Image via votejuliemeyer.com
This doesn’t look like a good year for incumbents across the nation. That’s true in Milwaukee, where a handful of Democratic career lawmakers are facing challengers from outside of the establishment.
That’s what’s happening in Assembly District 20—which includes the Southeast Side of Milwaukee, St. Francis and Cudahy—where 18-year incumbent Rep. Christine Sinicki faces Julie Meyer, a Milwaukee Public Schools teacher who is new to politics. Instead of going with the establishment choice, we are endorsing challenger Julie Meyer. No Republicans have filed for this seat, so the winning Democrat in August will take office in January.
Meyer is a science and history teacher who is committed to rolling back privatization efforts in education and health care and increasing transparency and accountability in government. She was motivated to run for office after seeing the effects of privatization policies on her own public school. She knows first-hand how the lack of support and funding hurts MPS as an institution and harms its students’ futures. As a teacher who helped to turn around her own school, she understands what needs to be done to improve student performance. Given the chance, she will be an expert education policymaker in the state Assembly.
In addition, Meyer has been very vocal at Milwaukee County Mental Health Board meetings about the real-world impact of the millions of dollars’ worth of no-bid contracts that the board casually approves with little questioning. Unfortunately, the political appointees on the Mental Health Board, which was created by the state Legislature in 2014, have ignored her concerns. Upset by the board’s lack of engagement with the community and its carelessness with taxpayer dollars, Meyer decided that the best way to become a change-maker was to run for state Assembly.
We realize that this is a controversial pick. After all, Meyer doesn’t have a track record and Sinicki, the incumbent, has years of experience and the support of many constituents who have gotten used to voting for her despite her actual performance. But we have to ask: What has all of this loyalty gotten for residents of Assembly District 20? Not much. Although Sinicki usually is a reliable Democratic vote, she hasn’t delivered much for her constituents. Something needs to change because the status quo isn’t working and no one—including an 18-year incumbent—owns their seat in the Legislature.
If Meyer was not taking on an entrenched incumbent, Democrats and progressive unions would be applauding her candidacy. But because Meyer had the guts to take on a career lawmaker, the establishment has shut Meyer out and some of Sinicki’s supporters have smeared Meyer online with terrible accusations and, at times, outright lies and distortions. We have not seen a Democratic primary this dirty in a long time. This is an absolute disgrace. If Sinicki is stooping this low in a desperate bid to hold on to her Assembly seat, then she’s not doing her job in office and providing her constituents with positive reasons to vote for her. Any elected official condoning this kind of behavior doesn’t deserve to represent the public.
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Like we said, something needs to change in our politics and rewarding Sinicki with another term just isn’t going to change anything.
We are asking Democrats in Assembly District 20 to please consider Julie Meyer on Aug. 9. If she has the guts to take on an incumbent, she’ll have the guts to fight the good fight in the state Assembly.
