Leon Young, FB
Wisconsin voters will head to the polls in the midst of summer, when the parties will hold their primaries on Aug. 9. In the 16th Assembly District, 24-year incumbent Rep. Leon Young drew three challengers in the Democratic primary. Since no Republicans have jumped into the race, the primary winner will take office in January. All four candidates spoke to the Shepherd about their campaigns and plans for the district, which includes the near North Side and parts of Downtown.
Brandy Bond
Brandy Bond is a volunteer and activist in the neighborhood who worked on many social justice campaigns.
“I feel like it’s time for the district to change and if there isn’t a sensible person that knows the district and is ready to put the work in to protect its current residents as well as welcoming new initiatives and people my community may get lost,” Bond said of her reason for running for Assembly.
To bring jobs to the district, she said she would negotiate and partner with companies that want to build in the state and help small businesses.
“I would bring in more businesses by lobbying for community efforts through different Fortune 500 companies that are already interested in coming to Wisconsin,” Bond said.
She said she would look at the details of various reform efforts for the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) and work with stakeholders to come up with education plans that work for students.
“I believe that the curriculum as well as leadership, allocations of funds and home life of children, especially in impoverished neighborhoods, need to be looked at and not just protested or complained about,” Bond said.
On privatization efforts, she said, “I don’t feel like any private organization should come along and try to impede on MPS, but if another organization feels like they can offer a better education than MPS for the children in Milwaukee and they’re reputable organizations that are prepared to help the community grow and not take away from it, I’m willing to look at anything.”
She said she’d like to provide work opportunities and quality education for the district’s youth and reconnect them with loved ones who are unfairly incarcerated as part of the state’s mass incarceration crisis.
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“That would be great for them and something enriching for their lives,” she said.
To learn more about Brandy Bond, go to facebook.com/votebrandybond.
Stephen Jansen
Stephen Jansen is a job developer at a nonprofit organization for at-risk youth and those with disabilities. He recently earned his master’s degree from UW-Milwaukee in public administration.
“I believe the system is rigged,” he said. “I wanted to run to be a part of a new kind of politics that’s going to give power to the people and empower communities and to pass legislation that can improve people’s lives.”
Jansen said he’d like to add amendments to the state and U.S. constitutions to get special-interest money out of politics.
“I do not believe that we can have any of the significant reforms that we need as a state unless we can deal with this issue of money in politics,” he said.
He said he’d like to fully fund public education and implement reforms to shorten the summer break, reduce testing and invest in apprenticeships and internships so graduates will succeed in the workplace. He also wants University of Wisconsin students to play a larger role in shared governance and decisions about budgets and student fees. He opposes voucher schools and privatization efforts.
“I work with students with disabilities and with older adults who are transitioning in the workplace with disabilities,” he said. “I have strong concerns about special education and how taking money out of public education is going to affect a lot of these students.”
Jansen said he’d like to address structural inequality in the district by ensuring that money for development helps struggling neighborhoods. He said he’d like to put people to work rehabilitating boarded-up homes, which will increase the property tax base, improve neighborhoods, reduce crime and provide residents with job skills and income. Providing better access to banks, grocery stores with healthy food, and transit are key to addressing structural inequality, he said.
He said he’d like to see criminal justice reforms that include treatment and not jail for low-level drug offenders, background checks for gun purchases and more support for survivors of domestic abuse and human trafficking.
“There are many avenues of violence that we need to talk about,” he said. We can’t just talk about it in the context of guns.”
To learn more about Stephen Jansen, go to jansenforassembly.com.
Edgar Lin
Edgar Lin is a former financial analyst who currently works as an attorney in the Milwaukee division of the State Public Defender’s office. In 2014, he earned the Wisconsin Law Journal’s Up and Coming Lawyer award for his work on behalf of victims of sex trafficking and female sex workers who were unfairly prosecuted.
He said he’s running because it’s time for a change in leadership.
“There has been the status quo of inaction,” he said. “There is an urgent need for action in a district that is as diverse as this district, where you have the tale of two cities—you have Downtown and you have 53206. We really need to spread the prosperity to all parts of the city.”
Lin said he’d work to reduce Milwaukee’s high mass incarceration rate, which disproportionately impacts African Americans.
“This makes me very angry,” Lin said. “I see it every day as a public defender, when most of my clients are people of color.”
He said he’d like to offer treatment to those with addictions instead of jailing them for nonviolent crimes and also reform the state’s expungement policy so that law-abiding ex-offenders who have turned their lives around aren’t penalized by their criminal record.
“It’s the compassionate thing to do and it also gives them incentive to work hard,” he said.
To bring jobs to the district he would try at the state level to tie development deals to local hiring goals, improve the state’s job center so job-seekers don’t have to rely on for-profit temp agencies, and help entrepreneurs by making space for them in vacant office buildings and offering them utilities and access to Internet.
“Start-ups are good job creators because they hire locally,” Lin said.
Lin opposes education privatization and wants better funding for public schools. He supports the community schools model that offers wraparound social services within the school, as launched by MPS.
“The safest neighborhoods don’t necessarily have the most police,” Lin said. “They have the most resources.”
For more about Edgar Lin, go to voteedgar.com.
Leon Young
State Rep. Leon Young has represented the district since his 1992 election. “I’m running for re-election because I want to continue to help uplift people in my community,” Young said. “I want to help people get jobs, help people be able to send their kids to great schools. I want to address issues about crime so that people can feel safe going home and playing outside.”
If re-elected, he said he’d fight for better wages, reduce crime and the number of guns on the street and repeal Walker’s policies that harm the poor.
Young said he was very happy with last summer’s Bucks arena deal, especially the additional community benefits agreement, which covers the permanent jobs in the arena district. The agreement commits the Bucks to raising the minimum wage to $15, sets local hiring goals and protects workers’ right to unionize.
He said his biggest achievements in the Assembly date back to when the Democrats were in the majority. They include securing $1 million for job training programs via WRTP/Big Step, providing more than $10 million for energy assistance for those with low incomes, and creating a way to donate to Feeding America on tax forms. He said his work on the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority (WHEDA) board aided developments in Milwaukee, including the Blue Ribbon Lofts, the Beerline B apartments, King Drive Commons, the Inner City Arts building and the Majestic lofts.
“I’m very happy about this because not only are you creating quality homes but you’re creating jobs and taking back the neighborhoods,” Young said.
He said it was key to elect Democratic majorities in the Legislature so that Republican polices can be replaced by legislation that helps Milwaukee.
“Winning more seats would help,” Young said. “We even have fights with our own Democrats about Milwaukee, that Milwaukee gets too much funding. If Milwaukee does well the state does well.”
Young doesn’t have a website or Facebook page yet but is in the process of setting up an online presence.
