MADISON, Wis. – Recent ads being run on behalf of GOP State Senator Howard Marklein attempt to sell him as a bipartisan legislator. But his legislative record tells a very different story.
Marklein, who represents areas from Brodhead to Dodgeville to Prairie du Chien in Wisconsin’s 17th Senate District, co-chairs the state legislative committee that considers Wisconsin’s state budget – the single most consequential bill and high profile legislative action of a session.
As outlined in recent reporting, a review of Marklein’s votes on the four most recent state budgets found that instead of working across the aisle with Democrats, Marklein rejected more than 1,600 of Governor Tony Evers’ proposed budget provisions.
“The record is clear, Sen. Howard Marklein is a right-wing partisan legislator who has spent the last eight years opposing Gov. Evers’ budgets and blocking progress on issues like controlling health care costs and funding our public schools,” said Mike Browne, deputy director of A Better Wisconsin Together.
Notable items that Marklein has struck from recent Wisconsin state budgets include popular measures like: legalizing marijuana, fully funding our public schools, affordable childcare, raising the minimum wage, paid family leave, BadgerCare expansion, requiring background checks for gun purchases, lowering prescription drug costs, PFAS clean up, and more.
Marklein also used his power as co-chair to rig the rules of the committee in a manner that allowed himself and his Republican colleagues to stifle input from Democrats and made it much more difficult for any of Gov. Evers’ budget proposals to be included in the committee version of the biennial budget.
