SB 250: Concerns, Why WFA Opposes

Senate Bill 250 is making some headlines in Wisconsin with some very enthusiastic supporters, but a significant level of caution is warranted for this piece of legislation. 

SB 250 (and its Assembly companion AB 244) seeks to radically alter the election process for members of Congress and U.S. Senators in Wisconsin. It would ultimately make it more difficult for conservative candidates to win elections in our state. Additionally, it would shift the focus during elections from issues to money and name recognition, which often results in less qualified candidates taking office. A public hearing for the bill was held just before Christmas, but the Senate Committee on Elections has not yet voted on the bill. The Assembly hasn’t taken any action to date on the proposal.

This bill removes the partisan primaries for Congress and the U.S. Senate and replaces them with an open primary. Currently in Wisconsin, we have partisan primaries, meaning each party gets a chance to select one candidate for the general election. In this new proposed system, however, every candidate running for office would be in the same pool, and the top five vote earners would move on to the general election. That means that multiple Republicans and Democrats could, and certainly would, land on the final ballot in November.

The bill also implements something called “Final Five voting” in the general election. On election day, under this bill, voters would be asked to rank their choices for Congress and U.S. Senate from their first choice to their fifth (but ranking all five is not required). After the votes are counted, if no candidate has over 50% of the vote, whoever has the fewest votes would be removed. Votes that had gone to the eliminated candidate would then go to a given voter’s second choice candidate. If there is still no candidate with more than 50% of the vote, the process is repeated until there is.

The Final Five voting system isn’t necessarily complicated, but it can be confusing because it’s so different from the way we have always conducted elections in Wisconsin. To make matters worse, if passed, this bill would apply to this year’s elections. It’s a tall order to get the whole state on the same page that quickly. In addition, the cost of restructuring the voting system is also of major concern. Maine uses a similar system for a few elected offices, and their taxpayers have to pay nearly another half a million dollars per election to make this system work. Wisconsin has four times the population of Maine; so it stands to reason that our cost would be much higher than Maine’s.

Additionally, this type of election system is ripe for manipulation and election tampering. 

Because of the complexity of this system, it would likely take weeks to determine who actually won the election. Beyond that, we’ve already seen how hard it is to keep the ballot safe, secure and properly counted for one night. Imagine the antics that dishonest vote counters could pull if we allow the counting to extend over a period of weeks. 

Right now is a terrible time to further erode our faith in our electoral system. Wisconsin Family Action firmly opposes Senate Bill 250/Assembly Bill 244. 

AT THE CAPITOL: 4 Bills Protecting God’s Plan for Families in Wisconsin

AT THE CAPITOL: 4 Bills Protecting God’s Plan for Families in Wisconsin

Yesterday, Wisconsin Family Action’s Legislative Team, Julaine Appling and Micah Pearce, spent the day attending 3 different hearings in the capitol. Julaine provided testimony on four different bills in those hearings.

AB 195/SB 323 and AB 196/SB 322These bills are the Protect Women’s Sports bills. The bills stop biological males from participating in girls’/women’s sports. AB 195/SB 323 prohibits this at the UW System schools and the technical training schools, both publicly funded institutions of higher learning. AB 196/SB322 does the same thing in Wisconsin’s public K-12 schools and private schools participating in a parental choice program.  AB 195 was heard in the Assembly Committee on Colleges & Universities, and AB 196 was heard in the Assembly Education Committee. The Senate bills were heard in the Senate Committee on Human Services, Children and Families.

SB 260: This bill would close loopholes in the law to make it clear that the UW Madison and the UW Medical School cannot have any kind of funding relationship with Planned Parenthood to train residents to do abortions or to provide UW doctors to Planned Parenthood to do abortions.

SB 261: This bill would add additional information that would need to be tracked and reported after an induced abortion is performed. The additional information includes reporting the sex of the baby if that can be visually determined and if there is any fetal anomaly. The bill would also require reporting the identity of the facility where the induced abortion takes place. The author of the bill, Senator Jacque, offered an amendment on Tuesday with a number of additional points of information that would need to be determined and reported.

The above two pro-life bills were heard in the Senate Committee on Human Resources, Children and Families.

You can view recordings of two of the three hearings HERE. Wiseye will require you to have an account to see these archived recordings, but the account is FREE. We would urge you to have a Wiseye account because this is the stat\ government’s official partner for the video transmission of press conferences, legislative floor periods, committee meetings, State Supreme Court hearings and administrative meetings, and more.

Recordings of the hearings yesterday are available for AB 196 and SB 260, SB 261, SB 322, and SB 323 (these 4 bills were all heard in the same hearing). No recording is available for AB 195.  Julaine speaks in the Assembly Education hearing on AB 195 at 2:14:40. She speaks in the Senate hearing on SB 260 at 3:07 and on SB 261, SB 322, and SB 323 at 3:59.

All of these bills are important to help protect our families here in Wisconsin. Watch for an email with information on contacting your elected officials on these bills! We’ll use our new action center for that communication.