Assembly District 92 Spotlight
District 92 includes the city Menomonie, Chippewa Falls, and Northern Eau Claire (see a more detailed map here). Running on the Republican side is current representative for District 29 Clint P. Moses. Opposing him for the Democrats is Joe Plouff. More on Plouff in a bit, but first it is time to examine Moses. Because he is a current representative, the easiest way to tell where he stands is based on his legislative record. And even with his short time in office, his legislative record alone shows he is just as weird and just as dangerous as any of the other Republicans running for office. Let us take a look at his record.
Do you oppose child labor? Because Moses certainly does not. He co-authored Assembly Bill 442 which would roll-back a 19th century law requiring 14 and 15 year olds to obtain special work permits in order to have a job. Moses wants to roll us back all the way back to the 1800s, and eliminating this work permit would have wider reaching implications as well. Issuing these permits is a prime source of funding for the state Department of Workforce Development who is in charge of enforcing state labor law. So not only does Moses want to make it easier for children to work, he also wants to make it harder to enforce still existing labor laws at a time where child labor law violation complaints are growing exponentially (complaints quadrupled from 2018 to 2022). Just last year a Wisconsin based company was fined $1.5 million for illegally employing over 100 children in dangerous conditions and a 17-year old died while working in a Wisconsin sawmill last year.
Moses’ disregard for protecting children makes all the more apparent that his equally dangerous views on abortion are not about protecting ‘life’ or children, but a desire to control women. Moses introduced the Assembly Bill to ban abortion after 14 weeks, supported a bill that would punish healthcare providers who perform abortions, and also supported a bill that would require doctors who perform abortions to promote fake medicine and inform their patients about (untested) abortion ‘reversal’ treatments. Conveniently, on the topic of fake medicine, Moses has also proposed a bill to protect medical practitioners from discrimination or losing their credentials for expressing their medical opinion (this was proposed during the Covid19 pandemic). The wider medical community is against this type of protection as it sows the seeds of distrust in actual medical science. The hypocrisy of Moses wanting to punish doctors who provide safe and medically sound abortions, but also wanting to protect doctors who promote fake, and often dangerous medical treatments is astounding.
But Moses’ support of cruel and violent policies does not end there. He also co-authored a bill expressing support for Texas Govenor’s Greg Abbot violent and illegal actions on the border, installing razor wire and floating barriers. A ten year-old and an eight year old child, along with their mother drowned earlier this year and these barriers prevented federal officials from even having a chance to come to their aid. Abbot's hands are soaked with the blood of migrants and Moses is cheering him on all along the way.
So if Moses does not want to protect children, women, (real) doctors, or immigrants, who does he care about? Killer cops, not surprising at all. Moses introduced a bill that would limit a court's ability to press charges against an individual who committed murder, if they were found to have acted in self defense. The details are a little technical, but under existing Wisconsin law, even if a prosecutor does not press charges, if a judge thinks it was probable that a crime was committed, they can still move a case forward. Moses’ proposed law would remove this power from the judge if there is evidence that the individual acted in self-defense. Moses explicitly wrote this bill to shield cops from extensive investigations after they have murdered someone. Now only a prosecutor, who has an inherent conflict of interest given they work so closely with cops on other cases, is the only one who decides whether to file charges against a killer cop.
So we have a clear understanding now of how dangerous Moses’ policies are, but who is running against him? Joe Plouff, while not currently an elected representative, is also not a newcomer to politics. He served in the Wisconsin Assembly from 1996 to 2004. Even after leaving the Assembly, Plouff continued to be involved in political organizing. One example that speaks to Plouff’s commitment to justice is him traveling on multiple occasions to stand with the protests at Standing Rock. In this interview conducted while he was there, he expresses a surprising amount of self-awareness in how a white guy should stand in solidarity and listen to the oppressed and marginalized of society. He also speaks to the importance of organizing in a way that one can tell is based on real world experience working in communities. Plouff is also a critic of voucher schools and a defender of public education (Plouff himself has a teaching degree) and has critiqued the extreme wealth inequality that plagues the United States. He also has served on the board of the Menomonie Food Co-op and organized for Citizen Action Northwestern Wisconsin Organizing Cooperative.
While almost any Democrat would be better than electing Republican Moses back to office, Plouff seems to have the kind of credentials we admire which makes him someone to actually be excited about electing to office. We hope that his election will be able to help us in turning the Assembly blue and prying it from the weird and dangerous Republicans.
You can connect or donate to Plouff’s campaign if you are interested in supporting him.
