Can Cookie Baking Grandmas In Rural Wisconsin Stop The Deadly Republican Political Machine In Madison? Meet Kriss Marion

 

-by Kriss Marion, candidate
Wisconsin Assembly district 51

As a wife, mom of four and a grandmother, I am fiercely committed to the well-being of my family, my neighbors, and Southwest Wisconsin. I run an award-winning bed and breakfast on our small farm in Blanchardville, and have long been involved in our village chamber of commerce and regional tourism promotion, including the Soil Sisters Tour. I have years of experience tackling tough issues, tight budgets and political disagreements as a Lafayette County Supervisor. I have a deep knowledge of the issues facing our region because of my service as a Southwestern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commissioner, and board member of Southwest Workforce Development, SWCAP, and the Community Leadership Alliance of Southwestern Wisconsin. I co-founded the Pecatonica Pride Watershed Association and Wisconsin Farmers Union South Central Chapter.

I’m running for state Assembly because I am so incredibly proud to live, work, and play in southwest Wisconsin and I want to protect our way of life for years to come. I’m tired of watching our legislators stay on the sidelines to fight with each other and the Governor, and refuse to show up to work while the rest of us wrestle with a world pandemic and a recession. I am ready to bring a civil, respectful, and tireless work ethic to Madison. I am ready to roll up my sleeves and show up.

I first learned that our Wisconsin state government was broken back in 2015, when some fellow farm women and I decided to approach our local legislators with a “Cookie Bill” proposal to make it legal to sell non-hazardous baked goods face to face. We had recently learned that it was illegal in Wisconsin to sell baked goods to your neighbors, even though a lot of people were doing it. Because we recognized that farm profits were in a tailspin, as they still are today, we wanted a legitimate way for farm families to add to their bottom line, without investing in an expensive certified kitchen. We wanted bigger and more successful farm markets in our small towns. And we know we needed more businesses in rural communities. Wisconsin was one of only two states in the nation that had such a ban.

We had great luck with our legislators, and with the legislature, and over the course of two years gathered the co-sponsors and the yes votes for an easy passage though the State Senate. Several dozen of us gathered at the Capitol for the Assembly vote, ready with cookies for our allies, and aprons for photo ops. We learned 15 minutes into the session that the bill was dead because the Speaker of the House didn’t like it and had simply omitted it from the agenda. He owned popcorn factories that required inspections, and he didn’t think it was fair for home bakers to go without expensive licensing. He hadn’t reach out to us with concerns, or tried to work with us. But that was it for our two years of work.

As we started through the process again in the next legislative session, this time getting a Republican to author the proposal, thinking we’d have more luck with the Republican Speaker. But after a year of work in committee, we knew that the Speaker continued to be opposed. With his limitless power, and no scruples about blocking a popular bill that had sailed through the committee process in two sessions, we accepted the offer of a non-profit law firm to take our case to court.

Two years later, we won and the Wisconsin ban on baked goods sales was overturned. Today, Wisconsin farmers markets are full of home bakers! But we still have no actual law on the books, and without legislative guidance, the Department of Ag, Trade and Consumer Protection is able to apply rules whimsically and, without reason, harass bakers here and there throughout the state.

While it’s by no means my only issue, Food Freedom is a big issue for me today. Now more than ever, farmers need more opportunities to make money, and when elected I’ll work to craft not just a Cookie Bill, but a whole package of legislation that makes it easier for farmers to sell goods directly to consumers.

But here are the other critical issues facing my state:

COVID: First and foremost, we’ve got to get COVID under control. Though we’ve been blessed as rural communities to not have the number of positives that urban areas have, we will continue to struggle to run our schools and businesses safely until we contain the spread. Science, technology, good leadership, and public cooperation are essential if we want to end this tragic disruption to our lives. COVID isn’t the new normal, but it’s here to stay for as long as we don’t address it wisely.

