On June 22, the state Assembly hunkered down for a long day of legislative work, debating and voting on numerous bills. One early resolution — declaring Nov. 17 as Tommy Thompson Day — was notable for its enthusiastic support among both parties.
Although the resolution would eventually pass 96 to 0, the legislators from both sides of the aisle took about 20 minutes to sing the praises of the former Republican governor.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) noted that “Tommy put people above politics,” and recounted one of the governor’s favorite sayings about the state: “Where Harleys Roar, eagles soar and the Packers score.”
But several hours later, the legislators were not so effusive, when Rep. JoCasta Zamarripa (D-Milwaukee) attempted to suspend the rules in order to get a vote on a resolution to declare June 2017 LGBT Pride Month. June has nationally been LGBT Pride Month since 2009, until this year when President Donald Trump discontinued the tradition.
Zamarripa’s resolution would not change any Wisconsin laws, but merely call for “inclusion, acceptance,” and “celebration to the community.”
But here, there was no bipartisan good cheer. When Zamarripa started to introduce her resolution after midnight, the Assembly’s speaker pro tempore, Tyler August (R-Delavan), told her to be quiet and then ordered her microphone cut off.
The Assembly then voted along party lines, 62-35, to deny allowing a vote on the resolution.
The following afternoon, Zamarripa lamented the difference in how the Legislature received the two honoring resolutions.
The Thompson resolution, “was beautiful, there were bipartisan speeches lifting up our former governor, there were members of his family there, there was applause from both sides of the aisle. That’s what I wanted for Pride month,” she says. “So, to see the stark difference between these two resolutions for myself as an LGBT Wisconsinite, is truly heartbreaking.”
Despite this atmosphere, Zamarripa and her colleague Mark Spreitzer (D-Beloit) and a few other Democrats are sponsoring a slate of bills attempting to expand protections and rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
These bills range from simply cleaning up Wisconsin’s statutes to reflect the U.S. Supreme Court’s recognition of same-gender marriage to prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity and expression. But it’s unclear whether the bills will even get a hearing, let alone a vote.
“That Pride month resolution is exemplary of the way that LGBT Wisconsinites and LGBT Americans are being treated right now,” Zamarripa says. “We see that with President Trump refusing to acknowledge Pride month — President Obama did it every year of his administration. So it’s a step back for us.”
The U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-gender marriage in 2015, making Wisconsin’s own constitutional ban against these unions obsolete.
But although the state’s ban is unenforceable, Zamarripa wants to “remove this stain” from the state.
She and Spreitzer are sponsoring a Constitutional Amendment on Marriage, to change the constitution. If two subsequent Legislatures approve this act, residents will vote on it.
Spreitzer says it’s not hard to imagine marriage equality being taken away nationally.
“We’re potentially one Supreme Court retirement away and one Trump appointment away from a different majority that could reverse that,” he says. “If that were to happen, we’d immediately go back to having that state constitutional ban being enforced.”
A related bill, the Marriage and Family Equality Act, would clean up the language of Wisconsin’s state laws to reflect the 2015 Supreme Court ruling on marriage rights. The state’s existing laws and regulations are written in gender-specific language that can make it confusing as to who the laws and rules apply to.
These statutes involve both minor issues — such as a discount on fishing licenses for a husband and wife, but not explicitly same-gender couples — to much more significant ones, such as parental rights.
“The law is very clear that the husband of a woman who is artificially inseminated is legally the father of that child, there’s no additional paperwork that needs to be done,” Spreitzer says. “But if two women are married...the other mother is not automatically designated a parent.”
His proposal would clarify the language to deal with all of these issues. “It’s a 60-page bill that goes through the statutes and makes all those updates, so that every couple has the certainty, and everyone in the state who administers the laws, understands how it works,” he says.
The bills have been sent to the Assembly’s Constitution and Ethics Committee for review. A spokesperson for the committee’s chair, Scott Allen (R-Waukesha), says his office had just received the bills and is still reviewing them. The spokesperson would not say if a hearing would be scheduled.
In 1982, Wisconsin became the first state in the country to prohibit discrimination against people because of their sexual orientation. Since then, many other states have followed Wisconsin’s lead, but they’ve also added protections for transgender people.
“Because we were so pioneering, we only did sexual orientation and there wasn’t enough awareness about the transgender community at the time,” Spreitzer says. “So we’re one of a handful of states that has not added gender identity [as a protected class].”
Last year, Rep. Jesse Kremer (R-Kewaskum) introduced a bill that would have required students to use the restroom of the gender they were identified with at birth. The bill died without a vote.
Spreitzer says it’s important to protect transgender people from these types of initiatives, so he’s sponsoring the Privacy Protection and Gender Identity Anti-Discrimination Act. This would make it illegal to discriminate based on gender identity and expression in housing, employment, education and insurance, among other areas.
“We know that about 40 percent of transgender people attempt suicide in their lifetime,” he says. “We know that one of the driving factors behind that is a lack of acceptance and equality, whether from their family or society. We can’t fix all of those issues by changing the law, but we can make sure we’re not contributing to it.”
This bill has been referred to the State Affairs Committee. Rep. Bob Swearingen (R-Rhinelander), the committee’s chair, did not respond to a request for comment.
Spreitzer says that whether or not any of the proposed bills get a committee hearing or a vote in the Assembly depends on whether the Republican leadership will allow it.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) did not return calls for comment.
Of the six legislative initiatives on behalf of the LGBT community being proposed by Zamarripa and Spreitzer, only one of them currently has a Republican co-sponsor.
Todd Novak (R-Dodgeville), an openly gay man, has signed on to a bill that would prohibit health care providers from treating minors with “conversion therapy,” a practice that has been discredited by numerous medical groups.
Spreitzer would love to see more Republicans supporting LGBT issues.
“We’d hope that if leadership isn’t there, there would be rank-and-file [Republican] members who would publically sign on as co-sponsors,” he adds. “When that doesn’t even happen, it makes it that much harder to try to get a hearing or a vote.”
Editor's note: This article has been updated to correct the titles of proposed legislation. The Marriage Equality Package includes The Marriage and Family Equality Act, which would revise state statutes to reflect marriage equality, and the Constitutional Amendment on Marriage, which would remove the constitution's ban on same-gender marriage.
