According to the candidates running for Wisconsin’s 30th Senate District, some of the top issues this year for northeastern Wisconsin voters are rising living costs and politicians’ inability to get along with their colleagues across the aisle.

Both Jim Rafter, a Republican and Allouez village president, and Jamie Wall, a business consultant and third-time Democratic candidate, are wearing bipartisanship as a badge of honor in their respective campaigns. It’s a strategic move for both parties amid the state’s increasingly polarized political landscape, reflecting the competitive nature of a Senate district that covers Green Bay and some of its suburbs.

From calls for tax cuts to redistributing Wisconsin’s surplus among municipalities, the two candidates share positions on many issues. But they do differ on some issues — Wall more openly sides with Democrats in calls for increased abortion access and taking federal funds to expand Badgercare, whereas Rafter has been a more vocal proponent for the closure of Green Bay Correctional Institution.

Redistricting has removed rural northern parts of Oconto and Marinette counties from the 30th Senate District in favor of more urban settings in Allouez and Ashwaubenon south of Green Bay. The district now reflects the more densely populated and politically varied region of metropolitan Green Bay instead. In response to redistricting, current Sen. Eric Wimberger, a Republican, announced in March that he would run in the more rural 2nd Senate District instead.

While Wimberger won by a margin of nearly 10 points in 2020, the open seat now ranks as the state’s closest Senate race this year, according to a Wisconsin Watch analysis. 

Bipartisanship

Rafter, who has served on the Allouez board for 10 years, including eight years as president, said political polarization is one of the biggest issues in the state.

“Nothing’s getting done because people won’t talk to each other,” Rafter said. “I like to talk to people and get things done.”

Wall, a business consultant who is returning to the political sphere after two unsuccessful campaigns for Congress in 2006 and 2012, seems to agree, saying that his experience in the private sector will help him bring politicians together.

According to Wall, polarization is a decades-long problem, and constituents are tired of it.  “They’ve seen all the dysfunction and all the partisan fighting,” Wall said. “We’ll get more done for the people of the state if we’re willing to work together across party lines and compromise.”

In terms of compromise, both hope to leverage bipartisan support to divert more of Wisconsin’s $3 billion surplus toward local funding and tax cuts.

Rafter said his decade in Allouez politics has demonstrated a need to appropriate more funding toward local governments.

“In Allouez, we’re a very small community, and we have absorbed tremendous increases in costs of operations such as building roads and just maintaining our infrastructure,” Rafter said. “There’s lots that local communities need to be able to do, and that money would go a long way in helping.”

“I don’t believe state government should be sitting on that money,” Rafter said. “If it doesn’t come back to the local communities, it should go back to the residents.”

Wall, similarly, hopes to see legislators compromise in order to allocate the surplus.

“It’s a sign that how things work in Madison is kind of broken,” Wall said in a September interview with WisconsinEye. 

Budgeting the surplus, he said, should have the goal of “reducing health care costs … working to bring down the cost of housing for regular people, and providing a little bit of targeted tax relief for the people who need it the most.”

Taxes

One of Wall’s central campaign promises is a tax cut, enabled by the state’s current surplus, that he says will be directed toward working families. 

Wall also has attacked Rafter’s tax policies, criticizing him for supporting an increase in Brown County’s sales tax during his tenure as Allouez village president. Rafter advocated for the continuation of a 0.5% county sales tax during an Allouez village board meeting in 2022.

Rafter, however, views his past in a more practical light. 

“I’ve seen and read how much money that half percent sales tax has saved the taxpayers of Brown County in terms of debt reduction, in terms of being able to do more roads and more buildings,” Rafter said.

Rafter, who also said that he would support a bill to cut taxes in order to address the rising cost of living, defended his record on taxes in Allouez. “Our existing tax rate has remained relatively flat over the last nine years I’ve been on the board,” Rafter said. 

When asked whether or not he would oppose any future sales tax increases, Wall said he is “not a big fan of the sales tax.”

Abortion

On the issue of abortion, Wall is critical about past Republican attempts at restricting abortion access in the state. In a statement on his campaign website, he said he “supports preserving and expanding (reproductive health care) rights.”

Rafter said his position differs from anti-abortion Republicans like Wimberger. He said he hopes to reduce the amount of abortions through “education and guidance,” and that if elected, he would not enter with a steadfast position on the matter.

“As a community we need to come together and figure out what the right solution is. We need to protect the rights of women. We also have to make every effort to protect the rights of the unborn child,” Rafter said. “I hope that we can find a way to reduce the number of abortions in the state of Wisconsin.”

