Contact: Brian Sikma (608) 266-7882
Madison, WI – Governor-elect Tony Evers (D) recently announced a flurry of appointments to his newly created Next Generation Workforce and Economic Development Policy Advisory Council.[1] Senator Duey Stroebel (R-Cedarburg) released the following statement about several of the individuals Evers has chosen to advise him on this council.
“It is clear that Governor-elect Evers is ready to tap the breaks on the growing Wisconsin economy. This is extremely disappointing and the wrong way to start an administration. Several of the individuals that he has chosen to take advice from have a history of advocating for big government policies at the national level or agitating for failed, statist-solutions at the state and local level.
“Wisconsin’s low unemployment rate, abundance of jobs and opportunity and growing economy didn’t come from top-down government mandates. It came from government recognizing that the people of Wisconsin have a boundless capacity to innovate, to take risks, and to find success without being crippled by layers of bureaucratic red tape from Madison.
“Instead of strangling our state’s success to placate a few far-left appointees, Governor-elect Evers should have faith in the workers and employers of Wisconsin. He should ignore the advice of those who believe we need to artificially set wage rates and turn plentiful resources into scarce commodities in order to satisfy an ideological agenda.”
Appointees to the advisory council include:
Joel Rogers, a UW – Madison professor who leads the UW-housed, George Soros-funded leftwing think-tank Center On Wisconsin Strategy.[2] Rogers advised the Obama administration on climate change issues and has regularly worked in support of hyper-political leftwing labor groups.[3] In 2012, Rogers offered college credit to students volunteering to assist him in building “a partial counter to ALEC.”[4] In 2014, Rogers opposed complying with Wisconsin’s open records law.[5]
Peter Rickman, a Milwaukee area community organizer who has championed massive minimum wage hikes on behalf of various labor and leftwing political organizations.[6]
Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera, has regularly championed extravagant minimum wage hikes. She has also repeatedly and publicly lashed out at law enforcement agencies that enforce current immigration law, even saying some agencies engage in “torture” with “the kind of tactics you see in a cartel strategy.”[7] Additionally, her organization, Voces de la Frontera, has supportedindividuals who compare U.S. immigration policy to the holocaust in Nazi Germany.
Some of Neumann-Ortiz’s more radical statements include:
“We must abolish ICE as an institution, and replace it with one that upholds the fundamental right to migrate and helps immigrants and refugees to integrate in healthy, positive ways into our communities.”[8]
“This does nothing [training sheriff’s deputies on federal immigration enforcement], absolutely nothing, but bring harm.”[9]
