State Senator Alberta Darling was on a fundraising trip in Washington, D.C., when she released a memo, along with her Joint Finance Committee (JFC) co-chair, John Nygren, announcing her intent to strip Medicaid expansion from the state budget. In the missive, she drew an uncooperative line in the sand rejecting that, as well as other popular measures Gov. Tony Evers made cornerstones of both his winning campaign last November and his proposed budget. Since the election, opinion polls have shown that these policies are more popular than ever.
Darling dropped that memo just before attending a Republican Party of Wisconsin fundraiser put on by BGR Group, which, according to Open Secrets, lobbies on behalf of insurance and pharmaceutical companies, among others. Evers’ spokeswoman, Melissa Baldauff, issued a stinging rebuke from her Twitter account: “Not an episode of @VeepHBO—Wisconsin Republicans announced their plan to ignore the will of the people and deny health care coverage to 82,000 more Wisconsinites during a $1k-per-person (minimum) fundraiser in DC.”
Evers’ plan to bring Medicaid expansion money to Wisconsin—which reputable studies show will bring down costs for Wisconsin taxpayers—has grown in popularity. It saves costs, and it saves lives. Wisconsin is one of only 14 states that have not done so, and the question is why? Many staunchly Republican governors in such states as Arizona, Iowa and Ohio accepted that money, noting that, when a state like Wisconsin does not, the money simply goes to other states.
Eight days later, after the JFC voted along partisan lines to reject the federal health care money, Evers replied, “Today’s vote was disappointing, but it’s not the end. I’m going to keep reminding Wisconsinites what’s at stake, and I’m going to keep fighting to expand Medicaid.”
Darling and Evers not being on the same page is hardly breaking news, but Darling’s extremism in rejecting health care funding, nonpartisan redistricting, proposed funding increases for students (including those in special education) and refusing to consider legalizing even medicinal marijuana use in Wisconsin are also out of step with much of the Eighth Senate District that she has represented for more than 25 years. Legalizing, regulating and taxing medical marijuana, for example, will bring hundreds of millions of dollars into the state coffers and provide help for people with certain serious medical issues.
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Twisted Logic, Unpopular Positions
On a rightwing MacIver podcast last month, host Matt Kittle played devil’s advocate with Darling, asking her how she can go against the narrative when Wisconsin has a governor saying it’s going to open the door to health care for 80,000 people; Darling’s response: “The reason we don’t want to take the Medicaid expansion, it’s worth a lot of money today, but will the federal government be able to give it tomorrow?” (By that twisted logic, Wisconsin should reject billions from the federal government for education, transportation and dozens of other programs.)
Asked about the opinion polls and what they have shown on several contentious budget issues, director of the Marquette Law School Poll Charles Franklin notes that Medicaid expansion is “pretty popular across the whole state and has been for a while; it is even more so now.”
Indeed, there is even far less of a partisan divide in support for strong funding for education in general and even greater support for special education. Franklin—who is viewed as Wisconsin’s premier pollster and whose frequent polls give him a grasp on opinion changes on current issues over time—has seen a “big transformation,” even among Republicans, in support of marijuana legalization. He says medical marijuana support is so lopsided in favor now that, “given the trend, it’s hard to imagine it won’t happen.”
As for the conservative suburban Milwaukee counties, often called the “WOW” counties (Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington), they are still very much Republican, he says, but that is slowly changing, as evidenced in not just the 2018 governor’s race, but also the most recent U.S. Senate, state Supreme Court and presidential races as well. “The bottom line is that there is a lot of evidence that the WOW counties are less Republican,” Franklin states. There were many reports that attributed Donald Trump’s razor-thin margin in 2016 and Scott Walker’s defeat in 2018 to lower turnout and decreased enthusiasm in those counties—once called “Walker Country” (Ozaukee and Waukesha counties were where Walker saw the two biggest drops in support).
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Craig Gilbert, in his 2018 Wisconsin Voter post-election analysis, noted, “Milwaukee’s North Shore has been growing more Democratic for decades.” Sen. Dale Kooyenga is another Republican whose district is evolving in ways somewhat similar to Darling’s. He announced in a recent public forum that he is open to Medicaid expansion saying, ” I’m personally flexible.” But when it comes to Darling, whose district is made up of portions of all three WOW counties and a piece of Milwaukee County, one Capitol observer offers this: “Politicians generally head in the direction of their district or at least change their focus. She seems to be gunning it in the opposite direction.”
Flip-Flopping on the Issues
Sen. Darling, 75, has some history of altering her views with changing circumstances. She has served in the Wisconsin Senate for 25 years and survived a recall in 2011. The Shepherd Express pointed out that, when she was first elected to the state Assembly in 1990, “the media glowingly referred to her as a ‘liberal pro-choicer’ who recognized the wisdom of gun control.” But when the Republican Party began shunning anyone without anti-choice views on women’s health, Darling flipped from serving on the board of Planned Parenthood during her early years in office to championing extreme anti-choice measures to fit in with this new brand of Republicans.
Once an English teacher, she also led Republicans on budgets that gutted education funding under Walker. And at a time when many of her Republican constituents could not stomach Trump as a GOP candidate for president, she was one of just two elected Republican women to step forward to lead a group called “Wisconsin Women for Trump.” The Republican Party of Wisconsin’s own internal report, released this month before its annual convention, noted that the party is losing support with women and independents, and that people did not want to publicly admit support for Trump (something the party is seeking to make more socially acceptable using yard signs, apparently).
Darling has openly shared how she values quality health care, having survived both breast and skin cancer. She married her college sweetheart, a surgeon who lived with diabetes most of his life until he passed away in 2015 awaiting a transplant, a heartbreaking event for Darling. She was recently injured in a fall while in Washington, D.C., for the fundraiser that has kept her from being able to travel back to Wisconsin to attend the JFC meeting where the budget committee took its party-line vote against expanding Medicaid. Republican state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos reported that she said she’s recovering well and told him she’s getting great care.
Now, as she leads the budget committee at a time when the Milwaukee northern suburbs she represents are moving in the opposite political direction, having a polite and reasonable Democrat in the governor’s office should give her the opportunity to shift with her changing constituency. She could be a consensus builder who finds common ground, but thus far, she’s shunned that role. She’s turned her back on constituents and rejected proposals like Medicaid expansion and medical marijuana that would lower their taxes—the issue she has emphasized most in the budget debate. But the state budget is currently being crafted, and there’s still plenty of time to work with Gov. Evers and honor her Milwaukee suburban constituents’ evolving views.
Let Your Voice Be Heard
Sen. Alberta Darling offers this on her website:
As always, if you have any concerns or ideas on how to improve our great state, please do not hesitate to contact me by phone at 608-266-5830 or by email at sen.darling@legis.wi.gov.
If you are part of the majority that supports these issues as tracked by the April 2019 Marquette poll, it’s critical the co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee hears your opinion on items she has cut. These include:
• Expanding Badgercare/Medicaid to care for more Wisconsinites and save money for all taxpayers. The Legislative Fiscal Bureau says not doing so has cost Wisconsin $1.1 billion thus far. Marquette’s poll shows 70% want this.
• Meaningful funding boosts for schools and special education. The poll shows 74% want more for special education.
• Decriminalizing marijuana for social justice and legalization for at least medicinal situations. Medical marijuana legalization showed 83% approval and full legalization 59% approval in the poll.
Louis Fortis served in the Wisconsin State Assembly with Alberta Darling when she was first elected.
