Category: UW System

Three Democrats are vying to challenge incumbent Republican Senator Howard Marklein in the 17th Senate District. Marklein has represented the southwestern Wisconsin district since 2015. Responses from Corrine Hendrickson, Jenna Jacabson and Lisa White are below.

Corinne Hendrickson’s responses:

What are you goals for your first term in office should you be elected?

Fully fund education and acknowledge it starts at birth (child care) and goes through secondary school. Public education has been a cornerstone of the United States and the only way to ensure everyone has access to opportunity and the career path of their choice.

Health care including reproductive rights, paid leave, and public option while we work at the federal level towards universal health care.

Second, we have got to overhaul campaign finance laws (I support Hawaii and Montana’s models) and also close the loophole for the state democratic and republican candidate committees ability to donate as much as they want to the candidate of their choice. Then pass and Independent Redistricting Commission so that we have it set up and active in time for the 2030 census. These are foundational to ensure the people choose their representatives instead of them choosing both their voters and who the candidates are.

Third, ensure we have a robust Joint Finance Committee listening sessions for the budget and we write a budget that works for the people and not the already powerful and wealthy.

Please describe your qualifications and what sets you apart from your fellow candidates.

I’m Corrine Hendrickson, a small business owner, educator, former New Glarus School Board member, wife of a volunteer fire chief (and full time firefighter), mom of two teenage boys, former child care provider and former Wisconsin Early Childhood Association Board President. I have been advocating for better policies and funding for children with special needs for over a decade, and for better policies to ensure small businesses can compete with larger ones.

I co-founded Wisconsin Early Childhood Action Needed to empower and engage Wisconsinites in the political process in 2020. We organized, held press conferences, offered trainings with elected representatives to learn about the budget process, legislative process, talk to committee members, and more. I have organized and built a community across the entire senate district and state. I have also worked with local, state, and federal representatives to write legislation, and testified at a US House Small Business Committee Hearing in February of 2023.

I was also a Cub scout Cubmaster taught children how to appreciate nature, fish, hike, camp, and become good stewards of our environment. My husband has been a volunteer firefighter for over two decades and I have seen how much harder it has gotten to recruit and retain as our rural communities have been hollowed out, small businesses are no longer robust in these communities, and people are commuting further or working more jobs just to get by and don’t have the capacity to volunteer. This will be the next crisis our communities face.

While UW-Madison is situated in Dane County, its role as an economic engine benefits the entire state. UW-Madison also has unique needs that are different from the other Universities of Wisconsin. Please tell us how you would represent UW-Madison in the Legislature and encourage your colleagues from outside Dane County to understand the statewide benefit of a strong UW-Madison.

The Wisconsin Idea and the UW Extensions are in every single county and impact/benefit every single person. We need to remember that. Furthermore, UW Platteville is in district and people of all ages within the district access classes and degrees online all throughout the state. For example, I did the Infant Early Childhood Family Mental Health Capstone online through UW Madison. I also just graduated from UW-Whitewater with my Masters in Education, Early Childhood Education Policy in December of 2025 and accessed the courses on-line. My oldest is a student at UW Madison currently pursuing Wildlife Ecology. Students from all over the state do internships, practicums, and more within the 17th. We have to remember that we are all interconnected and what impacts one impacts us all.

While the 2025-27 state budget included a substantial increase for UW System, UW-Madison is facing unprecedented cuts in federal funding – cuts totaling $200 million – while still recovering from a ten-year long tuition freeze and flat state budgets. Meanwhile, the other UW System institutions are facing an enrollment crisis. How would you address these concerns if elected?

We need to fund our UW system with more state dollars so that students can access your programs. I also would like to look at creating a public bank and part of that would be a state level student loan program for public state tech schools and universities, that would cap interest at 2%, instead of the predatory federal loans that make it impossible for too many to pursue higher education. The Badger Promise of free tuition for those with household incomes below $60,000 is a good start, but Minnesota goes up to $80,000 and I have talked to DPI and our reciprocity program is now tilted towards our students going to Minnesota as their in state tuition is less expensive AND we are not getting their students to come here as they don’t get the free college tuition. This is impacting our brain drain even more than it has been over the last few decades. Our public dollars have paid for those students education and we need to keep them here.

Wisconsin ranks near the bottom of state funding for four-year post-secondary education, while state funding for two-year technical education is among the best in the country. How would you address this disparity in the Legislature?

