolutely is a priority for us,” DelBene said, referring to the DCCC’s list of 30 candidates that receive extra fundraising support.
DelBene said she’s confident in the Democrats’ chances to flip the House, citing healthy coffers and revived interest.
“We have seen huge enthusiasm all across the country. We have seen people, more and more people turning out to volunteer, to knock on doors, to make phone calls,” she said.
Democrats’ cash ‘flooding,’ NRCC chief says
Erin Covey, a House analyst with The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, wrote on Sept. 5 that Democrats have a brighter outlook after Harris assumed the top of the ticket, though November remains a close call.
“Now, polling conducted by both parties largely shows Harris matching, or coming a few points short of, Biden’s 2020 margins across competitive House districts,” Covey wrote.
The NRCC has taken note. During his interview on the “Ruthless Podcast,” Hudson compared Harris becoming the Democrats’ new choice for president as a “bloodless coup,” and said the enthusiasm she’s sparked is a cause for concern for Republicans. Democratic delegates nominated Harris, in accordance with party rules, to run for the Oval Office after Biden dropped out in late July.
“A lot of people, even Democrats, you know, just weren’t comfortable voting for Joe Biden. With Kamala on the ticket, we saw a surge in Democrats coming home and having the enthusiasm,” Hudson said.
Hudson said he also worries about Democrats’ fundraising numbers.
“The one thing that keeps you awake at night is the Democrat money. It’s flooding,” Hudson said. “The second quarter this year I was able to raise the most money we’ve ever raised as a committee, and the Democrats raised $7 million more. I mean, it’s just, they just keep coming. It’s like the Terminator.”
“But we don’t have to match them dollar for dollar,” Hudson said. “We’ve just got to make sure we’ve got the resources we need. And so we’ve just got to keep our pace.”
The DCCC announced Friday it raised $22.3 million in August, bringing its total for this election cycle to $250.6 million.
Senate map tilts toward GOP
Republicans are inching closer and closer to flipping the Senate red during this year’s elections, thanks to a map that favors GOP incumbents and puts Democrats on the defensive in several states.
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice is widely expected to win his bid for the upper chamber, bringing Republicans up to 50 seats, as long as they hang on in Florida, Nebraska and Texas.
But Democrats will need to secure wins in several challenging states, including Arizona, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — and break the 50-50 tie through a Democratic presidency — if they want to remain the majority party.
That many Democratic wins seems increasingly unlikely, though not entirely out of the realm of possibility.
Montana, where Sen. Jon Tester is looking to secure reelection against GOP challenger Tim Sheehy, has been moved from a “toss-up” state to leaning toward Republicans by three respected analysis organizations in the last few weeks.
The Cook Political Report wrote in its ratings change earlier this month that several “public polls have shown Sheehy opening up a small, but consistent lead.”
“Democrats push back that their polling still shows Tester within the margin of error of the race, and that those are exactly the type of close races he’s won before,” their assessment said. “Tester, however, has never run on a presidential ballot in a polarized environment of this kind before — and even with his stumbles, Sheehy is still the strongest, best financed candidate he’s ever faced.”
Republicans winning Montana’s Senate seat could give them a firm, though narrow, 51-seat Senate majority.
Florida, Texas, Nebraska
That, however, would require the Republican incumbents in states like Florida and Texas — where it’s not clear if evolving trends against Republicans will continue — to secure their reelection wins.
The Cook Political Report says it’s “worth keeping an eye on a unique situation developing in Nebraska, where independent candidate Dan Osborn is challenging Republican Sen. Deb Fischer.”
CPR also noted in its analysis that Democrats’ best pick-up opportunities, which could rebalance the scales a bit, are Florida and Texas.
“Today, the Lone Star State looks like the better option because of the strengths and fundraising of Democrats’ challenger there, Rep. Colin Allred,” CPR wrote.
If Democrats do hold onto 50 seats, through whatever combination of wins and losses shakes out on election night, majority control would depend on whichever candidate wins the presidential contest.
Given the close nature of several Senate races, it is entirely possible control of that chamber isn’t known until after recounts take place in the swing states.
Chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Gary Peters, D-Mich., said during a Christian Science Monitor breakfast this week that he’s known all along Democratic candidates will be in “very right races.”
“In a nutshell, I’m optimistic,” Peters said. “I believe we’re going to hold the majority. I feel good about where we are. We’re basically where I thought we would be after Labor Day in really tight races. None of this is a surprise to us. Now we just have to run our playbook, be focused, be disciplined.”
