YSDA Supported Candidates

This year we’re adding a new feature here at YSDA. We’re going to recommend candidates for your consideration.

We’ll look for moderate Democrats, Never Trump Republicans and independents as well as middle-of-the road candidates for nonpartisan races, like school board, city council and county board. And we won’t stop at the Wisconsin border. In fact, our first two recommendations include a Washington State Congressional candidate as well as a State Senate candidate here in Wisconsin. You won’t necessarily be able to vote for them, but you can always send ’em a couple of bucks if you’re so inclined.

Here we go.

Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is a first termer from Washington’s Third Congressional District. Her district in far southwest Washington State is just north of Portland and it swings both ways. She defeated a Republican in 2022. She is one of the few moderate Democrats in the House, standing up to the hard-left in her own party. You can think of her as the moderate Dem answer to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. She voted against Pres. Biden’s student loan bailout. She and her husband own an auto repair shop. Frankly, if the Democratic Party was made in her image they’d be winning strong majorities in Congress and in most states. She’ll have a tough fight for reelection this fall up against a hard-right, Trumpy election denier.

Jamie Wall is running for the 30th State Senate District in and around Green Bay. Wall is a moderate, sensible former Rhodes Scholar (no, those things are not oxymorons) who works as a business consultant. As a young guy he worked in the Legislature, which is how I got to know him. But since then he’s had a career in the private sector, so he’s got a nice balance of government and business experience. He’s a founder of the economic development agency, New North. He’s running in a district that could swing either way. He’s also a subscriber to YSDA, so what’s not to like?

For Madison School Board we recommend voting for nobody or writing in somebody else. Two incumbents, Savion Castro and Maia Pearson, are running unopposed. Here’s their record. Some of the worst test scores in the state for reading, math and science. One of the highest rates of absenteeism for students in the state. Adoption of a current year budget with a big increase in wages that they knew was unsustainable. A phasing out of letter grading and stand alone honors courses as a way of achieving “equity” and yet no progress at all in closing racial achievement gaps. A superintendent search process that included not a single criteria related to actual performance of students. Loss of students to private schools and neighboring districts in the fastest growing city in the state. Now, give them some credit for just showing up and discredit moderates for not finding candidates to challenge them. But that doesn’t mean we have to vote for more policies and dismal results like this. As the hard-left likes to say, let’s “hold them accountable.”

We’ll post these on a new page on the site and keep it updated as we go along.