It’s Election Day 2022 in Sheboygan, and voters in this majority blue city once again have no chance of electing a Democrat to legislative office.
People are also reading…
Sorenson
Democrats won the 14th Assembly District this year by 27 points after Wisconsin Republicans redrew it to ensure they could win back the 13th Assembly District.
Republicans built a 64-seat Assembly majority in a state split evenly with Democrats by redrawing political boundaries for the Wisconsin Legislature to their favor. For example, they redrew the 73rd Assembly District to include less of Democratic Douglas County and more of Republican Burnett County, helping flip the seat for Republicans in 2022.
In a picturesque corner of western Wisconsin, a growing right-wing conservative movement has rocketed to prominence. They see America as a dark place, dangerous, where democracy is under attack by a tyrannical government, few officials can be trusted and clans of neighbors might have to someday band together to protect one another.
Wisconsin Republicans created two GOP majority districts across multiple communities in 2011. But after Democrats won both seats in 2020, they redrew the 13th Assembly District to include more conservative Brookfield, winning back the seat in 2022.
Looking back a decade later, 10 stories about Act 10
The most seismic political story of the last decade in Wisconsin began on Feb. 7, 2011, when Republican Gov. Scott Walker informed a gathering of cabinet members of plans to unilaterally roll back the power of public sector unions in the state. He "dropped the bomb," as Walker would describe it afterward, four days later.
The audacious proposal, to be known forever after as Act 10, required public employees to pay more for pension and health insurance benefits, but also banned most subjects of collective bargaining and placed obstacles to maintaining union membership.
Former Sen. Mark Miller and Rep. Peter Barca tried to slow down passage of the legislation to force a compromise.
A decade later, former Gov. Scott Walker said he views Act 10 as one of the best things he's done for the state.
Susan Cohen wondered if the Capitol dome would come crumbling down from the cacophonous vibrations during the Act 10 protests.
Dale Schultz believes the state's ability to solve people's problems was greatly diminished by Act 10.
Longtime Madison Teachers Inc. leader John Matthews explains why collective bargaining still matters.
Charles Tubbs said his mission was communicating with protesters and voluntary compliance.
During the peak of the Act 10 protests, Ian's Pizza was delivering 1,200 pizzas a day to protesters.
Sen. Joan Ballweg saw the recall elections that resulted from Act 10 as the people getting a chance to have their say.
Michele Ritt remembered her son Josef Rademacher wearing a hole in the soles of his snow boots during the protests.
Jason Stein was amazed to find himself in the midst of the No. 2 story on the New York Times home page.