HEALTHCARE: In my conversations with voters, the top concern in most families right now is the uncertainty and expense of healthcare. Many people who have lost jobs because of COVID have also lost insurance coverage. The skyrocketing costs of health insurance and prescription drugs MUST be addressed. That’s why I’ve pledged to not take a dime of campaign contributions from pharmaceutical companies or health insurance lobbies. My opponent has taken thousands of dollars from these industries, and he has, predictably, voted NO to cap insulin prices. He has also refused to accept federal Medicaid dollars that would extend Badgercare benefits to thousands more Wisconsin families who are just one medical emergency away from financial ruin. I want to make the best policy choices for my constituents, rather than for corporate donors. We must also address the lack of access to mental health care.

FAMILY AGRICULTURE: Rural places are the soul of our state and the engine of our economy. The future of our families, schools, and small towns in SW Wisconsin is tied to the fortunes of our farmers. Western Wisconsin led the nation in farm bankruptcies before COVID and 2020 will likely see accelerated farm exits. The collapse of global supply chains during the beginning of the pandemic showed just how vulnerable commodity markets are, and we need to address that with policy. We absolutely MUST resolve as a state to keep small and medium-scale farmers on the land, and give them the means to be profitable, or we will lose Wisconsin as we know it. My team has developed a 10-point “Rural Routes to Wisconsin’s Post-Pandemic Recovery” which supports diversification, short supply chain development and local processing. We need to make clean energy generation a part of farm balance sheets, increase profits by reducing burdensome regulation on direct farm sales, and expand farm-to-institution infrastructure. I sued the state of Wisconsin and won so that home bakers could sell goods to neighbors, but that was just the beginning of a Food Freedom renaissance that could revitalize our rural economy.

EDUCATION: Now more than ever, we understand the important role public education plays in the life of every American, and certainly in the well-being of every American family. High quality early education, especially birth-to-three, is foundational to future academic and life success-- and we fail to address the childcare crisis at our peril. Excellent K-12 education, once a hallmark of the great state of Wisconsin, should be a privilege guaranteed to every child, regardless of zipcode. COLLEGE AND TRADE SCHOOLS. A state which fails to fairly pay its teachers and adequately fund the instruction of its children, its young adults, and its returning students, is a state suffering from a lack of hope and a tragic failure of imagination. I am proud to be endorsed by our Education Governor, Tony Evers, and I share his optimism about our future. We can rise up stronger, Wisconsin, together.

CLEAN WATER: Many people were skeptical during my last campaign when I campaigned on the issue of water contamination. In fact, one of the main reasons I ran against Howard Marklein for state Senate in 2018 is because he refused to take my concerns seriously. But then the SWIGG (Southwest Wisconsin Groundwater and Geology) study showed conclusively in 2019 that at certain times of the year,  42% of randomly tested wells in Iowa, Grant and Lafayette Counties were too contaminated to drink. As a result, the Governor declared 2019 the Year of Clean Drinking Water and Rep. Robin Vos initiated the year-long Speaker’s Task Force on Drinking Water. Unfortunately, that Task Force, led by my opponent, failed to pass any water protections, and the legislature blocked all of the Governor’s proposals. But groundwater testing in SW Wisconsin is ongoing and we learn more every day about how vulnerable our karst bedrock is to surface contamination and septic leakage.  I believe with new faces, the legislature will eventually produce water protection policy, based on science and not special interest lobbies.  We must make sure that our communities provide the clean water and quality of life that will attract and retain workers, farmers, families and businesses.

I know there are many good people, including my beloved father, who believe that the private sector can and will take care of the environment. That has been Jared Kushner’s response to COVID as head of the PPE procurement effort: “Free markets will solve this,” Kushner told business leaders looking for direction on how to get involved. “That is not the role of government.” We now know that approach has been tragically disastrous when it comes to COVID, and the same is true of our response to environmental protections. I’m a small government democrat, and in many sectors I have fought against government overreach - including suing the state over an unconstitutional ban on selling baked goods! But protection of the commons - the resources that we all rely on for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - is one of the highest, most sacred jobs of government. We are at a critical moment in world history and we absolutely must insist that our state government, and our federal government, collaborate with the governments of all nations to address environmental protections. I have led on this at the community level, as a Wisconsin Farmers Union chapter president, and at the local level as a Lafayette County Supervisor. I will continue to lead forcefully on environmental protections as a state legislature. Our world can’t wait.