Uncontested Senate Races for Nov 2020 are good and bad

What other faces will we see for sure in the Wisconsin State Senate in addition to the ones I examined in my April article entitled Senators not up for re-election likely to continue prohibition in 2021-22? The filing deadline was June 1, 2020 for candidates to declare and turn in signatures. The uncontested races exposed four (4) more Wisconsin State Senate Seats that we already are familiar with… and here they are:

Senator Robert Cowles (R) received a D+ https://vote.norml.org/politicians/3440

Senator Lena Taylor (D) received a A+ https://vote.norml.org/politicians/51747

Senator Robert Wirch (D) received a C+ https://vote.norml.org/politicians/3557

Senator Duey Stroebel (R) Marijuana Grade

Senator Duey Stroebel (R) received a F https://vote.norml.org/politicians/129787

So if we add the above two Republicans Cowles and Stroebel to the other ten Republicans not up for re-election and received failing grades, do we have a dirty dozen? Jokes aside, with 33 Senators to vote on bills, these 12 are not needed if the rest of them support cannabis reform, right?

Senator Lena Taylor with her A+ grade makes her uncontested seat a win in the column of marijuana reform.

Senator Robert Wirch uncontested seat went by untouched, as no one even filed or attempted to run against him I could find…. this seat is probably a win for medical marijuana and maybe he was playing political stuff, but:

Wirch (D-Keosha) has been elected since 1992 and is a member of the Assembly Committee of State Affairs, the committee that was responsible for medical marijuana in 2019-2020 session.

Senate Bill 507 / Assembly Bill 570 (Medical Marijuana with home grows/smoking) and Assembly Bill 750 / Senate Bill 683 (Republican Creation of a Medical Marijuana Program) are both in his committee.

Rep. Wirch was the only Democrat to co-sponsor the Republican medical marijuana legislation without home grows and did not allow smoking products. Senator Wirch was singled out back in October 2019 as not being a co-sponsor of the bi-partisan medical marijuana effort with home grows and smoking allowed (SB507).

Good news at least, in the remaining Senate races totaling 11; will see 4 races with Incumbents that have viable challengers in them and 7 of the races have no incumbent running and there will be primary elections in 8 races!

We will be digesting the candidates and reporting on the other races, so stay tuned and come back…… but we can point out Senator Alberta Darling (R) and Senator Dan Feyen (R) both received failing grades and they face challengers in November 2020.

Up next… the Uncontested Wisconsin State Assembly Seats.

For sure, we will see some new faces in the Wisconsin State Senate in 2021. If you find value in what we do and what we write about, please donate today.