Same as above.

UW-Madison is the only university in the Big Ten without bonding authority, severely limiting the university’s ability to efficiently plan and complete much-needed building and renovation projects. Would you be an advocate among your colleagues to grant UW-Madison this essential tool?

Yes.

Shared governance has long played a role in how UW-Madison functions, in fact, shared governance was once enshrined in state statutes. Would you support legislation returning shared governance language to state statutes if introduced?

Yes.

Work on the 2027-29 state budget will begin shortly after legislators are sworn into office. What are your funding priorities?

Public education including universal child care, k-12, increase special ed reimbursement, and the UW system and tech colleges. Next is health care and ensuring our public health and health and human services are funded with state dollars to replace the federal cuts coming from 2025’s HR 1.

PROFS has long advocated for paid family leave for all employees and is pleased that UW-Madison and the Universities of Wisconsin implemented a modest six-week paid parental leave benefit two years ago. We believe this is just the first step and more needs to be done. Will you support initiatives like those offered by Governor Evers that would expand paid leave to state employees and create a paid leave insurance program for public and most private sector employees in the state?

Yes. I have been advocating for this for years with 9to5, Motherhood for Good, Main Street Alliance, WECAN, Family Friendly Wisconsin, and others at the state and federal level. I recently was in Washington D.C. and was shocked when Sen. Johnson’s office asked us about paid family leave advice and I asked them to look into how much it costs us because people don’t have paid leave and go on disability due to not healing appropriately from accidents or surgeries. Another increase in cost is that people put off knee surgeries and other surgeries until they can no longer function and it then causes multiple secondary problems costing more to fix and more complex surgeries because they don’t have access to paid leave OR return to work too soon for the same reasons.

Joanna Jacobson’s responses:

What are you goals for your first term in office should you be elected?

Everybody is feeling the pinch of rising costs of prescription drug prices, utilities, groceries, food, and gas. The people of the 17th and all across Wisconsin deserve someone who’s making sure that they’re not getting nickeled and dimed to death because the state refuses to look after families and Wisconsin workers. In addition to costs, I hear a lot about public school funding – which is another way we can help alleviate rising costs. Properly funding our schools will lower property taxes. Schools, like the rest of us, are facing budget pressures. Wisconsin must properly fund our schools so every child has access to a high-quality education.

Please describe your qualifications and what sets you apart from your fellow candidates.

I am the only candidate with a record of accomplishment on the Village Board and State Assembly. I’ve fought for middle class tax relief, more money for schools, and for more affordable and accessible healthcare. I know what it takes to stand up to the special interests because I’ve done that and I know what it takes to get stuff done and deliver real results for people who are counting on it.

While UW-Madison is situated in Dane County, its role as an economic engine benefits the entire state. UW-Madison also has unique needs that are different from the other Universities of Wisconsin. Please tell us how you would represent UW-Madison in the Legislature and encourage your colleagues from outside Dane County to understand the statewide benefit of a strong UW-Madison.

I believe that my Democratic colleagues truly understand the importance of a strong UW-Madison. Believe it or not, I also think some Republicans feel the same way too – they’d just rather exploit it politically for their own gain than admit it. As Senator, I look forward to partnering with UW Madison to be a strong ambassador for one of the economic engines of our State.

While the 2025-27 state budget included a substantial increase for UW System, UW-Madison is facing unprecedented cuts in federal funding – cuts totaling $200 million – while still recovering from a ten-year long tuition freeze and flat state budgets. Meanwhile, the other UW System institutions are facing an enrollment crisis. How would you address these concerns if elected?

During his time in office and as co-Chair of Joint Finance, Howard Marklein has been the chief architect behind the UW System’s struggles. He’s starved the System of much-needed funding, forcing campuses to close across the state and has intentionally politicized the System to exploit political gain. Rather than work as adversaries, as Senator, I’m eager to work as a partner with campuses in my district, like UW-Platteville, and across the State to restore UW to what it once was.

Wisconsin ranks near the bottom of state funding for four-year post-secondary education, while state funding for two-year technical education is among the best in the country. How would you address this disparity in the Legislature?

There’s no doubt that we need to fund higher education at a higher level. That said we need to be intentional about our plan to address this disparity and ensure that additional funding is going to the places that need it the most. Additionally, with a much more welcoming legislature, I would expect UW to engage us as partners in our overall mission to strengthen higher education here in Wisconsin.

