Wisconsinites will vote for state Assembly and Senate candidates in the general election Nov. 5, 2024.
This is the first election under newly-competitive district maps.
What do the Wisconsin Senate and Assembly do?
The Wisconsin Legislature is made up of 99 Assembly representatives and 33 Senators from across Wisconsin. Together, they have the power to create, amend and repeal laws.
The Legislature plays a major role in deciding how to use taxpayer-funded state revenue every two years in the biennial budget. Whether more or less money is spent on education, economic development, tax relief — that is decided by the majority in the Legislature, along with Wisconsin's governor, who has to sign the budget, and other bills, into law.
What's at stake?
The Wisconsin Legislature has been firmly controlled by Republicans for more than a decade, under gerrymandered legislative maps.
Those maps were thrown out by the liberal-majority Wisconsin Supreme Court last year, which prompted the Legislature to approve new maps proposed by Gov. Tony Evers.
Democrats now have a chance of winning the majority in the Assembly, if they win a handful competitive districts.
In the Senate, only half of the seats are up for election, which means Republicans are likely to hold a majority in that chamber for the next two years at least. But Democrats are still working to flip some of the seats.
Assembly District 19
Wisconsin Assembly District 19 covers downtown Milwaukee and neighborhoods along the lake, including the East Side and some of Bay View.
The district is currently represented by Ryan Clancy. He is running for re-election unopposed after defeating another Democrat, Jarrod Anderson, in the Aug. 13 primary.
According to WisPolitics, the district leans approximately 83% Democratic.
WUWM sent a questionnaire to the candidates. Their responses below may be edited for length and clarity.
Ryan Clancy (Democrat, incumbent)
What motivated you to run for this office?
I taught for Milwaukee Public School for years, first as a substitute and then as a full-time high-school English teacher. I started at an exceptional school which was able to meet the needs of individual students, but after Act 10 was then transferred to a classroom in which I had 44 students. I was, I was told, a good teacher to 25 students. But it was heartbreaking to try to meet the needs of nearly twice that many. I miss the classroom every day, but I ran for office because I knew that I could effect bigger change fighting for public education, smaller class sizes, and for all the supports that my students need in their communities.
What concerns are you hearing from constituents, and how do you plan to address those if elected?
I spend a great deal of time in the community and knocking on doors in this district and others. People are concerned about big, existential issues like climate change, the curtailing of their basic human rights and threats to their bodily autonomy (and their neighbors') over issues that they thought we had settled years ago. They're seeing systems which have failed to provide basic human needs like housing, public education and real public safety. And rather than trying to tweak existing programs, they're ready to take big, transformative swings at the status quo to make our community better. I've been leading on that work.
What would success look like for you at the end of your term?
I've been working for years, in districts all across the state, to get us to a Democratic majority in the Assembly. This last session, most of our Democratic bills — transformative legislation, from housing to public education to abortion access — was unable to even get hearings under the Republican majority. We continue to work with stakeholders so that the groundswell of grassroots support for these bills will carry the votes once we're in the majority. Success this last session was organizing with my colleagues to block a great deal of harmful bills. Success this term will look like passing more of our own.
What distinguishes your experience from the other candidate(s) in this race?
During my time on the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors, I authored and passed more transformative, groundbreaking legislation than anyone in recent history. That included the Right to Shelter, which has assisted folks experiencing homelessness; the Right to Counsel, which has provided attorneys for folks facing eviction and keeping them from experiencing homelessness in the first place; paid family leave; establishing the county as a trans and nonbinary sanctuary, creating an abortion travel fund and much more. And at the state, I've organized my Democratic colleagues around housing, conditions of confinement, local control and more.
Please list any notable endorsements you’ve received in this race.
The full, updated list of endorsements is here, and we've gotten endorsements from every progressive organization and individual who has weighed in so far: https://www.clancyforassembly.com/endorsements.html It includes:
- Planned Parenthood
- Citizen Action of Wisconsin
- United Auto Workers
- Black Leaders Organizing for Communities (BLOC)
- Our Wisconsin Revolution
- Working Families Party
- Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC)
- Wisconsin Muslim Civic Alliance
- Wisconsin Conservation Voters
- AFT Local 212 (MATC's union)
- Senator Chris Larson
- Representative Supreme Moore Omokunde
- Representative Francesca Hong
- Representative Darrin Madison
- Alderwoman Marina Dimitrijevic
