Legislators discuss big topics in League of Women Voters forum

Only three of 10 invited state legislators showed up for the League of Women Voters legislative town hall on Sept. 29: Democratic representatives Lee Snodgrass and Lori Palmeri and Republican senator Andre Jacque. Six Republicans and one Democrat did not attend.

The non-partisan forum featured 10 direct questions for which each legislator was given 90 seconds to respond.

Topics ranged from independent redistricting to election reform, federal cuts and their impacts on the Wisconsin budget, immigration reform and more.

Taxpayer Transparency for Voucher Schools

Jacque dismissed voucher transparency – a proposal to itemize on property tax bills how much taxpayer money is going to fund private voucher programs – as political point-scoring and wondered if there should also be an itemization for administrative salaries or political lobbying, though it is illegal in Wisconsin for public school officials to use public funding or resources to advocate for referendum outcomes.

Snodgrass said she emphatically supports the proposal, saying she doesn’t know why anyone would oppose transparency.

“We want to know how our tax dollars are being spent,” she said. “I don’t think taxpayers really understand how much of our tax dollars are diverted away from a public entity that is accountable via a school board into essentially a private business where you do not have to report test scores or accept every student and do not have to do a lot of things public schools have to do.”

Palmeri said she supports choice but pointed out that $700 million have been diverted from public to voucher schools and that transparency is necessary.

Independent Redistricting

The candidates were asked about a bipartisan effort to end gerrymandering once and for all with a constitutional amendment for an Independent Redistricting Commission. 

Jacque said he was not aware of the proposal and instead addressed the recent State Supreme Court ruling that the district maps drawn in 2011 and again in 2021 were unconstitutional, complaining that they benefitted Democrats. He never mentioned the proposed independent commission.

Snodgrass said she fully supported an independent commission, saying she was deeply concerned by President Trump’s directives to Republican-majority states to redraw their maps to benefit his party and by California Gov. Gavin Newsom's decision to do the same in response.

“I really do think that if we can get to an independent redistricting commission, we can hold bad actors on both sides accountable, but we have to stop this kind of threat to democracy,” she said. “We have to really let the people decide, and the people decide when maps are drawn in a way that does not favor one party or the other.”

Suicide and Guns

Suicides in the state are up by 15 percent over the past five years and half of those are committed by gun. 

After a constituent called Snodgrass with concern for their own safety during a mental health crisis, Snodgrass introduced a bill that would allow a person in crisis to self-select to be barred from purchasing a gun for fear of their safety. 

“It took us two sessions to get to work with the DOJ, to work with all the stakeholders to get that bill to a place that was as simple as could possibly be and to hopefully remove barriers that my Republican colleague might find an excuse not to sign on to it,” Snodgrass said. “That bill just closed, and it's co-sponsored with circulation. There was not one Republican to sign on to that bill. Not one.”

Palmeri said she fully supported the legislation and expressed concern that society did not treat mental health with the seriousness it deserved, noting that emergency rooms are often the only option a person in crisis can turn to.

Jacque never mentioned the legislation nor guns at all in his answer, choosing instead to talk about expansion of mental health treatment and the perils of social media.

Election Reform

Palmeri and Snodgrass focused on proposals for early processing of absentee ballots on the Monday before the election. As it stands now, poll workers cannot begin counting absentee ballots until the polls close on Election Night, often extending the final results until the following morning in larger polling precincts like Milwaukee. But Snodgrass was opposed to recent legislation that contained such a provision.

“Unfortunately, this bill has a lot of poison pills,” she said. “It has a lot of things in there that I think would actually make it harder for people to vote, including absentee ballot drop box surveillance, to the degree that it would require law enforcement to accompany every emptying of that drop box. I talked to clerks in Milwaukee, and they said his bill would cost them $3 million in law enforcement alone. We need a simple bill that allows absentee ballots to be processed on Monday.”

While Jacque mentioned in passing his support for early processing, he said his main concerns were around voter integrity and potential issues with nursing home voting. 

Federal Funding Cuts

While Jacque mostly dismissed the impact of federal funding cuts from the GOP budget resolution – the so-called Big Beautiful Bill – on state programs, Snodgrass and Palmeri did not.

“The amount of programs, whether it be in housing, environment, health, education, that are being cut at the federal level, the state simply cannot absorb all of the need, but we have to do our best, which is why we put forward a budget,” Snodgrass said. “(Gov. Evers) put forward a budget that had that in mind. Unfortunately, that is not the budget that was passed, and we are beginning to see farmers in Wisconsin suffer from commodity prices going down. A lot of that has to do with the fact that, because of tariffs, soybeans are not being purchased from the United States. 

“The entire umbrella that keeps a country strong, education, health, housing, basic needs, that's all being delayed by the federal government, and we're going to have to continue to do our best to meet the needs and the increasing needs of Wisconsin's residents.” 

Jacque claimed to not be aware of any impact of federal budget cuts on Wisconsinites, calling it fearmongering and objecting to the phrasing of the question itself.

Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Project

On the topic of the program that establishes a state fund to support conservation efforts, Snodgrass said there is bipartisan support in general but little agreement in terms of the amount of money that should be spent, how it should be distributed and for how long. Snodgrass questioned whether Republicans have been dealing in good faith on the matter.

“We had an anonymous objector on the Joint Finance Committee that held up a stewardship project that had already been awarded,” Snodgrass said. “In Appleton that project had already been completed to the tune of $7 million and only through pressure in the media and making sure that there was some pain felt on the other side that money was finally released.”

Jacque agreed there is bipartisan support and said he is in favor of funding for conservation projects though he said he is uncertain if the two sides can come to terms.

Legislators discuss big topics in League of Women Voters forum © 2025 by Kelly Fenton is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0