Senate Democratic leader sees room for compromise as session nears end

The top Democrat in the Wisconsin Senate believes there is still time to pass bipartisan bills in the final week of the legislative session this month. 

Speaking at a Wispolitcs luncheon Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein said she thinks both parties can work together to pass bills that the state Assembly already approved. 

Hesselbein, D-Middleton, pointed to a potential for a compromise on funding that would address PFAS pollution. She said a bill limiting competition between companies building new power lines in Wisconsin has bipartisan support. 

And she said she hopes the Senate will take up a bill the Assembly passed that  would change the criteria for the expungement of criminal convictions. 

“I think there’s a lot that we can get done. I think there’s a lot that the governor is signaling that he would like to sign,” she said. “It’s just a matter of the Republican Party having the will to put these things forward on the agenda that we can vote for.”

Hesselbein said she isn’t ready to give up on a voting bill to give Wisconsin clerks extra time to process absentee ballots. Republican lawmakers, including Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, have said they do not believe the bill will come to a vote.

The bill passed the GOP-held Assembly in November, and Gov. Tony Evers previously signaled he would sign it if it eventually passed the Senate. But Sen. Dan Knodl, R-Germantown, who chairs the Senate election committee, has said he will not schedule a committee vote this session. 

Hesselbein predicts Democrats will pick up seats under new maps

Hesselbein said new legislative maps should result in her party winning more seats in both the state Senate and Assembly. 

She predicted Democrats will win “more than” three additional seats in the Senate in November elections, though she declined to say a specific number. 

Experts say gaining seats this year could put the party in a position to compete for the Senate majority in 2026.

But to do that, Democrats will have to win votes from rural areas where Republicans have fared well in Wisconsin.

Hesselbein said her party will recruit candidates and campaign in every corner of the state.

“I think Democrats have a history of showing up for people and doing things to help rural Wisconsin and farmers in general,” she said. “And I think we have to remind them of the good things that we’ve wanted to do for years and haven’t been able to.”

In one example she cited as a shift in opinion among rural voters, she said more people now favor changing the law to allow drivers licenses for people in the country without legal status.

“That’s really something that when I first started in 2012, the state Assembly people weren’t talking about. But now rural farmers are all saying, ‘My gosh, we want the people that work on our farms to be able to have driver’s licenses,’” Hesselbein said. 

She also said she would have preferred the state Supreme Court decide new legislative maps, rather than have the Legislature pass maps drawn up by Evers. 

“I think legislators have done it wrong for so long. And I was really hoping that the Supreme Court could take a shot at it and have it. It was in their jurisdiction to do something,” she said.  “And I was actually pretty excited to see what they would do.”