Green Bay Correctional Institution

Rafter takes a harder stance on the issue of Green Bay Correctional Institution, having become an outspoken advocate for its closure. The maximum-security prison, which has been plagued with dangerous living conditions in addition to problems relating to understaffing and overpopulation, is located in Allouez.

Wisconsin’s prison system as a whole, Rafter said, is riddled with problems. 

“Our criminal justice system just needs a lot of help … the system that has been built, from what I’m learning, is not working,” Rafter said. “There are an awful lot of people working in our Department of Corrections that deserve better. There are inmates who deserve better. There are families of the inmates who deserve better. And from a financial perspective, every taxpayer in the state of Wisconsin deserves better.”

Wall said that he agreed with other local politicians that GBCI needs to be closed, but he did not specify support for any specific proposals going forward.

When asked about GBCI, Wall said that he wanted to “have a bigger conversation about what the state prison system ought to look like.”

“I’d like to be a part of that conversation,” Wall said.

Health care

On the topic of health care, Wall backed taking federal funding to expand BadgerCare. He said it should be a no-brainer.

“We can start off by taking federal Medicaid expansion monies, which 40 other states have done,” Wall said. “We’re paying taxes for people’s health care in 40 other states and not benefiting as a result of that.”

Rafter was less certain on his position, saying that health care is an important issue but that he’s unsure as to what problems currently exist or what a good solution might be.

“Just accepting (federal) money isn’t the right answer,” Rafter said. “I don’t have an opinion except that we have to come together and figure it out.”

School funding

The two candidates have some disagreements on school funding. Schools across the state have turned to referendums to obtain funding, and Wisconsin is trailing nationally in percentage increases in school funding over the past decade.

Both candidates called for increased funding to K-12 schools. Rafter also voiced support for funding private voucher schools while Wall said that “public dollars ought to go to supporting public schools.”

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

Two moderates race to the middle for Green Bay state Senate seat is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin Watch is previewing legislative races in toss-up districts ahead of the Nov. 5 election by focusing on key issues for voters and what candidates say they will do to address them.  

Abortion access, tax cuts and education funding are central issues in the race for Wisconsin Senate District 8 — a GOP-leaning toss-up district between Milwaukee and Port Washington that could help decide who controls the state Senate in the coming years.

The contest pits incumbent Sen. Duey Stroebel, R-Saukville, against environmental attorney and small business owner Jodi Habush Sinykin, a Democrat from Milwaukee. Stroebel has served in the Legislature since May 2011 and sits on its powerful budget-writing committee. Habush Sinykin previously ran for the state Senate in a special election in April 2023. She was narrowly defeated by Sen. Dan Knodl, R-Germantown.

The race is one of five Senate districts Democrats are targeting this cycle — hoping to tee themselves up to win a Senate majority in 2026 — and it’s one of only two flip opportunities in a district with a Republican incumbent, according to a Wisconsin Watch analysis of past voting patterns.

Still more than six weeks out from Election Day, groups on both sides are already running attack ads — an unusually early development for a state legislative race. New Wisconsin Majority is running a commercial attacking Stroebel’s opposition to abortion. Meanwhile, the Republican State Leadership Committee is running an ad blaming Democrats for increased costs that seeks to tie Habush Sinykin to Democratic lawmakers.

Here’s where both candidates stand on key issues in their district.

Abortion access

Habush Sinykin and Stroebel offer starkly different perspectives on what the state’s abortion laws should look like, according to an interview with the former and the latter’s work in the Legislature. Stroebel did not respond to multiple requests for an interview.

“Wisconsin’s abortion laws should very much reflect, as in any democracy, including Wisconsin’s democracy, the will of the people and the values of our people,” Habush Sinykin told Wisconsin Watch in an interview, pointing to polling from Marquette Law School that suggests between 60% and 70% of Wisconsin residents believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

New polling from the University of Maryland’s Program for Public Consultation also found that just shy of 80% of Wisconsin residents are against criminalizing the procedure before fetal viability in the state. That includes 57% of Republicans and 93% of Democrats. Criminalizing abortion was defined in the survey as “prison time or fines for the doctor or the woman.”

Habush Sinykin said reproductive freedom and health care access are the top issues she is hearing from voters when knocking on doors, especially from women. Voters have expressed concerns about restrictive abortion laws preventing them from accessing the health care providers they need, she said, with many doctors deciding not to practice in Wisconsin because of the state’s 1849 ban, which is currently unenforceable after a court order.

“To make women have to leave Wisconsin, or make us uncertain about the health care we can receive, it is just not OK,” Habush Sinykin said.

