Forward Fridays: March 5th, 2021

Welcome to my latest e-update. Here is a summary from the past week as your State Representative.

COVID-19 Vaccine Update

As of March 5th, 1,023,306 Wisconsin residents have received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, making up 17.6% of Wisconsin residents, and 9.8% are fully vaccinated. According to Becker’s Hospital Review, Wisconsin is third best in the nation in percentage of distributed vaccines that have been administered.

This week education and child care professionals, individuals enrolled in Medicaid Long-Term Care programs, public facing essential workers, non-frontline health care workers, and individuals living in congregate settings became eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine. The Department of Health Services (DHS) also announced that Wisconsin will receive around 47,000 newly authorized Johnson & Johnson vaccines, which will help vaccinate teachers quickly in Wisconsin.

DHS recently launched two new resources for Wisconsinites interested in receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. Wisconsinites can now register to get vaccinated through the Wisconsin COVID-19 vaccine registry. This allows Wisconsinites to sign up if they are eligible or be put on a wait list if they are not currently eligible. The vaccine registry will be used by those who opt in and will not be a comprehensive resource for all vaccination options.

In addition, there is now a hotline that Wisconsinites can call with questions about the vaccine such. Individuals can call 844-684-1064 and get answers about vaccine locations, medical questions related to the COVID-19 vaccine, and vaccine registration, including but not limited to providers using the Wisconsin COVID-19 vaccine registry.

For more information about what groups are eligible in phase 1B, visit the DHS website HERE.

For more information about where you can get a vaccine, visit the DHS website HERE.

For more information about where to get vaccinated in Waukesha County, visit their website HERE.

For more information about where to get vaccinated in the city of Wauwatosa, visit their website HERE.

For more information about where to get vaccinated in the city of Milwaukee, visit their website HERE.

Forward Wisconsin Budget Meetings

Mark your calendars!

Throughout the month of March, Assembly Democrats will be hosting Wednesday gatherings (virtual) to both explain the Badger Bounce Back budget, and listen to Wisconsinites. Each week is dedicated to a topic.

Next week, on Wednesday, March 10th at 7pm, the meeting will focus on Education, Childcare, and Higher Education. Register HERE!

As ranking member on the Committee on Mental Health, I will be speaking on March 24th, but I will be in attendance as many weeks as possible.

Please feel free to reach out with any questions: Rep.Vining@legis.wisconsin.gov

Childcare Meetings

Yesterday I met with childcare providers from the Milwaukee suburban area for a virtual meeting for the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association advocacy day. I appreciated the opportunity to hear their stories.

Today I attended a webinar hosted by the Main Street Alliance related to childcare, which featured speakers like Ruth Schmidt, Executive Director of the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association, Kimber Liedl, WECA's Business Engagement Director and State Representative and Chair of the Assembly Children and Families Committee, Patrick Snyder. They discussed Wisconsin’s child care infrastructure, the current challenges, and future opportunities to address child care issues across our state.

March is Women’s History Month

For the first time ever, the Assembly Democratic Caucus is more than half women! We reached parity last session, and this session 21 of the 38 of us are women!

State Fair Board

(Photo from 2019 fair)

Some fun news for you this Friday, I’ve joined the Wisconsin State Fair board!

The State Fair board includes one Democrat, and one Republican, from each the State Assembly and State Senate.

I’ll also be serving on the Marketing Committee. So get ready for some updates about the fair, and for ALL THE CREAM PUFF PHOTOS as the State Fair gears up to return this summer!

Package of Voting Bills - Making it harder to vote in WI

Last week, a package of bills was introduced that would make it harder to vote in Wisconsin. I believe it is important for my constituents to be aware of this push by my Republican colleagues. As your State Representative, I will continue to advocate for election reform such as fair redistricting of legislative maps, automatic voter registration, and the ability for clerks to count absentee ballots before election day.

Many of the election reform bills introduced last week seek to tighten restrictions on absentee voting and indefinitely confined voting.

These proposals include:

LRB 2032 would eliminate the option for individuals to opt-in to automatically receive an absentee ballot, except for military voters. This bill would also require voters to resend a voter ID to their municipal clerk if they would like to vote absentee, even if they have voted absentee before, with certain exceptions. This would create extra work for the clerk and the voter, as the clerk would already have a copy of the ID from previous elections.
LRB 1935 would prohibit employees of a retirement home to encourage residents to vote.
LRB 0428 requires indefinitely confined voters to provide more information to clerks, such as a sworn statement from their health care provider. The voter would have to send in this information every two years.
LRB 1585 would require drop boxes to be at the municipal clerk’s office. This would make drop boxes at other locations illegal.

People’s Maps Commission

On March 11th, the People’s Maps Commission will hold a virtual public hearing from 5:30-8:45 p.m. to seek public input on the upcoming redistricting of legislative maps from constituents of Wisconsin’s 2nd Congressional District.

The hearing is the Commission’s last meeting in a series of eight meetings, one for each one of Wisconsin’s eight congressional districts. The virtual public hearing will include testimony from subject matter experts and also provide Wisconsinites the opportunity to express how they have been affected by legislative redistricting and share their ideas for how Wisconsin can work together to achieve fair maps.       

For more information and register for the hearing, visit the PMC website HERE.