Julie Henszey, candidate for Wisconsin's fifth state Senate District in 2018
The clearest path to a Democratic majority in the Wisconsin State Senate goes through the fifth state Senate District covering Brookfield, Elm Grove, most of Wauwatosa and West Allis, northern New Berlin and a sliver of Milwaukee. The contest to be decided this November is between Assembly Rep. Dale Kooyenga (R-Brookfield) and political newcomer Julie Henszey of Wauwatosa. It’s a race that echoes a storyline playing out across the nation.
The ultra-right extremism of governing Republicans who refuse to stand up to the racism, misogyny and bullying of the Trump administration are being abandoned by a growing number of suburbanites. And that train is being driven by women and previously uninvolved people like Henszey, a business owner, mom, triathlete and outdoorswoman. Henszey never paid much attention to politics until the night Donald Trump was elected in 2016. She describes her reaction as “a traumatic, visceral response that felt like sinking into a deep, dark hole.”
So, heeding her Republican mother’s advice, she got involved, joining groups including Indivisible Milwaukee, Indivisible Tosa and Citizen Action’s Health-Care-for-All Co-op. She quickly moved into leadership roles. Now she’s one of the suburban women running for office to be on the frontlines of that change. “We definitely saw in our recruitment that women are stepping up and saying, ‘I can do this’ in ways we haven’t seen before,” says state Senate Democratic Committee executive director Jenni Dye. “This is a district where moderate women, in particular, are tired of the extremism of the Republican Party.”
It’s About Teamwork
Henszey has campaigned full time all year, stepping away from her business in executive coaching and as a certified wilderness guide who leads trips down into the Grand Canyon. Politics, she figures, can benefit from those teamworking skills: “In the Grand Canyon, I create a space where trust can develop, and people can make decisions together. Then you can deal with tension that comes up.” She compares the way Wisconsin Republicans secretly cut deals to a guide taking two team members behind a boulder, coming out and announcing a done deal that is detrimental to the rest of the group.
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While the suburban fifth is gerrymandered for Republicans to win, Trump only won this district by one percentage point, and Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Dallet came close to winning it this spring. Henszey’s themes of teamwork and integrity strike a chord at the doors. “I greet people and tell them that, if I win, they would be my boss. I ask, ‘What would you want fixed at the state level?’”
Her opponent, Kooyenga, is a political insider who sits on the powerful legislative budget committee that has directed billions away from Wisconsin roads, public schools, the University of Wisconsin and health care. He stands by his vote to spend billions on Foxconn and tax breaks focused on the wealthiest Wisconsinites. You may remember him as the legislator who violated free speech rights when he stole an approved sign from the Capitol rotunda because he didn’t like its anti-Trump message. After he was caught on videotape and the sign was found in his office, he made various contradictory excuses, including blaming political opponents and saying his military intelligence training taught him flat signs on a curved surface are a safety risk. (The sign was on an easel.) To settle the case against him, taxpayers paid $30,000 that he was eventually shamed into agreeing to pay back—but only after media questioned why he had failed to do so.
“Wisconsin has been ground zero of scorched-earth politics, and we need leaders who own up to their actions and take responsibility,” says Henszey.
