Source: Jimmie Kaska | Civic Media
Sep 30, 2024, 11:23 AM CST
Wisconsin Watch is previewing legislative races in toss-up districts ahead of the Nov. 5 election by focusing on key issues for voters and what candidates say they will do to address them.
Rural health care access, affordable child care and public education are key issues for western Wisconsin voters in the toss-up 30th Assembly District where Democratic candidate Alison Page will seek to unseat incumbent Rep. Shannon Zimmerman in November.
This district covers parts of St. Croix and Pierce counties. It includes the cities of Hudson and River Falls, as well as the village of North Hudson. It also contains the UW-River Falls campus and Willow River State Park.
A Wisconsin Watch analysis of past voting patterns suggests the district is now a toss-up after Democratic Gov. Tony Evers signed new legislative maps earlier this year.
Zimmerman, 52, has represented the district since 2017. He co-chairs the Joint Committee on Information Policy and Technology. He is also part of the powerful Joint Finance Committee, which oversees the state budget. He is the founder of a language translation company and owns a small business.
Zimmerman did not respond to Wisconsin Watch’s repeated requests for an interview.
Page, 68, spent her career as a nurse and later as CEO of Western Wisconsin Health. She is a River Falls school board member and served on the Workforce Development Board of Western Wisconsin. In 2022, Page ran against Republican Rep. Warren Petryk in the old 93rd Assembly District, where she lost by more than 5,000 votes.
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee — a national group — recently announced that Page and the 30th Assembly District are on its target list “to build Democratic power across Wisconsin” and “shift the balance of power in the Legislature for the first time in over a decade.”
“Instead of taking my agenda from the powers that be in the Republican Legislature or the Democratic Legislature, I would take my agenda from the people of this region,” Page said when asked what sets her apart from her opponent.
In a recent interview with the Western Wisconsin Journal, Zimmerman said he brings a “practical, common-sense approach.”
“I will be called too moderate for the Republicans, and not in favor with the Democrats,” Zimmerman said. “That’s probably right where you want to be because I think that’s where you get things done.”
In the last legislative session, there were 437 instances of not voting in the Assembly, according to the Legislative Reference Bureau. If distributed evenly among all 99 members, that would amount to four or five instances per member. Zimmerman had 38 instances of not voting. He was granted a leave of absence for four floor sessions during which lawmakers voted on multiple bills. He told Wisconsin Watch his absence was due to a health issue.
Access to rural health care is a key issue in western Wisconsin. Two hospitals and 19 clinics in the region closed this year, leaving thousands without local options for care.
Page said the solution requires the state to work with the federal government.
Medicaid expansion, which Republicans in the Legislature have blocked, could help by allowing people earning more than the federal poverty level to access government-funded health care and bringing more money into the state, Page said. Wisconsin is one of 10 states — the only one in the Midwest — that has not yet expanded Medicaid.
“If I could wave a magic wand and do good things for health care, I would build health care into the public school system, so that every child would have a health care check-up, and provide basic preventative health care counseling, including mental health care,” Page said.
During the last legislative session, Zimmerman co-authored a bill that would establish a certification process and grant program for crisis urgent care and observation facilities, which treat mental health and substance use disorders.
Zimmerman has opposed efforts to expand Medicaid. In 2023, he was part of the GOP-controlled Joint Finance Committee that voted to remove Medicaid expansion funding from Evers’ budget proposal.
“We’re literally to the point now where the federal government is trying to buy Wisconsin into greater government dependence,” Zimmerman said of Medicaid expansion in 2021, according to WPR. “That’s absurd.”
A survey published in 2022 found that 70% of Wisconsin voters support fully expanding BadgerCare. The Marquette Law School Poll has similarly found 60% or greater support for accepting Medicaid expansion.
In 2017, Zimmerman responded to questions from the Republican Eagle and said he supported “adding provisions to the budget that established matching grant programs for rural clinics and hospitals that train advanced practice clinicians and allied health professionals.”
The Hudson School District recently estimated it would experience a budget deficit of $7.5 million by the 2028-29 school year due to declining enrollment and frozen revenue limits. Now the district will go to operational referendum in November to exceed its revenue cap by $5 million on a recurring basis, asking property taxpayers to pay for its operations, maintenance and staffing costs.
This fall, 120 school districts in Wisconsin are holding referendums, according to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. Many districts, including Hudson, have raised concerns that state aid increases have not kept up with inflation.
Page said the state needs to “step back,” look at other states and determine what the best, most fair way to fund public education is. The solution could be a blend of both state aid and referendums, but what’s happening now is not working, she said.
“If the state is underfunding — so they’re not keeping pace — and you’re going to referendum for operating revenue, then you’re gradually transitioning the cost of public education from the general fund onto the real estate taxpayer, and that is not a good idea,” Page said.
She believes public education is handled most efficiently — “with the best product at the lowest cost” — through one unified public school system.
“Siphoning off money to support schools that are not the public school system — I don’t think makes sense for the state for the long run,” Page said.
But she doesn’t have anything against private schools and parents wanting their children to be privately educated.
“Access to a free, excellent education is a right of every child in the state,” Page said. “Access to a private education that may be part of a spiritual organization is not a right.”
Under the current per-pupil funding model, school districts across the state, including Hudson, need to close and consolidate due to declining enrollment, Zimmerman said in a recent interview.
In 2023, legislation that increased per-pupil revenue limits in public schools and increased tax funding for private voucher schools at the same time passed as part of a compromise between Republican lawmakers and Evers. Zimmerman was on a leave of absence and did not vote on the bill.
In 2024, he voted in favor of a bill that would have repealed reductions of state aid paid to school districts under Wisconsin’s private school voucher programs — allowing funding to come directly from the state rather than from reductions in public school districts’ funds.
Affordable and accessible child care has been a persistent issue across the state of Wisconsin, and places like Hudson in the 30th Assembly District are no exception. The state is losing hundreds of child care providers every year, according to the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families.
Child care deserts exist across 70% of rural Wisconsin, according to a 2021 report from the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association. The Economic Policy Institute found that a typical family in Wisconsin would have to spend a third of its income on child care for an infant and a 4-year-old.
Based on 2016 data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Department of Health and Human Services deemed child care affordable if it costs up to 7% of a family’s income.
Page said she would consider multiple solutions, such as supporting those who enter or want to enter the child care field, incorporating child care into the K-12 public school system and working with community religious organizations to provide child care.
In 2023, the Joint Finance Committee voted to end funding for the Child Care Counts program — a pandemic-era subsidy program. Zimmerman was not present for that vote.
Last year, Zimmerman joined his Republican colleagues in voting for measures that would have lowered the minimum teaching age of assistant child care providers from 18 to 16 and increased the permitted ratio of children to workers in child care facilities. Providers and advocates say these efforts would not help current challenges in the child care field.
Tax reciprocity between states is an agreement that allows people who commute to work across state lines to pay taxes in the state where they reside. It is especially important to western Wisconsin residents near the Wisconsin-Minnesota border who travel across state lines for work.
This year, Zimmerman authored a bill signed into law by Evers that will begin the process of reestablishing income tax reciprocity between the two states, which was discontinued in 2009.
Page would support income tax reciprocity and said it’s an important issue she frequently hears from constituents in the 30th Assembly District.
This article first appeared on Wisconsin Watch and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