UW-Madison is the only university in the Big Ten without bonding authority, severely limiting the university’s ability to efficiently plan and complete much-needed building and renovation projects. Would you be an advocate among your colleagues to grant UW-Madison this essential tool?

Yes.

Shared governance has long played a role in how UW-Madison functions, in fact, shared governance was once enshrined in state statutes. Would you support legislation returning shared governance language to state statutes if introduced?

Yes.

Work on the 2027-29 state budget will begin shortly after legislators are sworn into office. What are your funding priorities?

There are a number of priorities I would like to see in the next budget. For starters we need to address the economic pinch that working families are feeling all across Wisconsin – so whether that be by capping the cost of prescription drugs (like insulin and asthma medication), making housing more affordable by expanding the homestead tax credit, or investing in our public education to take the strain of property taxpayers, we need to do all we can to tackle this problem from all angles.

PROFS has long advocated for paid family leave for all employees and is pleased that UW-Madison and the Universities of Wisconsin implemented a modest six-week paid parental leave benefit two years ago. We believe this is just the first step and more needs to be done. Will you support initiatives like those offered by Governor Evers that would expand paid leave to state employees and create a paid leave insurance program for public and most private sector employees in the state?

Yes. I have been a supporter of paid family leave in the past and am eager for us to make headway on this issue in the majority.

Lisa White’s responses:

What are you goals for your first term in office should you be elected?

My first‑term goals focus on making Wisconsin fairer, more affordable, and more democratic for everyday people.

I will work to revamp our public school funding model so state dollars go first to neighborhood public schools, not to vouchers, and to gradually phase out and ultimately end the school voucher program. I will fight to restore collective bargaining rights so workers have a real voice on the job and can secure fair wages, benefits, and working conditions.

Making life and homes more affordable is central to my agenda: I will push for policies that reduce the burden of property taxes, expand access to affordable housing, and protect families from being priced out of their communities. I will also support expanding Medicaid so more Wisconsinites can get the care they need without risking bankruptcy or going without treatment.

Finally, I will prioritize returning more local control over land‑use and environmental protections to our communities. People who live in a place should have a strong say in how their land, water, and natural resources are managed, and I will stand with them to protect our environment, rural heritage, and quality of life.

Please describe your qualifications and what sets you apart from your fellow candidates.

What sets me apart from the other candidates is the depth and breadth of my lived experience in the 17th Senate District. For more than 30 years, I have owned and operated a small business that serves communities across the entire footprint of this district, giving me a broader and deeper résumé than most political insiders and a practical understanding of what families, farmers, and small businesses face every day.

I have already been working across party lines to protect our communities—most recently by helping build support for a moratorium on the proposed Grant County data center. That effort shows I can bring people together, regardless of party, to stand up for local residents and our land instead of just accepting whatever outside interests put on the table.

Because I’ve conducted business and built relationships across party lines for decades, I know how to bridge the social and cultural divide that clearly exists from the western part of the district to the eastern part. My lifelong farm‑family background and being raised and educated in the western part of the district give me a grounded perspective and a new voice that Madison desperately needs. My expansive geographic presence and deep roots across the district make me uniquely positioned to build the coalition we need to defeat Howard Marklein and truly represent the 17th in the state senate.

While UW-Madison is situated in Dane County, its role as an economic engine benefits the entire state. UW-Madison also has unique needs that are different from the other Universities of Wisconsin. Please tell us how you would represent UW-Madison in the Legislature and encourage your colleagues from outside Dane County to understand the statewide benefit of a strong UW-Madison.

UW–Madison is one of Wisconsin’s greatest assets. While it is physically located in Dane County, its impact reaches every corner of our state through research, healthcare, agriculture, engineering, business development, and workforce training. The innovations developed at UW–Madison strengthen family farms, help small businesses grow, improve healthcare, and attract employers that create good-paying jobs across Wisconsin.

As a State Senator representing a largely rural district, I would make the case that investing in UW–Madison is an investment in every community—not just Madison. Whether it’s agricultural research that supports our farmers, partnerships with manufacturers, medical discoveries that improve lives, or educating the next generation of professionals, the university provides returns that benefit all Wisconsinites.

