Meet the candidates for running for Wisconsin secretary of state in the 2022 August primary election
MADISON – The traditionally low-profile race for Wisconsin secretary of state is now a focal point of this year's elections as Republicans pursue the office with new urgency in response to former President Donald Trump's false claims of significant voter fraud in 2020.
As Republicans ramp up calls for an overhaul of statewide election administration leading into November, the typically under-the-radar race became a cornerstone of conservative midterm ambitions after some Republican officials and candidates began pushing to abolish the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission and place election oversight duties in the hands of the secretary of state.
In Wisconsin, the GOP hopes to gain control of an office the party has not held for 48 years.
The lead-up to what will prove to be a high-stakes election has been defined largely by liberal infighting as longtime Democratic incumbent Doug La Follette faces a robust Aug. 9 primary challenge from Dane County Democratic Party Chairwoman Alexia Sabor in a year Democrats can't afford to lose the office.
Republicans will choose between three candidates with longtime state Rep. Amy Loudenbeck, R-Clinton, having an edge in name recognition and campaign cash over primary challengers Jay Schroeder and Justin Schmidtka.
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What does the Wisconsin secretary of state do?
The secretary of state's major responsibilities include maintaining public records, authenticating official acts of the governor and state Legislature and serving on the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands. The current salary for the secretary of state is $72,551, according to the Legislative Reference Bureau.
Secretaries of state were once responsible for a much wider berth of administrative tasks, such as registering businesses and trademarks, but these duties were chipped away by lawmakers over time.
What is the secretary of state's role in Wisconsin elections?
Wisconsin is a notable outlier regarding election administration in that the secretary of state is not currently responsible for overseeing elections. Instead, the state Elections Commission — an elections agency overseen by a bipartisan panel of six appointed officials — is responsible for the electoral duties currently afforded to the secretary of state in 36 states.
More: Wisconsin Elections Commission picks Republican tax attorney as its new chair
In Michigan, for example, the secretary of state serves as the chief election officer who also manages ballot initiatives in the state, according to the Michigan Department of State.
The WEC was not always responsible for supervising elections. In fact, the commission is a relatively new agency. The WEC was forged in 2015 by Republican lawmakers after conservatives objected to investigations that were shut down by the state Supreme Court into former GOP Gov. Scott Walker's campaign by the now-dissolved Government Accountability Board. The GAB previously oversaw elections following its formation in 2008.
Who are the Democrats running for secretary of state?
The contest for the Democratic nomination is now a two-way race between incumbent La Follette and challenger Sabor.
Doug La Follette
La Follette was first elected as secretary of state in 1974 and has held office since 1982 after launching an unsuccessful bid for lieutenant governor in 1978. La Follette has a lengthy history of defeating Republican challengers even in difficult years for Democrats. He faced harsh criticism from the state GOP after delaying the publication of 2011's controversial Act 10, the Walker-era law limiting collective bargaining for most public workers.
La Follette initially planned to retire leading into 2022 but has said he chose to run for reelection after being encouraged to do so by fellow Democrats.
La Follette is a distant relative of “Fighting” Bob La Follette, a progressive who was Wisconsin’s 20th governor, served in the U.S. House and Senate and ran for president in 1924.
Alexia Sabor
Sabor has worked as a project manager for Madison's Earthling Interactive for 10 years before entering the race.
Sabor is a newcomer to state-level politics, having never previously held an elected office. She said she believes a rapidly evolving political landscape is indicative of a need for new leadership.
Who are the Republicans running for secretary of state?
The Republican field consists of three candidates: Loudenbeck, Schroeder and Schmidtka.
Amy Loudenbeck
Loudenbeck was first elected to the Assembly in 2010 after previously serving as a supervisor for the Town of Clinton. She also worked as an environmental project manager.
Loudenbeck currently serves as co-chair of the Joint Committee on Information Policy and Technology and is the vice chairwoman of the powerful Joint Committee on Finance.
