Steven Leonard
Democrat Patty Schachtner won a state Senate seat in a Republican stronghold.
In May, I wrote a column calling for the Democrats to find some good candidates for the state Legislature. At the time, I was frustrated that the party was following a losing formula — fielding candidates without a long history in the district, who had little ambition beyond being token opposition on the ballet.
Almost a year later, I’m extremely happy to see that the Wisconsin Democratic Senate Committee looks to be on a new path.
The Democrats started off 2018 with a huge and surprising win. Patty Schachtner won the heavily Republican Senate district in northwestern Wisconsin. Schachtner had lived in the area for decades. She was a known commodity in the community as a school board member, a medical examiner and, yes, as a bear hunter.
“People want to vote for someone who will fight for them,” says Jenni Dye, executive director of the State Senate Democratic Committee, and a Dane County supervisor. “Patty had already walked the walk in supporting her community, volunteering at her local food pantry and her local domestic violence shelter.”
True, Schachtner had help from the political discord created by President Donald Trump but her roots in the district certainly helped play a role in her historic win.
The Republican loss shook Gov. Scott Walker enough that he is arguably violating state statute by neglecting to call for special elections to fill the seats vacated by two state lawmakers who quit in December to join Walker’s administration. Just think about it, one loss made him scared of democracy. Walker backed this up with a proposal for a $100-per-child tax credit to be paid out two months before the election.
As much fun as it is to see the formerly unintimidated governor quake and shiver, it’s even more exciting to see that Schachtner isn’t a fluke. The recent campaign announcement of Kriss Marion in the 17th District shows that the Democrats mean business.
Marion, a farmer and county board member, is focusing on issues that are locally relevant, just like Schachtner did. Marion’s campaign is focused on roads, rural broadband, and supporting small businesses. She provides a stark contrast to efforts to give $4.5 billion in public dollars to a factory on the other side of the state.
The 17th Senate District seat in rural southwestern Wisconsin, currently held by Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green), is one of the few truly competitive seats under the current electoral maps. But Democrats completely fumbled the ball on this race in 2014 with Pat Bomhack, a lawyer who had only recently moved into the district.
Dye expects other Democrats to join Marion in the Democratic primary and to run elsewhere as well. “We are going to see lots of exciting Democratic candidates announce in districts across the state,” she says.
Dye met Marion through Emerge Wisconsin, a program that prepares women to run for elected office as Democrats. Similar programs such as Wisconsin Progress train candidates of all genders. “I’m excited to see [Marion] and many other women get more involved,” says Dye.
“Patty’s win in Senate District 10 reminds us that we have to find the right candidates. We also know that running for office is incredibly challenging. In particular, the voices of women are very underrepresented. Training programs like Emerge help get the right candidates ready to run,” says Dye.
Even with a wave election, Wisconsin’s aggressively gerrymandered maps temper expectations. That’s why Democrats and Republicans are both waiting for the U. S. Supreme Court to rule on a case over Wisconsin’s maps that could end up as a landmark ruling. If SCOTUS rules that the Republican-created maps violate the Equal Protection clause, we might see different electoral maps as soon as this fall.
Even a month ago, I was pessimistic that the high court would toss out the maps. But then the justices rejected an appeal by Pennsylvania Republicans whose own rigged maps lost in court. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court then created maps that are generally considered fair (though Republicans continue to fight the court’s maps). The Pennsylvania and Wisconsin cases are somewhat different, but Pennsylvania shows me that the Democrats can succeed in getting these unconstitutional maps overturned.
SCOTUS could issue its ruling anytime over the next few months, but candidates for the state Legislature have to declare by June 1. So Dems are not waiting around.
“Obviously, we are excited about the possibility of a favorable decision from the Supreme Court but we are going full steam ahead with the current maps,” says Dye. “Senate District 10 shows us that, with the current national energy, Democrats can win in districts across the state when we find the right candidates.”