Assembly District 93 Spotlight
Assembly District 93, which covers parts of Eau Claire, Trempealeau and Dunn counties (for a more exact map check here), is another key district for Democrats as they aim to retake the Assembly. The good news is that Democrats are favored to win the district. The even better news is that the Democratic candidate Christain Phelps is another Democrat that we can actually feel excited about sending to Madison. Phelps has been fighting against Republicans since he was a junior in high school protesting against Scott Walker’s Act 10. He works at an education non-profit and is a vocal advocate for public education. He rallies against how the State has defunded public education and social safety nets. His list of issues also includes more funding for cleaning up PFAS from water, healthcare, and affordable housing. Listening to Phelps talk about health care as a human right, organizing a movement, prioritizing people over property developers, the State’s moral responsibility to fund public schools, and the reckless funding of unaccountable private schools make it clear Phelps is the type of Populist Democrat we want in office.
Turning now to the Republican side, running against Phelps is James Rolbiecki, who on first glance, seems like a Republican from a bygone era. The before Trump times. He is an entrepreneur and real estate agent who brings that ‘government should be run like a business’ vibe as his platform. In our initial research, Milwaukee Beagle could not find any glaringly inflammatory statements from Rolbiecki (other than grossly identifying as a ‘landlord by trade’), and he even cites wanting to ‘bridge the political divide’ and ‘not being like other Republicans’ as a key components of his platform. Some might even describe Rolbiecki as being ‘boring.’ While all of this is true, Rolbiecki’s candidacy does not exist in a vacuum and we must recognize this. He is not just a political candidate for the Wisconsin Assembly District 93, he is a member of the Republican Party. And even if he might not espouse overtly fascist views, his party does. He claims to be different from most Republicans, but those claims lack specificity. We have found no commitments from him about what he’ll do in office to distinguish himself from his party. In the Assembly, Robiecki will be under great pressure to simply vote with his party. He can say over and over again how he wants to bridge the political divide, but you can bet he will vote with his party all the same.
We were unable to find any statements from Rolbiecki about why he believes we are so politically divided or what his solutions for it are. We are unable to find Rolbiecki making even the slightest effort to distance himself from the most extreme Republicans. What we were able to find though was photos of him campaigning with incredibly fascist Republicans like Derrick Van Orden. Van Orden’s name might sound familiar, during the RNC he falsely accused and had arrested an anti-war protestor. It is photos like these that illustrate just how hollow Rolbiecki’s claims of wanting to bridge the political divide are. He has no problem campaigning with fascists like Van Orden surrounded by elect Trump signs. How can we expect him to suddenly change his tune once elected?
While it can be easy to mobilize against electing a fascist, of which there are many running in Wisconsin, we must be equally excited to vote against the more ‘boring’ Republicans like Rolbiecki. Even though Rolbiecki as an individual might be ‘moderate’ by Republican standards, he has tied himself to an extremist party. He has given us no evidence that once elected to office, he would do anything other than vote alongside his extremist colleagues.
You can learn more about, volunteer, and donate to Christian Phelp’s campaign here.