The National Republican Senatorial Committee, led this cycle by Montana Sen. Steve Daines, is confident the GOP will pick up the Senate majority following November’s elections.
The group highlighted a Washington Post poll this week showing a tie between Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and GOP candidate Dave McCormick in the Pennsylvania Senate race.
NRSC Spokesman Philip Letsou sent out a written statement after the poll’s release that Casey is in the “race for his life…because Pennsylvania voters know Casey’s lockstep support for Kamala Harris and her inflationary, anti-fracking agenda will devastate their economy. Pennsylvanians have had enough of liberal, career politicians like Casey and Harris.”
No change in filibuster in sight
The GOP acquisition of a handful of seats would still require the next Republican leader to constantly broker deals with Democrats, since the chamber is widely expected to retain the legislative filibuster.
That rule requires at least 60 senators vote to advance legislation toward final passage and is the main reason the chamber rarely takes up partisan bills.
A Republican sweep of the House, Senate and White House for unified government would give them the chance to pass certain types of legislation through the fast-track budget reconciliation process they used to approve the 2017 tax law.
How wide their majorities are in each chamber will determine how much they can do within such a bill, given Republicans will still have centrist members, like Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski and Maine’s Susan Collins, balancing the party against more far-right policy goals.
Illinois Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth speaks about access to in vitro fertilization on the steps of the Capitol building on Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, along with other Senate Democrats holding photos of families who benefited from IVF. At right, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., holds a photo of Duckworth’s family that includes Duckworth’s children, born with the help of IVF. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom).
WASHINGTON — The closely divided U.S. Senate gridlocked Tuesday over the best way to provide nationwide protections for in vitro fertilization, despite lawmakers from both political parties maintaining they want to do so.
Republicans voted against advancing a Democratic bill that could have prevented states from enacting “harmful or unwarranted limitations” on the procedure and bolstered access for military members and veterans. Two Republicans voted with Democrats — Maine’s Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski.
Wisconsin’s Republican Sen. Ron Johnson voted against the measure and Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin voted for it.
That came just a short time after Senate Democrats — who narrowly control the chamber — in a procedural move blocked a GOP bill from Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Katie Britt of Alabama that would have barred Medicaid funding from going to any state that bans IVF.
The 51-44 vote that prevented Democrats’ legislation from moving toward a final vote followed numerous floor speeches and press conferences, including by the Harris-Walz presidential campaign, that sought to elevate the issue ahead of the November elections. The measure needed 60 votes to advance.
“This is a chance for my colleagues across the aisle to put their votes where their mouths have been,” said Illinois Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth, the bill’s sponsor and a mom of two children born as a result of IVF. “They say they support IVF. Here you go — vote on this.”
Duckworth said the legislation would provide critical IVF services to U.S. military members and veterans, many of whom experience infertility or experience difficulty having children due to their service.
“It allows our military men and women, prior to a deployment into a combat zone, to preserve and freeze their genetic material; so that should they come home with injuries that result in them becoming infertile, they will have already preserved their genetic material so that they can, themselves, start those beautiful families they wanted,” Duckworth said.
Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris released a written statement following the vote rebuking GOP senators for blocking the bill.
“Every woman in every state must have reproductive freedom,” Harris wrote. “Yet, Republicans in Congress have once again made clear that they will not protect access to the fertility treatments many couples need to fulfill their dream of having a child.”
Republicans blocked Democrats’ bill earlier this year. But Senate leadership scheduled another vote after Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump reignited the issue in August when he said his administration would mandate health insurance companies pay for IVF — a significant break with how the GOP has approached the issue.
“We are going to be, under the Trump administration, we are going to be paying for that treatment,” Trump said during an interview with NBC News. “We’re going to be mandating that the insurance company pay.”
Alabama ruling
Democrats began speaking at length about preserving access to IVF earlier this year after the Alabama state Supreme Court issued an opinion in February that frozen embryos constitute children under state law.
That ruling forced all the state’s IVF clinics to halt their work until the state legislature passed a bill providing criminal and civil protections for those clinics.
Democrats have since argued that legislating the belief life begins at conception, which is championed by most conservative Republicans, is at odds with access to IVF, which typically freezes more embryos than would be implanted.
Those frozen embryos can be preserved or discarded, depending on the patient’s wishes, the clinic’s policies and state law. Some conservatives believe that discarding shouldn’t be legal or are opposed to the process altogether.
The Southern Baptist Convention, for example, voted earlier this year to oppose IVF, writing in a resolution that couples should consider adoption and that the process “engages in dehumanizing methods for determining suitability for life.”
