Who of these is not like the others? 81st District candidates show some differences
You have to look hard to spot the differences among the six candidates vying for the Assembly's 81st District seat.
They're all Democrats, all committed to issues like health care, education and creating jobs.
And they're all fed up with Republican rule, on which they blame many of Wisconsin's woes.
The six Democratic candidates met at the Concourse Hotel Wednesday evening in front of a crowd of more than 150 local Democratic supporters and a smattering of statehouse leaders at an event sponsored by the Democratic Party of Dane County. The winner of the Sept. 9 primary will win the seat; no Republicans are on the ballot.
Those hoping to walk away with the job include Waunakee Village President John Laubmeier, Madison restaurant owner Peng Her, former insurance lobbyist Eric Englund, Dane County Assistant District Attorney Tim Kiefer, state Senate legislative aide Justin Sargent and former NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin Executive Director Kelda Helen Roys.
The winner will replace Rep. Dave Travis, who is retiring after 30 years. The district includes north Madison, the village of Waunakee and the towns of Black Earth, Berry, Springfield, Cross Plains and Burke.
The candidate forum was for the most part an exercise in trying to sound different while giving the same answer, but differences did emerge.
For instance, Kiefer declared that "there are three things I'm committed to work on." Those are "getting smart on crime" by employing drug and alcohol treatment and other inmate reform measures, backing the Democrats' Healthy Wisconsin Plan -- a $15 billion coverage plan passed last year by the Democrat-controlled Senate but snubbed by Assembly Republicans -- and cleaning up Dane County lakes.
"I'm going to be coming to work every day, representing the people of the 81st District and saying how can I move the ball forward on that," he said.
How to provide health care to state residents was an issue embraced by all candidates, but the others also threw education and the economy on the must-do list.
The most surprising consensus of the evening came with the universal support of a North Mendota Parkway, which would run from Middleton to Interstate 90-94. The Dane County Board backed the concept of a throughway connecting north Madison, Waunakee and Middleton in 2004 after about a decade of wrangling, but no one has come up with a solid route for the project.
All six candidates said they would support state funding for the roadway, as long as it was included in a more balanced approach to alleviating the county's growing traffic congestion, including improvements to mass transit.
"Frankly the days of the extraordinary reliance on highways is behind us," Englund said. "We're forced into the new era. Mass transportation is before us."
The strongest language backing the parkway came from Laubmeier, who said he has spent years trying to cut through bickering to get the project off the ground, even offering to have the village of Waunakee pick up the bill for an environmental impact study.
"I absolutely support the idea of a North Mendota Parkway because without it we're all doomed," he said.
Most candidates said they backed the concept of a regional transportation authority. A proposal for it will likely be introduced in the Legislature in the coming session.
Englund said he wanted to see what the proposal looks like.
Lawmakers have been under pressure to come up with legislation for RTAs for metro systems facing drastic federal cutbacks in coming years and for Dane County, which needs a taxing authority to fund its proposed commuter rail system connecting Sun Prairie, Madison and Middleton. Laubmeier, whose village voted to oppose an RTA, and Kiefer said they would only back the legislation if it required local approval.
Despite Sargent's endorsements by the Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters and Clean Wisconsin Action Fund, it was Roys, who has also been endorsed by the League of Conservation Voters, who proposed the most ambitious environmental goal. She said the state should develop alternative sources of energy such as geothermal, wind, solar and hydro power to get "all power from clean, renewable energy by 2020."
All candidates decried Republican assaults on University of Wisconsin System funding, saying the state should shell out more to keep state universities afloat and keep faculty from fleeing to other universities because pay is not competitive.
Englund went the extra mile, declaring the UW a "casualty" and urging the UW-Madison campus to pull out of the system.
"We have to save the flagship," he said.
The candidates were also on the same page with education funding, but solutions ranged from making "adjustments" to the current system, such as reinstating the estate tax (Englund), to scrapping the system and devising something new (everybody else).
"As you can see, education is important to all of us up here," Her said.
Mike Basford, an officer with the Democratic Party of Dane County who moderated the event, drew the biggest applause of the night when he posed a long-winded question that began, "Republicans and conservatives are so clearly wrong on all the issues."
He chided Democrats for rolling over in the name of bipartisanship and allowing Republicans to continually move the "goal posts to the right."
"Will you put getting the right things done the right way ahead of just getting things done?" he asked the candidates. "Will you put the people of your state and of your district ahead of the conventional wisdom politics that has so cancerously damaged politics in Wisconsin?
"I challenge the premise of the question," Laubmeier said. "If I had to deal with the devil himself to get good public policy, then I'd do it."
The others followed suit, with Roys pointing out that her most public legislative success, lobbying on behalf of the compassionate care bill, which requires health care providers to provide emergency contraception to rape victims, came as a result of bipartisanship. As NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin executive director, she got moderate Republican Terry Musser, R-River Falls, on board to back the bill.
The move, however, alienated Musser from his party, and he later cited his treatment at the hands of hard-line Republicans as a reason he chose not to seek re-election.
Her, who holds a master's degree in physics, managed to end the night on a light note during his closing statement.
"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to balance the budget, to provide health care, to make sure the schools are properly funded, to make sure the state has jobs coming to it," he said. "But wouldn't it be nice to have one just in case?"
Michelle Stocker/The Capital Times
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Candidates for the 81st District Assembly seat squared off in a forum Wednesday at the Concourse Hotel.
