What’s on the ballot? State wide referendums

There a few state wide referendums that are the spring ballot: two that would amend the state constitution and another that would gauge popular opinion. We cover them all in today’s program.

In the first half Dustin Brown from the UW Law School breaks down the two constitutional amendment referendums. The questions on the ballot address conditions of release before trail and the ability of a judge to impose cash bail. Dustin explains the process of amending the state constitution and what would happen if the referendums passed.

Then, we talk about the advisory referendum that asks “Shall able-bodied, childless adults be required to look for work in order to receive taxpayer-funded welfare benefits?” Equity and Justice Scholar Professor David Pate and Editor-in-chief of the Wisconsin Examiner Ruth Conniff join us to explain how welfare already works and point out that “able-bodied, childless” welfare recipients are already required to seek jobs.

To see what is on your ballot you can visit https://myvote.wi.gov/en-us/Whats-On-My-Ballot

Election day is April 4th, and state-wide early voting has begun.

Dustin Brown is a Senior Staff Attorney with the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School. Dustin joined the Initiative following four years on the law school’s Legal Research and Writing faculty and nearly a decade in private practice, most recently with Godfrey & Kahn in Madison. He has litigated in state and federal courts on matters ranging from electoral redistricting, public records access, and defamation to insurance coverage, products liability, and deceptive trade practices.

David Pate, Jr. is the Equity and Justice Scholar in-residence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, School of Human Ecology and an affiliate of the Institute for Research on Poverty and Collaborative Center of Health Equity at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Ruth Conniff is Editor-in-chief of the Wisconsin Examiner.  Her book “Milked: How an American Crisis Brought Together Midwestern Dairy Farmers and Mexican Workers” won the 2022 Studs and Ida Terkel Award from The New Press.

Image by Yinan Chen from Pixabay