“We grieve alongside couples who have been diagnosed with infertility or are currently struggling to conceive, affirm their godly desire for children, and encourage them to consider the ethical implications of assisted reproductive technologies as they look to God for hope, grace, and wisdom amid suffering,” it stated.
Senate Democrats’ press for IVF protections has gone hand-in-hand with their efforts to bolster other reproductive rights, like access to birth control and abortion.
The issues could play a significant role in determining the outcome of the presidential election this November as well which political party controls the House and Senate.
Before the Senate held a vote on Democrats’ bill, Cruz asked for quick approval of an IVF bill he and Britt introduced earlier this year.
Washington state Democratic Sen. Patty Murray blocked his unanimous consent request.
During debate on that bill, Britt questioned why Democrats haven’t scheduled a recorded vote on her legislation, saying it could get the 60 votes needed to advance toward final passage.
“Today, we have an opportunity to act quickly and overwhelmingly to protect continued nationwide IVF access for loving American families,” Britt said. “Our bill is the only bill that protects IVF access while safeguarding religious liberty.”
The Britt-Cruz legislation has three co-sponsors, including Wyoming Sen. Cynthia Lummis, Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall and Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker.
Murray said the Britt-Cruz bill didn’t address what would happen in states that legislate fetal personhood, which she called “the biggest threat to IVF.”
“It is silent on whether states can demand that an embryo be treated the same as a living, breathing person,” Murray said. “Or whether parents should be allowed to have clinics dispose of unused embryos, something that is a common, necessary part of the IVF process.”
Cruz tried to pass his legislation through the unanimous consent process, which allows any one senator to ask for approval. Any one senator can then block that request from moving forward — as Murray did. There is no recorded vote as part of the UC process.
Democrats’ 64-page bill would have provided legal protections for anyone seeking fertility treatment, including IVF, and for the health care professionals providing that type of care.
It would have barred state and federal governments from “enacting harmful or unwarranted limitations or requirements” on IVF access.
The legislation would have bolstered fertility treatment coverage for members of the military and veterans, as well as their spouses, partners, or gestational surrogates.
The American Society for Reproductive Medicine supports Democrats’ legislation. Chief Advocacy and Policy Officer Sean Tipton wrote in a statement released this week that Democrats’ IVF bill would “protect the rights of Americans to seek the medical services they may need to have children and ensure no healthcare provider faces legal consequences for trying to help their patients as they seek to build their families.”
“This legislation also increases access to IVF treatments for all Americans by mandating that employer-sponsored insurance plans and other public insurance plans cover fertility treatment,” Tipton wrote. “Significantly, it would ensure the federal government does right by its own employees by providing coverage for active-duty military, veterans, and civilian staff.”
Embryologist Ric Ross holds a dish with human embryos at the La Jolla IVF Clinic Feb. 28, 2007 in La Jolla, California. (Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate will vote for a second time next week on legislation from Democrats that would bolster support for in vitro fertilization, though it’s unlikely GOP lawmakers will reverse course from their previous opposition.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced the revote Thursday afternoon, saying he hopes that Republicans will join with Democrats to advance the measure toward final passage. The bill would ensure patients have access to in vitro fertilization.
“Republicans can’t claim to be pro-family on one hand, only to block pro-family policies like federal protections for IVF and the child tax credit,” Schumer said. “But that’s just what they did this summer and I hope we get a different outcome when we vote for a second time.”
The 48-47 procedural vote was mostly along party lines with Maine’s Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski breaking with Republicans to support moving forward with debate and a final passage vote.
Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy argued against advancing the bill during debate, saying the legislation wasn’t necessary since no state currently barred IVF.
“Today’s vote is disingenuous — pushing a bill haphazardly drafted and destined to fail does a disservice to all who may pursue IVF treatments,” Cassidy said at the time.
Washington state Democratic Sen. Patty Murray spoke in support of approving the legislation, saying in June it shouldn’t be “controversial, especially if Republicans are serious about” supporting access to IVF.
“As we saw in Alabama, the threat to IVF is not hypothetical, it is not overblown and it is not fearmongering,” Murray said.
Alabama state legislators earlier this year had to provide criminal and civil protection to IVF clinics after the state Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos constituted children under state law.
The opinion from Alabama’s justices temporarily led all IVF clinics within the state to close their doors to patients, wreaking havoc on couples hoping to start or grow their families through the complicated, emotionally draining and often expensive process.
The issue also has emerged in the presidential race, and was fought over in the Sept. 10 debate by the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, and the Republican candidate, former President Donald Trump.
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