After much consideration and soul searching, I will not be running for Milwaukee Mayor in the upcoming special election. I appreciate each of you who reached out with support and encouragement. It really means a lot to me and my family. Instead, I will focus my attention on continuing to serve my neighbors in the state senate. I look forward to asking for their vote again in the upcoming fall election.
As we watch this race unfold together, we must be mindful of the outside influences that may seek to advance their interests over our neighbors. Historically the mayor of Milwaukee has been a long serving position, and as progressives we must ensure that the next mayor holds the true values of its citizens.
I expect a lively debate between the candidates around reigning in the political corruption that is rotting Milwaukee’s police department. I hope candidates will listen to the demands that were amplified in the 2020 marches and end the 1980s so-called “tough on crime” model that has cost our city too many lives, wasted resources, and increased incarceration rates without making us any safer. You can’t police people out of poverty, so why not invest in what communities really need? I hope candidates will cut MPD’s ballooning budget and redirect those dollars to the Office of Violence Prevention Blueprint for Peace which invests in opportunities and alleviates generational trauma and will actually make us all safer. Police respond to crime; they don’t prevent it.
I hope there will be innovative plans put forward for how to end poverty, create good paying jobs, support inclusive development, and provide hope to a generation that has been ruthlessly neglected and all but forgotten.
I hope that there will be a sound rejection of big outside money trying to buy the office, if not by the candidates themselves, then by the voters who reject those candidates that sell out their neighbors.
Milwaukee’s opportunities are as plentiful as our people. I look forward to partnering with whoever our new mayor may be to ensure that our progressive values can be realized both in the city of Milwaukee and the state of Wisconsin. I will do my best to continue to fight for our community’s fair share of resources to come back from the state and for our shared progressive values of making sure we have quality public education for all our kids, secure housing for every resident, and good paying jobs.
