
Photo courtesy of Sharon Vanorny/Destination Madison.
Rep. Francesca Hong calls out GOP lawmakers for misplaced priorities, such as starting the new session with a voter suppression measure rather than anything to help families afford the cost of living.
One week into the new legislative session and about three months removed from a contentious election cycle where cost of living issues were top of mind for Wisconsin voters, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Republicans in the state legislature have chosen to maintain their status quo of do-nothing, neglectful government. At least, for another two years.
Their first order of business? Voting to put a strict voter ID referendum on the April 1 ballot, solely for the purpose of enshrining Wisconsin’s existing and stringent Voter ID requirement into the state constitution—consolidating their ill-gotten power heading into the spring election.
As a legislator running for reelection this past year, I knocked on many, many doors—not just in my district. I cannot recall a single instance where a Wisconsinite I spoke with ranked enshrining voter ID into the state constitution as their top issue—or even mentioned it at all.
Instead, I heard about how college students are skipping meals because grocery prices have skyrocketed, how working parents are quitting jobs because childcare is too expensive, and how caregivers are doing incredibly hard and important work while being underpaid and underappreciated.
I also heard from retirees worried about affording life-saving medications on fixed incomes and from teachers leaving the profession because Republican leadership continues to underfund public education while vilifying them at every turn.
These are the issues Wisconsinites care about—urgent challenges that affect their ability to live and thrive. Yet, these are the very issues that have been absent from the majority party’s legislative agenda in the first two weeks of the 2025-2026 legislative session.
This should not come as a surprise to anyone familiar with Speaker Vos’s priorities. This isn’t the first time their caucus has chosen to engage in partisan politics rather than address the issues that truly matter.
What is surprising, though, is that at a time when Republicans have not only retained their majority in both houses of the state legislature but also essentially secured every branch of government on the federal level, they think they’ll continue getting away with neglecting their own voters.
The cost of living crisis crosses party lines, and they are the ones at the reins.
So, while legislative Republicans resurrect anti-voter policies from the Scott Walker era, Democrats will continue fighting for the people of this state.
My Democratic colleagues and I have introduced our first package of bills — designed to reduce the tax burden for low-income renters and homeowners by expanding the Homestead Tax Credit, cutting grocery costs for families through Healthy School Meals for All, and reducing prescription drug prices through our Less for Rx agenda.
On Tuesday, Governor Tony Evers signed an executive order to create the Wisconsin Office of Violence Prevention in response to the tragic December shooting at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, where a teacher and a student lost their lives, and six others were injured.
And for months now, Democrats have united to lay out an agenda to address the challenges Wisconsinites face—bringing focus and urgency to the working-class struggles that have been ignored for far too long.
In Wisconsin, Republicans often deflect accountability for their inaction by blaming external forces, while casting the universal struggles raised by Democrats as failures of our own morality or governance—ignoring the bipartisan challenges affecting families across the state. This narrative allows them to sidestep their responsibility to provide real and effective leadership. It is both cynical and dishonest, simplifying complex economic issues into ideological battles instead of addressing their tangible effects on people’s lives.
All of us must look at what is happening in the Capitol with a critical eye that evaluates the material benefit of the policies being proposed on both sides of the aisle. Because when we do, it will become abundantly clear which party is fighting for our families and which one is simply fighting to stay in power.

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