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For the primary time in years, the northern shores of Lake Winnebago in Neenah and Menasha function a aggressive Meeting race.
After retiring from his decades-long political profession in 2021, former Neenah mayor and state Rep. Dean Kaufert is returning to politics in a bid to characterize the 53rd Meeting District as a Republican. Difficult him is lifelong Neenah resident and Democrat Duane Shukoski, a political newcomer who beforehand labored as an environmental well being supervisor at Kimberly Clark.
Present Rep. Mike Schraa was drawn out of the district and unsuccessfully ran within the fifty fifth Meeting District Republican main. Now, the aggressive 53rd may grow to be a deciding seat in Democrats’ quest to achieve management within the Meeting.
Kaufert is working on a conservative platform supporting a referendum on a 14-week abortion ban, reducing taxes and persevering with public funding to personal voucher faculties. Shukoski is working a progressive marketing campaign to make sure abortion entry, repeal anti-union laws and broaden Medicaid funding.
Redistricting
For greater than a decade, Neenah has been represented within the Meeting by Republicans, sharing the fifty fifth Meeting District with rural components of Winnebago County. Neighboring Menasha, in the meantime, has persistently remained a Democratic stronghold, because it has shared the extra city 57th Meeting District with Appleton.
Since redistricting, the 2 Fox Valley cities have been grouped collectively within the 53rd Meeting District. Now, in accordance with a Wisconsin Watch evaluation, Democrats and Republicans within the district are separated by lower than 5 factors, rating the 53rd Meeting District among the many best races in Wisconsin’s Legislature.
‘I’m not an extremist’
Kaufert has a prolonged resume — after beginning his political profession on the Neenah Metropolis Council in 1986, he received a bid to characterize the fifty fifth Meeting District in 1990 and remained there till 2015, after he was elected Neenah mayor.
His voting report contains opposing Medicaid growth, favoring the repeal of iron mining restrictions and supporting anti-abortion measures. Kaufert obtained a 96.43% lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union.
However in a gap assertion throughout an October candidate discussion board hosted by the League of Ladies Voters of Wisconsin, Kaufert shunned figuring out as a conservative and emphasised bipartisanship.
“I’m not an extremist on any concern,” Kaufert mentioned. “This isn’t working, the partisan divide (in Madison). I’m a confirmed individual that was nicely revered on either side of the aisle.”
Kaufert didn’t make himself out there for an interview for this story.
A progressive proposal
Shukoski, a lifelong Neenah resident, grew up underneath the state’s foster care system earlier than working up the Kimberly Clark company ladder, beginning as a union employee and finally turning into environmental well being supervisor.
“I’m not a politician,” Shukoski mentioned through the October candidate discussion board. “I’m a retired Kimberly Clark worker. I come from the working class and I care in regards to the working class.”
When requested about his political ideology, Shukoski mentioned that he “would lean extra progressive.” He recognized a robust social security community throughout his youth as a big supply of help, and he counted his background as a robust affect on his political positions.
“The truth that Winnebago County and the state took care of me has impressed me to run and to offer again to my neighborhood,” Shukoski mentioned.
Shukoski’s platform contains accepting federal funding to broaden BadgerCare, to enshrine Roe v. Wade into the state’s structure and to repeal 2011 Act 10, a regulation that crippled public sector unions within the state.
Value of dwelling
A few of Shukoski’s major focuses are poverty and the price of dwelling. In a press release on his marketing campaign web site, Shukoski mentioned that he hopes to “ease the price of dwelling and make childcare extra reasonably priced.”
Shukoski additionally spoke about rising housing prices and homelessness, referencing his earlier work as a volunteer for Pillars, a company targeted on offering housing and different sources to populations experiencing homelessness.
Kaufert had a special perspective on the price of dwelling.
“Issues appear to be going lots higher than they used to, apart from inflation,” Kaufert mentioned. “Minimal wage is raised on this nation, extra persons are working. Salaries are up.”
Whereas unemployment charges have remained low and median family incomes have elevated in recent times, Wisconsin’s minimal wage has remained on the federal stage of $7.25 per hour since 2009.
Kaufert additionally spoke in opposition to implementing social welfare applications. “There’s little question that there’s a scarcity of enough high quality reasonably priced housing,” Kaufert mentioned. “However hire management, issues like that, aren’t the reply.”
Kaufert claimed particular person monetary selections are the reason for the issues for folks experiencing poverty.
“You see individuals who don’t have the monetary means to do the issues that they need to be doing, however all of them obtained a 65-inch display screen TV. They obtained cigarette butts on the entrance porch. They obtained a $1,000 cellphone,” he mentioned. “I’m not prepared to offer a handout.”
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Labor
Each Kaufert and Shukoski declare to help unions.
Kaufert, one in all solely 4 Republicans who voted in opposition to Act 10, mentioned he has labored with unions previously. “I do know the leaders and we work nicely, and to be painted as an extremist simply isn’t truthful,” he mentioned.
However Kaufert now defends Act 10, calling it “the very best factor that ever occurred to this state.” He spoke in opposition to the concept of repealing Act 10, saying that “to simply come and say we’re going to overturn all the pieces isn’t the suitable reply.”