Stroebel joined all 21 of his Republican colleagues in the state Senate in June 2023 in voting against repealing Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion ban. Democrats attached the repeal provision to the state budget, forcing GOP lawmakers to vote on the issue. The 1849 law, which had been unenforceable because of Roe vs. Wade, was believed at the time to outlaw most abortions in the state. The 19th-century statute contains a vaguely defined exception for an abortion that is determined to be medically necessary to save the mother’s life, but does not make exceptions for cases of rape, incest or the mother’s health.

In April 2020, Stroebel introduced a constitutional amendment that would have guaranteed a fetus at every stage of development a “right to life.” During his Senate race in 2020, Stroebel was endorsed by Pro-Life Wisconsin, an organization that supports “candidates who recognize the personhood of the preborn baby and hold the principled and compassionate no-exceptions pro-life position.”

Taxes

Both candidates support cutting taxes, but largely for different groups.

“Strategic and intelligent tax cuts make sense for Wisconsin,” Habush Sinykin said.

As a business owner — she and her husband own a Janesville manufacturing company that produces paint rollers and other products — she said she has seen firsthand the “connection between our tax system and the ability to attract a strong workforce in Wisconsin.”

“We need Wisconsin to be able to keep and attract young families and a workforce,” Habush Sinykin said. She supports cutting taxes for middle class families while “ensuring that the highest earners pay their fair share,” according to her campaign policy platform.

“I very much think that we have to be competitive, not just in our region, but with the rest of the country, because that’s who we’re competing against,” she said.

Habush Sinykin said she would like to reduce taxes on Wisconsin seniors and retirees.

Too many people living on fixed incomes leave for other states with more favorable tax systems, Habush Sinykin said. She added that “Wisconsin can do far more to dissuade them from leaving the state.”

She declined to endorse a GOP-authored bill from the most recent legislative session that would have made retirement income for certain Wisconsin residents tax-free, but did say the proposal “certainly sounds to be a step in the right direction.” Habush Sinykin said she’d need to see the long-term financial implications for the state before endorsing any tax cut plan.

That plan would have raised the annual amount of tax-exempt withdrawals from a retirement account from $5,000 to $75,000 for single Wisconsin residents age 65 and older and up to $150,000 for joint filers. It was vetoed by Gov. Tony Evers, who said it would reduce revenue by $658 million in 2024-25 and $472 million in each subsequent fiscal year. Stroebel voted in favor of the legislation.

Stroebel has been a proponent of cutting taxes during his time in the Legislature. During the 2021-23 legislative session, he voted for reducing the state’s third-highest tax bracket from 6.27% to 5.3%, a $2 billion cut. That rate covers income between $27,630 and $304,170 for single filers and between $36,840 and $405,550 for joint filers.

During the most recent legislative session, Stroebel supported a number of tax cut provisions. He co-sponsored legislation that would have implemented a flat income tax system in Wisconsin by reducing income taxes for all filers to 3.25%. That proposal did not receive a vote in either the Senate or the Assembly.

Instead, during the most recent budget cycle, Stroebel backed a $3.5 billion income tax cut that would have focused its largest reductions on the state’s highest earners. The plan would have cut the top tax rate from 7.65% to 6.5% — a 15% reduction for high-earning joint filers who make $405,550 or more annually. It would have reduced the second-highest rate from 5.3% to 4.4%, a 17% decrease.

Evers vetoed those cuts from the budget but left in place reductions to the state’s bottom two brackets.

School funding

Habush Sinykin told Wisconsin Watch the state needs to be spending more on its public K-12 schools, noting that more and more districts around the state are turning to referendums to “maintain the quality and caliber of education that we have always been able to achieve in Wisconsin.”

U.S. Census Bureau data show that in 2022, Wisconsin’s per pupil spending was 7.21% lower than the national average. Wisconsin’s spending on schools ranked 25th among the 50 states in 2022, according to the data. That’s a drop from 11th in 2002 and 21st in 2012.

The state should kick in more for K-12 schools, Habush Sinykin said, to help address teacher shortages, reduce class sizes and improve education.

During the most recent legislative session, Stroebel sponsored a bill that increased funding for public K-12 schools by $1 billion. The funding was tied to $280 million in new funding for private voucher schools. Evers signed it.

The legislation helped close “the funding gap for private schools participating in the parental choice programs and gives parents more opportunities to decide which school best fits their child’s needs,” Stroebel said in a statement after the bill passed. “Wisconsin is making great strides towards establishing funding parity for all K-12 students with the passage of this piece of legislation.”

Editor’s note: This story was corrected to reflect that this district is one of two flip opportunities for Democrats in a Senate district with a Republican incumbent.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

Democrat seeks to flip GOP suburban Milwaukee seat with focus on abortion rights, tax cuts is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.