Meet Emily Voight, Single Mother Of Three-- And Progressive Democratic Candidate For A Flippable Wisconsin Assembly Seat

 

Wisconsin's 3rd Assembly District is on the northeast banks of Lake Winnebago, south of Green Bay and includes parts of Outagamie and Calumet counties, including areas of Appleton, Menasha, Kimberly, Little Chute, Combined Locks, Harrison, Sherwood and Forest Junction. The district went for Trump in 2016 but swung blue in their spring's super-charged Supreme Court race. Jill Karofsky won most of the district-- all but the very rural red precincts.

Emily Voight, a member of the Calumet County Board of Supervisors, is the progressive Democrat taking on Trumpist Ron Tusler, a clueless racist. She turned out more voters than he did in their respective primaries-- 3,370 to 3,262. Tusler recently told one of the local papers, when asked about the pandemic that Wisconsin "needs better solutions. Our COVID numbers have gotten worse since the governor’s mask mandate started. Masks might help, but they are not going to solve the problem." He neglected to mention that Republicans in the state legislature and on the state Supreme Court have done all they could to undermine the governor and as a result, Wisconsin went over the 100,000 cases load last week. Sunday there were 1,665 more cases reported, 5th worst in the country. Sunday there were 17,386 cases per million Wisconsinites. If you'd like to help Emily replace, Voight in the Assembly, please click on the 2020 Blue America legislative thermometer on the right and consider contributing to her campaign. I asked her to introduce herself to DWT readers by sharing some of her personal journey that has brought her to this point.


Hardworking Advocate For The People
-by Emily Voight

I’m running for office for many reasons but the main reason has to do with healthcare, and access to quality health insurance. For me this is personal. I’m a divorced mom with three children; my two youngest are also autistic. We rely on the state funded health insurance, BadgerCare. I am extremely appreciative of this, but it is not a perfect solution, and there are many issues revolving around BadgerCare.

Autism affects roughly 1 out of every 60 children and research has proven that with early intervention and therapy it can be extremely beneficial. Wisconsin used to have a waiver system where children would have to wait for therapy. When my sons were on the waitlist, I had to pay $20/ hour out of pocket for their therapy. Clearly this was not sustainable and because of that I ended up barely having my sons participate. Eventually our state switched to having BadgerCare cover therapy services.

Being the mother of children with different abilities is challenging and can be stressful, but one thing we as parents of these incredible individuals should never have to worry about is how we are going to pay for their services. And for quite some time my son’s therapy was being covered by BadgerCare until one day in 2017 I got a call from his therapy provider. I was told they were no longer accepting BadgerCare. I remember this call so vividly and the panic that ensued. I asked why of course, and they said it was because BadgerCare wasn’t reimbursing at a rate that was acceptable for them; they were losing money as an organization by accepting clients with BadgerCare. I started to panic. I talked to friends with children on the spectrum and they suggested I go to my state Assembly Representative.

I made an appointment with the state Assembly Representative in my district, who is now my current opponent. I told him about our issues, how Sean really needed his therapy and how there was no way I could afford to pay for therapy out of pocket again. He told me he knew that reimbursement rates were an issue but there was nothing he could do. I was already politically active at this point in my life, having worked on two local assembly campaigns and Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, but this was a turning point for me. This was the day I became a full blown activist.

I knew his answer was unacceptable, and I was not going to take it. And while I didn’t decide to run that day, I knew someday I would. I started talking to other parents even more and getting more involved. I was still in school at this time for my second bachelor's degree, and there was no way I could obtain full time employment with insurance. Luckily my ex-husband was just offered a new position and was able to get health insurance coverage on our children. But it makes me think about all the many children that do not have access to private insurance and it makes me incredibly sad and angry. We need to protect our most vulnerable in society, this is a measure of who we are as a state and a country.

While my children are covered under their fathers’ insurance, we still have BadgerCare as their secondary provider. And we are still fighting with BadgerCare to cover the co-pays for Sean’s therapy. They use excuses like he is not progressing enough, or that the therapy is not working. Sean is unable to speak and because of that I must be his voice. And this is why I run, I run for all the children like him and the families like mine. We deserve a seat at the table. There are 99 State Assembly representatives in Wisconsin, and as far as I can ascertain there is only 1 representative with a differently abled child. We need more representation than that. And we need low income parents that have personally experienced what it is like to have BadgerCare. Like I said originally I am incredibly thankful, but it is also demeaning. I have had dental students extract some of my teeth because there is very limited access to dental coverage with BadgerCare. I get around 5 options when it comes to picking out glasses for my vision coverage. We need to treat people that have Medicaid with respect, and not look down on them as second class citizens due to their economic circumstances.

When running I knew I needed to come up with a slogan for my campaign. I looked at what my name means and it literally translates to “hardworking advocate for the people” and this is what I promise to do! But I can’t do it alone, this is a grassroots campaign, and as such we need your help. I do not have $61,000 to loan myself like my opponent. Can I count on your support?