The nation’s longest serving state legislator will not be a candidate for re-election this fall.  State Senator Fred Risser (D-Madison) broke the news in a press release Friday afternoon.

Risser is 92, and in his 64th year as a Wisconsin legislator, the release said. He is the longest serving state or national legislator in the nation’s history, and the last World War II veteran serving in either the state or nation’s legislatures.

After 64 years representing Madison in the State Assembly and State Senate, I have decided not the stand for re-election. pic.twitter.com/RtfJymSFYe

— Senator Fred Risser (@SenRisser) March 26, 2020

Risser was elected to the Assembly in 1956 and to the Senate in 1962. He has served as Senate Minority Leader and 25 years as Senate President.

Risser has worked with 13 different governors – 7 Democrats and 6 Republicans – and has never missed a legislative roll call.

Risser’s announcement opens the way for a wide-open primary in the heavily Democratic 26th Senate District. Also on Friday, state Representative Chris Taylor (D-Madison) announced she won’t seek reelection after a decade of service in the Assembly.

Sen. Scott Fitzgerald (WRN)

The Wisconsin state Senate will not be on the floor next week.  Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said Tuesday he is postponing the March 24 floor period “out of an abundance of caution” for senators and their families during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

Fitzgerald said he and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos plan to call an extraordinary session of the Legislature sometime in spring.

Next week was to be the final general business day for the current legislative session. Fitzgerald said coronavirus is a public health issue that should be taken seriously.

Two Senate committees are scheduled to vote Tuesday, on a bill on a bill that would raise the legal smoking age to 21, and a joint resolution that calls for a constitutional convention of the states to approve a balanced federal budget and place term limits on members of Congress.

Thus far, the only restrictions at the Capitol building have been cancellation of public tours.

Missing and murdered indigenous women were on the agenda at the Capitol Wednesday.  Native American and Native Alaskan women and girls are murdered at rates more than 10 times the national average. Representative Beth Myers (D-Bayfield) has co-sponsored a bill to address that with a task force in Wisconsin, which is home to 11 tribes.

“As a state and a country we are failing these women and their families,” Myers told the Assembly Committee on State Affairs.

Families like that of Alysse Arce, a Menominee tribal member whose mother, Rae Elaine Tourtillott, was killed in 1986. “My mom’s disappearance was 33 years ago and I feel some the same issues that negatively impacted her investigation continue to impact investigations today,” Arce said.

Arce’s stepdaughter, Aurora Arce is a student at the University of Wisconsin. “Being an indigenous woman in a city like Madison, and being on the campus, it’s scary to think about being stolen, and think about my case never being solved.”

Lindsey Matthews is a Lac du Flambeau tribal member and student at UW Madison. “So my cousin, she was murdered in the spring of 1990 and there’s still no information out there on that case. The first thing that you see when you enter my reservation is a billboard asking for information.”

The National Crime Information Center reports that, in 2016, there were 5,712 reports of missing American Indian and Alaska Native women and girls, though the US Department of Justice’s federal
missing persons database only logged 116 cases.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that murder is the third-leading cause of death among American Indian and Alaska Native women and that rates of violence on reservations can be up to ten times higher than the national average. However, no research has been done on rates of such violence among American Indian and Alaska Native women living in urban areas despite the fact that approximately 71% of American Indian and Alaska Natives live in urban areas.

IN November of 2019, U.S. Attorney General William Barr announced a national strategy to address missing and murdered Native Americans.

The issues are complex, and advocates say the task force could help sort those out. It would allocate $30,000 for the task force, which would report to the Wisconsin Department of Justice. The bill (AB 548) was introduced in September, 2019 and only now received a public hearing, after the state Assembly has ended its work for the current legislative session.

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers signed a plethora of legislation into law Tuesday. More than five dozen bills in all, including four that are part of the HOPE agenda combating the opioid epidemic in the state, which Evers said has torn apart families and communities across Wisconsin.

Rep. John Nygren

“While there is always more work to be done, more lives to save, and more avenues to recovery that need opening, today’s actions are another arrow in the state’s quiver to combat substance abuse.” said Representative John Nygren (R-Marinette), author of 34 bipartisan pieces of legislation aimed at combating substance abuse.

Since 2013, WI has passed 34 bipartisan pieces of legislation as a part of the HOPE Agenda. Last year there was a 10% decrease in opioid-related deaths and opioid prescriptions continue to fall dramatically.

Read my full statement below: pic.twitter.com/aPZ21r135R

— John Nygren (@rep89) March 3, 2020

Other bills Evers signed include one that makes bestiality a state felony, one mandating a Lyme Disease awareness campaign by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and another permitting 12 and 13-year-olds to be employed as caddies at Wisconsin golf courses.

Evers vetoed bills that sought to allow paddlewheel raffles and another that sought changes to disclosure laws governing sweepstakes.

New results from the Marquette Law School Poll show that Senator Bernie Sanders has taken a commanding lead over his rivals heading into the Democrat Presidential Primary in April.

Among people who identified themselves as Democrats to the poll, 29 percent said they had Sanders as their first choice for president. That was followed up by 17 percent for former mayor Michael Bloomberg, 15 percent for former vice president Joe Biden, 13 percent for Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and 11 percent for Senator Amy Klobuchar. 

Since November when the current round of presidential polling started, Sanders has risen from 17 percent approval up to 29 percent, while support for Biden has dipped from 30 percent to 15 percent. 

This month’s poll from Marquette mirrors results from recent polling from the UW-Madison Elections Research Center.  That poll placed support for Sanders at nearly 30 percent of respondents. Following Sanders, all around 13 and 12 percent are former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg, former Vice President Joe Biden, mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Senator Elizibeth Warren.

Sanders also holds the field’s only lead over a potential election over President Donald Trump. Sanders leads Trump by 48 to 46 percent, and the rest of the field is a point or two behind Trump. Pollster Charles Franklin notes that all of these results are within the margin of error, so it’s still a close potential race. 

In Wisconsin, the poll also shows that most of the state approves of the job that Governor Tony Evers is doing, 51 percent to 38 percent.  A surprising number of respondents also said that they would prefer that a commission, rather than the state Legislature, handle upcoming redistricting maps, 70 to 20 percent. Support for schools over tax cuts continues to weigh in favor of school spending 56 to 38 percent. 

Senator Luther Olson

Longtime legislator Luther Olsen has announced he won’t be seeking another term in the Wisconsin Senate. The Ripon Republican said Monday that it’s time to let other people take charge in Madison.

Olsen was first elected to the Assembly in 1994, and to a Senate seat in 2004.

Olsen has been a long time advocate for education and children, and said his proudest work for the state was the state’s graduated licensing law, which helped reduce teen driving crashes and deaths by 15 percent.

“The kids that already had their license didn’t care, but the ones that were going to go through this and just getting ready to go through this, they were not happy with me. And I said ‘well, when you get old enough to vote, vote me out of office. But at least you’ll be alive to vote.'”

Olson noted that state Representative Joan Ballweg (R-Markesan) has already announced her candidacy for the seat in Senate District 14. “Who else is going to run? I don’t know. There’s time for that to happen.”

Olson has generally been viewed as a moderate Republican during his 26 years at the Capitol.  “I’ve been getting a lot of calls and text message and emails from folks saying ‘You know, you were a statesman, you listened to people, you used your judgement, and we’re really going to miss you.'”

Olsen says he viewed his time in office as a sacred duty to the people of his district. “In this job you’re a delegate and a trustee. As a delegate, when you have that role, you have to vote as your constituents want. And you better do that.”