Assembly District 9 cuts through the heart of the Near South Side and Kinnickinnic River and Menomonee River valleys. On Tuesday, Aug. 9, longtime incumbent Rep. Josh Zepnick will face immigration attorney Marisabel Cabrera in the Democratic primary. Since no Republicans are running for this seat, the winning Democrat will take office in January. Both candidates spoke about their campaigns for Assembly District 9.
Marisabel Cabrera
Marisabel Cabrera is an immigration attorney who operates her own private practice and was appointed by Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett to serve on the city’s Fire and Police Commission. She said she was inspired to run for the Assembly because the district needs a change.
“It’s very important to me to give back to the community,” Cabrera said. “It’s not just about voting one way or another but proactively advocating for the community. That’s something that the current incumbent does not do. He might vote a certain way but it’s not just about votes. You actually have to go a step further and make sure that your district is being treated fairly and has all of the resources it needs.”
Cabrera opposes school privatization and supports public schools, raising the minimum wage and workforce development programs that promote job training. She said the district lacks the additional development that’s seen in other areas of the city, such as Downtown.
“My district hasn’t felt the economic development that other parts of Milwaukee have,” she said.
She said she opposes state-level efforts to craft policies that impact Wisconsin’s immigrants, saying that this is a matter for the federal government. She said she disagreed with last year’s Republican-backed state bill that would have banned municipalities from enacting policies that prohibit law enforcement from asking individuals about their immigration status.
“It would have impeded law enforcement from investigating crimes,” she said. “If an individual is here and undocumented and a victim of a crime, they’re less likely to cooperate with an investigation or even report an incident if they have a fear of being removed from the country.”
Cabrera said that while she and Zepnick may agree on many issues because they’re both Democrats, she would be more proactive in the district and not author bills that are anti-Democratic. She pointed to two bills Zepnick worked on in the last session as examples. Zepnick co-sponsored a bill to enact a hurdle for public referendums to be held when a publicly owned water or sewer utility is being sold or leased. Zepnick also introduced a bill resurrecting Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele’s proposal to use aggressive debt collection efforts on struggling Milwaukeeans to come up with the $4 million the county must pay each year toward the Bucks arena. Both bills failed to pass the full Legislature.
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“These are not things I feel that as a Democrat we should be prioritizing,” Cabrera said. “We have many other issues that are more important. I think that that’s why people see this as an opportunity for positive change in the district.”
To learn more about Marisabel Cabrera, go to cabreraforassembly.com.
Josh Zepnick
Josh Zepnick has represented Assembly District 9 for seven terms and said his legislative highlights included pressuring Gov. Scott Walker to not make changes to Senior Care; modifying the Milwaukee Bucks arena deal so that it could include a side deal with a community benefits agreement for the permanent workers; and moving the workforce investment board from the county to the city. He said he also helped to secure transportation funding for rehab projects on South 27th Street and National Avenue.
“I want to build on a successful track record,” Zepnick said of his campaign for another term. “But it’s been a very dismal five years-plus under Walker and the Republican majority and it makes it difficult to get it done on the Democratic and progressive agenda and even Milwaukee-related stuff. I’m hopeful that this time around we’re going to have a better shot at things in terms of our standing in the Legislature.”
If he does win re-election, Zepnick said he’d like to continue his efforts to grant local municipalities more flexibility to raise revenue, reverse Walker’s cuts to K-12 public education and the University of Wisconsin System, and expand the Earned Income Tax Credit to adults who don’t have children.
He said that although he sometimes is criticized for working with Republicans, he does so to improve some pieces of legislation.
“It’s a skill and talent that not everyone employs in the Legislature on either side of the aisle,” he said.
He said his co-sponsorship of the water utility bill was misinterpreted as a way to ease privatization of publicly held water works. Instead, he said that it would affect the timing of a public referendum on the sale of a water or sewer utility. The final bill would have required a municipal ordinance authorizing a sale, then a public referendum only if signatures could be gathered for a referendum within 60 days equaling 10% of voters in the previous general election. If those signatures couldn’t be gathered or if the referendum passed, then the potential sale would go to the state Public Service Commission for approval. Under current law, the municipality approves the ordinance, it goes to the PSC, and then a referendum is held with no signature-gathering requirement.
Zepnick said the content of the bill got lost in the public debate about privatizing water utilities in the wake of the Flint, Mich., water scandal.
“I wish we could have done things differently,” he said.
He defended his debt-collection bill saying that it would have only targeted those who have an ability to pay their outstanding debts and only those in the Milwaukee suburbs, not the city.
“It doesn’t go after anyone with a low income,” Zepnick said.
To learn more about Rep. Josh Zepnick, go to facebook.com/9thAssembly.