Jay Schroeder
Schroeder is a real estate and equity investor from Neenah.
Schroeder is seeking the Republican nomination after challenging La Follette in 2018 and losing by a margin of 145,000 votes, according to the WEC. He was the first Republican candidate for secretary of state to crack 1.2 million votes in a general election. Schroeder also launched several unsuccessful bids to represent the Assembly's 55th District.
Justin Schmidtka
Schmidtka is a Marine veteran and the host of the Badger State Resistance Podcast who has made abolishing the WEC a central issue of his campaign.
What are the key issues in the race?
One of the central issues of the race is shaping up to be a debate on the duties of the office, with Republican candidates advocating for greater control of election administration and Democrats vehemently pushing back against such a move.
La Follette said his concerns hinge largely on efforts by allies of Trump to overturn election results in several swing states in the aftermath of the 2020 election, and he expressed fears of a Republican governor and secretary of state refusing to certify Democratic victories in coming elections.
"The main Republican candidate has made it clear that her goal is to possibly get rid of the election commission," La Follette said. "I have always advocated that the election should not be in the secretary of state's office. The election should not be in the hands of an elected person, be they Democrat or Republican."
Sabor also voiced concerns surrounding consolidating electoral oversight power into the hands of an elected official.
"I think that's a terrible idea, whether it's a Democrat or a Republican," Sabor said. "No matter who's in office, people are going to mistrust the process and the results, and you can't move forward if we can't agree on who has been elected."
Loudenbeck, the leading Republican candidate, voted to create the state Elections Commission. She now calls it a "failed experiment" and said her change of heart regarding the commission's role was tied to a desire to rein in local-level election practices such as "guidance documents in conflict with state law" and to cut back on bureaucratic red tape surrounding administrative tasks.
"There's training, there's outreach, there's maintaining voter lists, there are all sorts of other administrative and ministerial duties that other secretary of state offices conduct," Loudenbeck said.
Loudenbeck said shifting election duties to the secretary of state is not without national precedent, and a potential transition to a new structure, in her view, will be reflective of how other states handle these tasks.
"When the Legislature looks at what they're going to replace WEC with, they're going to look at what other states do, which, by and large, is the secretary of state or another constitutional officer."
Schroeder and Schmidtka have both called for dissolving the WEC on their campaign websites with Schroeder taking aim at Loudenbeck's decision to back creating the commission seven years ago.
"She voted to create WEC, wanted to be a 'check on WEC,' failed to cut the $10 million WEC budget, and now that her poli-sci degree kicked in from UW Madison put her finger to the wind and wants to adopt my platform," Schroeder said in a statement.
Aside from general elections conflict, Sabor said she is mounting a primary challenge against a Democrat who hasn't lost in decades because of her desire for greater engagement with voters on the part of the secretary of state.
Sabor took issue with what she described as an inadequate level of communication with voters and worried such a gap could dampen voter enthusiasm. Sabor also said she longed for the secretary of state to take up a more active role in pushing back against Republican policies or efforts she deems harmful, such as questioning election results.
"We are really missing an opportunity with the seat to push back on things the Republican Legislature was doing that I think harm Wisconsin voters," Sabor said. "The current secretary of state isn't really doing any communication around the issues that affect Wisconsin voters."
La Follette defended his record, citing efforts to "modernize" the office of the secretary of state through developing a website — but he did not state the year — and "using the bully pulpit" to push back against efforts to "eliminate drop boxes." He did not provide specific examples.
La Follette added he believes his lengthy career and longstanding history of electoral victories allowed him to develop a rapport with voters strong enough to withstand a challenge from Loudenbeck.
"I've been running for office for 50 years," La Follette said. "People sort of know who I am. This election — both the primary and the general are very simple — there's one clear issue. In the primary, the issue is who is in the best position to beat the Republican in November and I'm clearly that candidate if you look at my record."
You can reach Ben Baker at bbaker@gannett.com.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Meet secretary of state candidates in Wisconsin primary election 2022