Kaufert additionally obtained a lifetime rating of 27% from the AFL-CIO in 2014, indicating that he voted in opposition to the union’s positions within the overwhelming majority of votes. He has been endorsed by the Nationwide Federation of Unbiased Enterprise and the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation.
Shukoski, alternatively, has overtly referred to as to overturn Act 10, saying that it is likely one of the first issues he hopes to realize in workplace.
A former union member, Shukoski has obtained endorsements from a number of unions, together with UAW and AFL-CIO. Shukoski spoke in favor of unions, saying that with stronger unions, “we’re all lifted up. The economic system does higher. Wages are higher.”
In line with a 2023 Treasury Division report, unions “serve to strengthen the center class and develop the economic system at giant.”
“I raised a household on union wages again within the ‘80s. You’ll be able to’t do this at this time,” Shukoski mentioned. “We have to strengthen our unions.”
Abortion
In a September Fb submit, Kaufert mentioned that he would help a “statewide referendum on (the) 14-week abortion invoice,” echoing AB 975, a Republican-backed invoice that sought to ban abortions after 14 weeks.
Within the submit, Kaufert additionally mentioned that he was pro-life and would help “exceptions for rape, incest or lifetime of the mom” and “laws for contraception to be offered over-the-counter by pharmacist(s).”
Kaufert has beforehand supported anti-abortion laws, together with 2013’s SB206, which compelled these searching for an abortion to have an ultrasound and mandated that physicians present a verbal description of the fetus.
Shukoski, who has been endorsed by the Deliberate Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin, mentioned that he hopes to “enshrine Roe into the State Structure.”
“It’s none of my enterprise. It’s not one of the authorities’s enterprise for what ladies do in conditions like that,” Shukoski mentioned.
Training
Kaufert and Shukoski diverge additional on schooling in Wisconsin.
Over a decade in the past, Kaufert launched laws to offer tax credit to folks who enroll college students in non-public faculties. As an alternative the state expanded the Milwaukee non-public college voucher program statewide. Kaufert mentioned he would proceed the growth of college alternative.
He additionally mentioned Wisconsin’s public faculties are adequately funded.
“Public college spending has elevated each single yr of the state finances,” Kaufert mentioned. “To folks that say public faculties aren’t being funded adequately, public faculties are.”
Public college spending has elevated yearly besides in 2011, when Kaufert joined Republicans in passing a finances with an $834 million lower to Wisconsin’s Okay-12 finances. The misplaced funding to colleges was offset by requiring lecturers to contribute extra to retirement and medical health insurance premiums. Between 2002 and 2020, Wisconsin’s public college system skilled the third-lowest college funding enhance within the nation, and the state’s rising college voucher system continues to divert a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of taxpayer {dollars} towards non-public faculties every year.
Nearly half of all Wisconsin college districts are searching for extra funding by referendums this yr.
Shukoski, alternatively, is important of the voucher program and mentioned that public schooling spending has to extend.
“Colleges on this district have closed. My elementary college has closed,” Shukoski mentioned. “That is what occurs if you defund otherwise you underfund faculties for 14 years.”
Shukoski, who was endorsed by the Wisconsin Training Affiliation Council, additionally referred to as for added restrictions on the voucher program in a candidate survey put out by the League of Ladies Voters and the Fox Cities Advocates for Public Training, agreeing with calls to reveal voucher prices on taxpayer payments, reevaluate the necessity for the voucher program and constitution faculties, and develop accountability measures for personal faculties that may be much like these of public faculties.
Local weather
On environmental points, Kaufert mentioned that “local weather change most likely exists.”
He additionally mentioned that it “is extra of a world drawback than it’s a Wisconsin drawback,” including that extra must be achieved federally and internationally to deal with the difficulty.
Kaufert obtained a 0% ranking from the Sierra Membership through the 2013-14 legislative session, indicating that he voted in opposition to the environmental group’s preferences in each recognized concern that yr. He additionally co-sponsored a Republican-led effort to weaken necessities for mining permits within the state in 2011.
Shukoski cited his environmental work at Kimberly Clark when talking about local weather change, saying in a assertion on his marketing campaign web site that he had labored intently with the Division of Pure Assets and had helped enhance environmental requirements at a number of Kimberly Clark amenities.
Shukoski additionally referred to as for elevated funding within the occasion of future local weather emergencies, citing current disasters resembling Hurricane Helene.
“Everyone knows local weather change is actual,” Shukoski mentioned. “After we fireplace our scientists and we don’t fund the DNR or underfund, that hurts the state.”
Shukoski has been endorsed by the Sierra Membership.
Well being care
Kaufert spoke in opposition to accepting elevated federal funding for BadgerCare. He additionally warned that federal little one care subsidies can be “one-time cash” and that it may result in elevated tax prices.
Shukoski mentioned that he would help applications to extend little one care funding within the state, saying that “our working households want the assistance.” He additionally favors BadgerCare growth, saying it might “enhance healthcare entry, help native hospitals, and stop medical bankruptcies” in a press release on his marketing campaign web site.
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