Chris Taylor (left) and André Jacque in front of the pelvic exam Senate Bill.
If you’re like me, reading the news has become a logistical challenge. I can no longer do it in the morning before heading to school; I have to build in time for crying and pulling myself back together. It’s hard to trust that our essential institutions are still functioning. But in order to counter the current federal administration’s abuse of power, we must believe more fervently than ever that our Constitution and system of checks and balances will prevail.
I have faith that our state government still works, partly based on my own personal experience with the Wisconsin Legislature. A 2025 highlight for me was seeing Gov. Tony Evers sign a bill into law that requires explicit, written informed consent for educational pelvic exams. Now it is no longer legal to penetrate the vagina of an unconscious person without their knowledge or permission, in order to learn to perform a pelvic exam.
Wisconsin became the 29th state to enact such legislation, as growing numbers of patients and medical trainees clamor for clearer ethical standards. It is a story of how government is supposed to function. And a story of bipartisan collaboration.
I was a constituent with a problem that I had tried to resolve myself to no avail. Then, in 2019, I emailed Chris Taylor, who at the time represented the heavily Democratic 76th district in the Wisconsin Assembly. Taylor enlisted Sen. André Jacque, a Republican from DePere, to serve as co-author on the original version of the bill. “Sen. Jacque and I were able to find a really important issue to work on together,” says Taylor, now an appeals court judge who is running for Wisconsin Supreme Court. “I enjoyed working with him. We don’t have to agree on everything.”
When Taylor left the Legislature to serve as a judge, it was Jacque who kept the bill alive. He kept me apprised when public hearings were scheduled, recruited co-authors, and ensured the bill got his colleagues’ attention.
If all I knew about Sen. Jacque were that he has supported legislation to restrict culturally responsive teaching or prevent transgender girls from participating in sports, I would assume that we wouldn’t have much in common. But you know what? He’s a really nice guy, gracious and hard-working. He takes seriously that he is in a position to truly change people’s lives. In addition to placing high value on informed consent, we both care about protecting natural resources and cracking down on drunk driving. To be sure, we would disagree heartily on many issues, but I think we would be able to have constructive conversations about them. Both Jacque and Taylor exemplified to me what it means to be a public servant: listening to constituents, bringing their concerns to the Legislature, and working together to create change.
Through this process I do see ways for all of us, including members of the Legislature and media, to improve public trust in our government.
The Legislature should make its processes easier to engage in and more transparent. Public hearings are often scheduled with only a few days’ notice, which makes it difficult for members of the public to participate.
It’s also too easy for lobbyists to obstruct legislation behind closed doors. Requiring any organizations which register in opposition or in favor of a bill to testify at public hearings, rather than make their case to legislators privately, would level the playing field between lobbyists and constituents. It was especially galling to me to make myself vulnerable, publicly sharing intimate details of one of my most traumatic experiences, knowing that hospital lobbyists were lying in wait somewhere in the room but would not disclose their position or reasoning at the hearing. To earn public trust, legislators need to commit themselves to greater transparency about who is influencing their decisions. We must also find a way to permanently fund WisconsinEye, which provides video coverage of Capitol proceedings.
Members of the media should also celebrate the wins! Robin Fretwell Wilson, University of Illinois law professor and long-time advocate for informed consent legislation, attended the bill signing with me. She wondered aloud while we waited for our bill to be signed why members of the press were not there. “These are the home runs!” she remarked. Hearing more about the instances when our Legislature works as intended would boost public confidence in our systems of governance.
To that end, we must all support local media, especially at a time when newsrooms are being gutted. While consuming national news often leaves me feeling disempowered, I can choose to spend more time focusing on local and state issues, where it feels easier to make an impact. I’m reading and listening to more local, independent media, like Isthmus, Madison365, Wisconsin Watch, The Daily Cardinal, and WORT-FM (one of the first outlets to cover the pelvic exam legislation, way back in 2020), in addition to public radio and television.
And resist the urge to disengage and divide. André Jacque and Chris Taylor taught me that it’s far more productive to find our overlapping values than it is to fixate on our differences. It might feel harder than ever for those with progressive values to engage with people who elected this administration. But if our neighbors in Minneapolis have taught us anything recently, it’s that we truly do have the power to unite and protect each other’s rights.
Sarah Wright teaches science and lives with her family in Fitchburg.
