Editor’s note: information below has been provided by a political candidate announcing her intention to run for office. Other candidates wishing to run for political office will have equal opportunity to announce their intentions.
Brienne Brown, Whitewater-D, has declared her candidacy for the Wisconsin State Assembly, District 31, according to information released Thursday by the candidate.
Within the release Brown said: “I’m running for Wisconsin State Assembly, District 31, which includes the Walworth County portion of Whitewater, Whitewater Lake, Elkhorn, Darien, Richmond, Clinton, and eastern Beloit. I am running for office because I want to put my experience in politics, business, and community voluntarism to work. I want to represent all the citizens of the 31st, both rural and urban, as I work to regain local control of government and schools, strengthen Wisconsin’s stewardship of the environment. and support women and their families.”
Additionally, Brown stated: “I have more experience in local politics than anyone else in this race. I am completing my second term on the Whitewater Common Council, where I serve as council representative for the Library Board, Plan Commission, and Equal Opportunities Commissions. When I worked as the program director for the Whitewater Community Foundation, I helped them expand from their operations to include Community Action Grants. I also served on the board for Downtown Whitewater, a nonprofit dedicated toward revitalizing the historic downtown. During this time, we worked with local farmers to create the Whitewater City Market, a successful downtown farmers’ market.”
Brown said she has changed careers in her life, adding that she and her husband moved to Whitewater a decade ago. Both are teachers at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.
“I’ve worked as a managing editor for an open-source intelligence company (stratfor.com), as an epidemiologist for the Texas Department of Health, and in a fish cannery in Alaska. I am also a certified grant writer and own a small business,” Brown stated in the release.
Brown pointed to the closing of “the last grocery store” in Whitewater in 2015, noting that she joined the with community members in “founding the Whitewater Grocery Cooperative, an initiative to build a community-owned grocery store in Whitewater.”
Brown wrote: “The GroCo has grown to 820 members and we are on track to open our doors in 2024. As the chair of the GroCo Grants committee, I successfully applied for a $46,300 WEDC feasibility grant to secure a location and design the store.”
Brown continued: “All politics are local. In fact, many of the bills that come to the legislature are researched and written by regular people like you and me. The problem is that the Republican-led legislature has consistently refused to do its job and gaveled out of session without looking at the over 250 bills that hardworking Wisconsinites have put together to improve their communities. This means that our current representatives are sitting on our hard-earned tax dollars – dollars that belong to our schools and city governments. Our schools and infrastructure remain underfunded and it’s our children and local communities that are paying the price.”
Among top priorities, Brown listed Education, adding: “Tony Evers has managed to undo some of the damage done by Scott Walker and a decade of gerrymandered Republican dominance, but we still have a ways to go.
“At both the K-12 level and UW-Whitewater, we need to make sure that our educational system is adequately funded so that all our children have the opportunity to succeed. This applies to all students in Wisconsin, regardless of their income or resident status. Wisconsin has always been lucky to have immigrants bolster our workforce and populate our schools. These hard-working community members should be able to drive legally on the way to work and school. Their children should pay the same in-state tuition rates as other Wisconsinites. Instead, we are leaving these children behind. We are failing to live up to the standards of the Wisconsin Idea, which is to solve problems and improve health, quality of life, the environment, and agriculture for all citizens of the state.”
Further, Brown said, “As a gun owner, I support common sense gun laws and universal background checks.”
She also cited state parks, clean air, and water standards, as among her priorities.
Additionally, Brown noted in the release: “I want to get women the resources they need to work and take care of their families. Fifty-eight percent of the workforce is female. We should have universal 4k and paid maternity/paternity leave, so that a woman’s paycheck doesn’t simply turn into a childcare payment. We need a strong Medicaid program that lifts Wisconsin families out of poverty. We need better access to healthy food. Women should have the power to decide how and when to start their families. Women’s rights are human rights.”
For more information about Brown, visit BrienneForWisconsin.com.
Brienne Brown
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