I also recognize that UW–Madison has unique needs as a world-class research university. To remain competitive nationally and internationally, it must be able to recruit and retain outstanding faculty and staff, support cutting-edge research, and provide students with an affordable, high-quality education.

I would work with colleagues from every region of Wisconsin by focusing on results rather than geography. Strong universities strengthen local economies, create new opportunities for businesses, and prepare the workforce our state depends on. Supporting UW–Madison is not about favoring one community over another—it is about investing in Wisconsin’s future, ensuring our state remains innovative, competitive, and economically strong for generations to come.

While the 2025-27 state budget included a substantial increase for UW System, UW-Madison is facing unprecedented cuts in federal funding – cuts totaling $200 million – while still recovering from a ten-year long tuition freeze and flat state budgets. Meanwhile, the other UW System institutions are facing an enrollment crisis. How would you address these concerns if elected?

UW–Madison is a true economic engine for our state, but it does not stand alone. As a legislator from the 17th Senate District, I will represent UW–Madison as our flagship research university while also championing UW–Platteville and the other Universities of Wisconsin as critical regional drivers of opportunity and growth.

I am deeply dismayed by recent cuts to research funding. Those dollars support discoveries in agriculture, engineering, health care, and technology that benefit communities far beyond Dane County. I will push the Legislature to restore and expand research support at UW–Madison, because strong research is how we attract federal funds, create high‑value jobs, and keep Wisconsin competitive—while also insisting that the benefits reach rural and small‑town Wisconsin.

At the same time, UW–Platteville is the university in my district, and I know firsthand how important it is as a regional anchor for engineering, agriculture, and the local workforce. I will encourage my colleagues to see the UW system as a network that must all be tended to: UW–Madison as a powerhouse for research and innovation, and campuses like Platteville as engines of local talent, rural development, and community vitality. My goal is a Legislature that restores research funding and strengthens UW–Madison, while enhancing the entire UW system, because our students, communities, and economy depend on both.

Wisconsin ranks near the bottom of state funding for four-year post-secondary education, while state funding for two-year technical education is among the best in the country. How would you address this disparity in the Legislature?

Wisconsin’s funding imbalance between four‑year universities and two‑year technical colleges is not sustainable if we want a strong, well‑educated workforce in every part of the state. The most important step is to modernize the state funding model for our public universities so it actually meets today’s needs.

In less than a generation, campuses like UW–Platteville have seen their state reimbursement fall from roughly 40 percent to somewhere around 17 percent. For a state university system, that is simply unacceptable. It forces campuses to rely heavily on tuition, fees, and constant belt‑tightening, which puts more burden on students and families and makes it harder to maintain high‑quality programs in engineering, agriculture, and other fields our rural and small‑town communities depend on.

In the Legislature, I would push to increase base funding for four‑year UW campuses, with particular attention to regional institutions like Platteville that serve rural areas and first‑generation students. At the same time, I would protect our strong support for technical education, which has proven its value for skilled trades and mid‑career training. Our goal should be a balanced, fair approach: keep technical colleges strong, while bringing four‑year university funding back up to a respectable level so students have real choices—whether they pursue a trade, a four‑year degree, or both over the course of their working lives.

UW-Madison is the only university in the Big Ten without bonding authority, severely limiting the university’s ability to efficiently plan and complete much-needed building and renovation projects. Would you be an advocate among your colleagues to grant UW-Madison this essential tool?

Bonding authority is really about who gets to make decisions and control the pace of university growth—and in Wisconsin, that power has been kept tightly in the hands of the state, not the campuses themselves. UW–Madison is the only university in the Big Ten that cannot issue its own bonds, which means every major building and renovation project has to wind through the state capital budget and political process, even when the money could be repaid from university revenues like housing, fees, or other income. That structure is rooted in a long‑standing tradition of state‑level control and, frankly, political gatekeeping: some legislative leaders want to retain direct veto power over big projects and are skeptical of UW–Madison’s priorities, and others are wary of public institutions taking on more debt, even when it is responsibly managed and essential for staying competitive.

The result is that UW–Madison loses time and money, falls behind peer institutions that can move quickly, and sees critical projects delayed or scaled back—not because campus leaders are incapable or uneducated, but because the state doesn’t fully trust them with the tools nearly all of their peers already have. To people on campus and many in the public, that absolutely feels insulting and short‑sighted. It suggests that those closest to the educational mission and the students cannot be trusted to plan and finance the facilities they need, even as those delays hurt Wisconsin’s students, research capacity, and economy.

