I am blessed to be in the Assembly and serve you in the 22nd district. This week, I presented testimony in a public hearing on SB26, addressing human trafficking penalties with much bipartisan support. This bill creates a $5,000 surcharge for sex trafficking and has already passed out of the senate committee. I also presented testimony on SB29, which makes adoption easier in the state by allowing birth parents to voluntarily terminate their parental rights by affidavit rather than court appearance. Wisconsin has some of the lowest adoption numbers in the country and I hope to improve on those numbers and add stability of a permanent family structure. Getting consensus from 132 legislative members and one governor is harder than one might assume. I'm proud to be the lead author on both of these bills.

Governor Evers changed his mind and signed AB2 last Thursday, February 18, to waive taxes on Wisconsin’s PPP loans. With huge bipartisan support, we are protecting our small businesses and keeping jobs in Wisconsin.

Today, I voted in favor of Special Session AB1; this too has bipartisan support. The bill requires the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development to collaborate with the Department of Administration to work through the unemployment IT system upgrades. It first uses federal funds to rework our unemployment reporting system and would then appeal to the Joint Finance Committee to exhaust existing funds. We previously tried to rebuild this system and spent 24 million dollars without any progress or programming to show for the investment. Tax payers need to be reassured on a good return on investment before new tax dollars are spent.

The bill also provides businesses with protection from COVID-19 lawsuits - something we have been working on for many months. With all the bipartisan support, I hope the Governor will sign this bill as well; it passed the senate last week 27-3.

Recently, the Audit Committee has decided to conduct an independent audit of the November 2020 election. We hope this audit provides more answers. The Audit Committee has a wide scope and may be addressing several issues, such as ballot harvesting, indefinitely confined, ballot curing and absentee ballot applications. Many legislators are working on these issues as well and bills will be forthcoming.

My office has been inundated with calls and emails and I'm doing my best to respond. Please be patient with my team and myself.

Representative Janel Brandtjen
State Capitol, Room 12 West
PO Box 8952
Madison, WI 53708
Toll-Free (888) 534-0022 or (608) 267-2367
Rep.Brandtjen@legis.wi.gov | |