Tara Johnson joins to discuss the housing crisis, funding public schools and Wisconsin’s 175-year-old abortion ban, as she runs for state Assembly in the 96th District.

Began the show getting a bit of Johnson’s experience. The Democrat was the first female president of the La Crosse County Board, where she was a member for 20 years, and was executive director of the United Way in La Crosse, before retiring in 2020. 

The first big issues (7:30) Johnson said she’s heard from while campaigning was the state’s 175-year-old abortion ban law, and how the Legislature, controlled by Republicans, has addressed that.

After that, we got into education funding, and how many school districts continuously have to go to referendum to help improve schools, and how the state has never come through on what’s supposed to be ⅔ funding for schools.

And, before the big break, we also hit on Republicans’ refusal for well over a decade now to expand Medicaid in the state and why Johnson sees that as a must.

In the second half of the show (19:00) we got into more of Johnson’s experience on the county board and how that might transfer to the state Legislature. 

We then transitioned (24:00) to the state having a $3.5 billion budget surplus for over 2.5 years now and what the Legislature could do with that extra funding.

Lastly, Johnson brought up (28:30) affordable housing and childcare, which kind of rolled into a homelessness conversation and how all three are intertwined. 

Johnson is running in a primary election against Steven Campbell of Viroqua. The voting period for that ends Aug. 13. The winner will face Republican Loren Oldenburg, who is the defacto incumbent, but the 96th District will change next year as it inherits the south side of La Crosse and becomes much less rural.