My answer is: yes, I would advocate among my colleagues to grant UW–Madison bonding authority. Withholding this tool is not about competence; it is about political control, and it is costing Wisconsin dearly. I would make the case that responsible bonding authority is a practical way to let UW–Madison plan and build efficiently—while still maintaining transparency and oversight—and that trusting our flagship and our other campuses with modern financing tools is part of treating higher education as the statewide economic engine it truly is.

Shared governance has long played a role in how UW-Madison functions, in fact, shared governance was once enshrined in state statutes. Would you support legislation returning shared governance language to state statutes if introduced?

Yes. I would support legislation returning shared governance language to state statutes if it is introduced.

Shared governance at UW–Madison means that faculty, academic staff, university staff, and students all have a real voice in major decisions about how the university operates. It is a long‑standing Wisconsin tradition that the people most affected by decisions—those who teach, study, and work on campus—help shape those decisions, instead of everything being handed down from the top with little input. When shared governance language was removed from state law, it weakened that guarantee and sent the wrong message about whose voices matter in higher education.

As a legislator, I believe our public universities work best when they are accountable to their communities and when decision‑making is collaborative and transparent. Restoring shared governance to statute would reaffirm that Wisconsin values the expertise and lived experience of faculty, staff, and students, and that we trust them to be partners in shaping the future of UW–Madison and the broader UW System. I would encourage my colleagues to see shared governance not as a threat to oversight, but as a practical tool for better decisions—ones that reflect the needs of students and workers and strengthen the university’s ability to serve the entire state.

Work on the 2027-29 state budget will begin shortly after legislators are sworn into office. What are your funding priorities?

My funding priorities for the 2027–29 state budget center on three core commitments: fully funded education at every level, real support for women, children, and caregivers, and protecting the land and environment that make life and housing affordable.

My top priority is to strengthen public education—from early childhood through technical colleges and four‑year universities. That means increasing state support for K‑12 public schools so we can reduce over‑reliance on property taxes and phase out vouchers that drain resources from neighborhood schools; investing in child care, early education, and special education so families are not forced to choose between work and their children’s well‑being; and restoring fair funding for UW campuses and technical colleges, especially regional institutions like UW–Platteville that serve rural communities and first‑generation students.

Too many recent cuts and policy choices have fallen hardest on women and children, and for generations our culture has relied on the unpaid and underpaid labor of women to solve problems, provide care, and hold families and communities together. In the budget, I will prioritize affordable child care, strong maternal and child health services, and support for caregivers and women‑dominated professions. Finally, I will prioritize protecting the “very earth under our feet”—our soil, water, and land—by safeguarding clean air and water, supporting sustainable agriculture, and funding policies that make housing more affordable by aligning land‑use, infrastructure, and environmental protection.

PROFS has long advocated for paid family leave for all employees and is pleased that UW-Madison and the Universities of Wisconsin implemented a modest six-week paid parental leave benefit two years ago. We believe this is just the first step and more needs to be done. Will you support initiatives like those offered by Governor Evers that would expand paid leave to state employees and create a paid leave insurance program for public and most private sector employees in the state?

Yes. I will support expanding paid leave for state employees and creating a paid leave insurance program that covers most workers in Wisconsin.

Paid family and medical leave is essential if we want our economy and our families to be healthy and stable. A modest six‑week paid parental leave benefit at UW–Madison and across the Universities of Wisconsin was an important first step, but it is not enough. Too many parents, caregivers, and people facing serious health issues are still forced to choose between a paycheck and their own or their family’s well‑being. That is wrong, and it falls especially hard on women, low‑wage workers, and rural families who have fewer backup options.

I will support initiatives like those offered by Governor Evers to expand paid leave for state employees and to create a paid leave insurance program that covers public and most private sector workers in Wisconsin. A well‑designed paid leave insurance system spreads the costs broadly while ensuring that individual employers are not crushed by the expense of doing the right thing. It keeps people attached to the workforce, reduces turnover, and helps businesses keep experienced employees. Most importantly, it recognizes caregiving, parenting, and healing as real work that deserves real support—not unpaid labor that families are expected to shoulder alone.

For me, expanding paid leave is part of a larger effort to make Wisconsin more affordable and humane for the people doing the hard work of raising children, caring for loved ones, and keeping our communities going.