Clean Water and GOP Special Interests Are Front-and-Center in Two Wisconsin Special Elections

Ann  Grves Lloyd faces a Republican family abuser today.

Patt Pisellini of Rome (Adams County) in central Wisconsin frightens Republican politicians.

If you've read her prose, you can understand why.

Pisellini demands that Wisconsin Republicans do their jobs for the Wisconsin people, and not the special interests such as factory farm corporations.

Write Pisellini today:

Water is a key issue today as Wisconsin is holding two special elections that were blocked by a frightened Gov. Scott Walker and Republicans until judges ordered Walker to hold the elections in a series of April rulings.

Who did Republicans come up with for candidates?

In Wisconsin's 42nd assembly district in south-central Wisconsin, Ann Groves Lloyd (D) faces family abuser Jon Plumer (R).

Plumer's campaign is running an ad of Plumer's wife defending Plumer, looking every bit the hostage reading a statement written by an abuser.

Plumer is a certain vote for Republican orthodoxy on water which means water is for Foxconn and Big Ag but not for families.

Noted former Republican State Sen. Dale Schultz on Republican demands of Party loyalty:

"When some think-tank comes up with the legislation and tells you not to fool with it, why are you even a legislator anymore? You just sit there and take votes and you're kind of a feudal serf for folks with a lot of money," (Craver, The Capital Times).

"I think increasingly legislation is coming to the legislature entirely pre-packaged. And anybody who wants to work on it, who wants to think about it, or wants to change it gets in trouble," (Craver, The Capital Times). 

Lloyd is favored by insiders to win this one going away.
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In the other special election in northeastern Wisconsin Sen. District One, Republicans offer up a rightwing, fundamentalist State Rep. Andre Jacque, who in sum wants to outlaw abortion, birth control, anything deterring women from their god-sanctioned station in life.

Jon Plumer, wife and daughter beater, and Andre Jacque, extremist whack.

This is the face of the Republican Party which demands its state officeholders vote for Party.

Plumer faces Caleb Frostman (D - Sturgeon Bay) today.

Frostman offers what used to be a bi-partisan consensus in rural Wisocnsin stressing opportunity, investment and conservation.

The Frostman-Jacque race is trickier for Dems because the Republican gerrymander of this state senate district is more severe. Still Frostman is a slight favorite.

Wisconsin's Year of Water—2018

Increasing opposition to proposed massive CAFO in central
Wisconsin signals statewide, clean water sentiment.
- Photo by Mary Captain-Braund (creative commons)

In 2016, Election Day saw electoral defeats for two prominent clean-water candidates running for state assembly in central and northeastern Wisconsin.

The set-backs are temporary and the Wisconsin Blue Wave is acknowledged across the political spectrum as the terrain on which the 2018 campaigns are held.

Clean water champ and 2016 candidate, Dave Gorski, is back, running in the 72nd assembly district in central Wisconsin.

In Wisconsin's northeastern peninsula, a special election for state senate in a district held by Republicans is considered so vulnerable, Gov. Scott Walker went to unprecedented lengths to block the election before state courts ordered Walker to follow the law, forcing the gov to let people decide their representatives in free elections.

Anti-Trump and Walker animus, pro-women sentiment, public school defenders, local democracy, criminal justice reform and anti-Foxconn voters are poised to become electoral factors in 2018.

Clean water grassroots groups present the equivalent of a massive ground operation energizing the Wisconsin Blue Wave.

Candidates in 2018 have taken notice, bringing back a traditional Wisconsin commitment—clean and fresh water.

In the town of Saratoga, Wisconsin, (population some 5,100), in southern Wood County an entire municipal government is mobilized for survival, as one proposed factory farm, CAFO, in Saratoga would "likely contaminate residents drinking wells and pump out more groundwater than some cities," (Anderson, USA Today Network-Wisconsin).

Republican legislators, State Rep. Scott Krug (R-Nekoosa) and State Sen. Patrick Testin (R-Stevens Point) in central Wisconsin work against the interests of their constituents whom they sell out to Big Ag interests which pollute and deplete surface and ground waters in support of the Republican coalition.

Some leading clean water advocates include gubernatorial candidate Matt Flynn, and Ann Groves Lloyd running for a special election in central Wisconsin, assembly dist 42.

Writes Flynn in a message repeated across the state:

Wisconsin used to be known for clean air, clean water, and clean government. Now we have dirty air, dirty water, and corrupt government. This is unacceptable. Here's how I'll protect our clean water resources as #wigov https://t.co/QB1xZ2KZyO #bluewave2018 https://t.co/FfLh1BsqJ5

— Matt Flynn (@ForwardWFlynn) May 1, 2018

Groves Lloyd of Lodi, Wisconsin is running in the special assembly election to be held on June 12, one of two special elections that will draw national attention.

The Wisconsin people have become so disgusted with Scott Walker and the Republicans rigging law and water-safety regulations to help polluters against families that Walker in a historic first actually blocked special elections to stop Wisconsin voters from electing candidate who would protect their families.

Below is a TV spot running widely featuring Groves Lloyd's campaign commitment to protecting water.