Policy
Fran has a vision
A better Wisconsin is possible, and we all have a role in building it. Any argument that we need to accept less is bullshit.
The Plan
Children & Schools
Free school meals
No child should go hungry. We have the means to help. As a state rep, Fran wrote a bill to provide free healthy school meals to all children, helping Wisconsin farmers and lowering costs for families.
Universal childcare
Fran has a model to guarantee universal childcare. Through a program based on childcare plans in New Mexico and Vermont, families will be able to access affordable, high-quality childcare with either no out-of-pocket costs, subsidies, or strictly capped prices.
Support childcare providers
We can’t have a universal childcare program if workers aren’t getting the wages they deserve. Fran’s model includes increased reimbursement rates and worker loan forgiveness programs to ensure there are enough caregivers to meet demand.
Fully fund public schools
Not too long ago, Wisconsin’s public schools were considered some of the best in the country. Fifteen years of Republican funding cuts have decimated them and abandoned parents, teachers, and students. We owe it to our future to resurrect our best-in-class primary education system — a project that starts by fully funding our public schools, public universities, and tech colleges.
Right now, school funding shortfalls are paid for through property taxes. Representative Hong’s Tax the Rich package changes the funding source to income taxes on the super-rich — cutting your property taxes by up to 44%.
Roll back unfair voucher laws
Public dollars belong in public schools. Every child deserves a strong and comprehensive education. Voucher programs lack transparency and oversight and use discriminatory admission policies. As governor, Fran will start a responsible transition away from the unfair voucher program, which gives financial advantages to private schools over public ones.
Special education
Wisconsin only funds around 40% of special education costs for school districts, putting local taxpayers on the hook for over a billion dollars in public education costs. We can care for all of our students while investing in our communities by increasing this essential funding.
Higher education
Our public universities have been underfunded for decades and reeling since the passage of Act 10. Fully funding public universities and tech colleges, as well as restoring collective bargaining power for their workers, is the bare minimum. Fran will work to increase essential funding for programs that support students of all backgrounds and give educators a seat at the table.
Workers
Guaranteed paid leave
Nobody should have to decide between paying the bills and taking care of themselves or a sick family member. Fran’s universal paid leave bill would provide fully insured paid leave for all workers — including the self-employed.
Fair wages and working conditions
One job should be enough. Fran supports a living wage — a $20 minimum wage indexed to the cost of living in Wisconsin.
Gig workers are employees
Fran pledges to protect gig workers’ rights by promising to veto any future legislation that helps big companies dodge their responsibilities by narrowing the definition of employment to exclude the workers who make our cities run.
Healthcare
Expanded, improved BadgerCare for all
The only health finance model that can address the core issues of our healthcare system is federal Medicare for All. Until the federal government does its job, we have to use every tool at our disposal to make healthcare as affordable as possible for every Wisconsinite. This is a multi-prong effort. We will:
- Expand Medicaid.
- Develop new kinds of BadgerCare programs that include more kinds of people — like a Basic Health Plan.
- Establish a robust public option that competes with private insurance plans — proven in other states to lower insurance premiums.
Pull down high healthcare costs
Healthcare costs are high because healthcare prices are high. Right now, the biggest hospital systems in Wisconsin charge private insurance companies up to four times what Medicare pays. These costs trickle down as higher premiums for everyone. Fran has a plan to bring exorbitant prices in line with fair market value and invest the savings into small hospitals and healthcare programs that help all of us.
Insurance coverage and claim denial
Insurance companies will do anything they can to avoid paying your healthcare claims. As governor, Fran will crack down on claim denial processes, mandate coverage for medically necessary care, and develop new ways for you to fight back when you get pushed around.
Make large hospitals pay their fair share
Wisconsin has several multi-billion-dollar hospital systems that pay nothing in taxes. It’s time they pay their fair share. Fran will advance a bill that forces large hospitals to use the tax breaks we give them to invest in community benefits and subsidized care.
Lower prescription drug costs
When drug prices have no anchor, ambiguous coverage and inflated costs surprise you at the checkout line. By pooling the state’s resources to negotiate better prices and creating a streamlined infrastructure, we can lower costs and extend coverage for everyone.
LGBTQ healthcare access
Everyone deserves to live safely in their own body. Fran recognizes gender-affirming care as medically necessary and would veto bills like AB 104 that intrude on personal healthcare issues and prevent families from seeking the healthcare they need.
Hospital and nursing home staffing
Too many nursing home residents face abuse, neglect, or inappropriate care, and hospital understaffing leads to burnout and decreased care quality. One of the strongest predictors of care quality in a nursing home or hospital is whether there are enough nurses and nurse aides on duty. Fran has sponsored legislation to mandate safe staffing in hospitals and will continue the fight to ensure both kinds of facilities employ enough workers so patients and workers alike get the treatment they deserve.
Medicaid payments
Fran will help sustain mental healthcare programs, social workers, and rural hospitals by increasing Medicaid reimbursement rates.
Maternal health, beyond pregnancy
Fran’s platform contains deep support for mothers during pregnancy, delivery, and early parenthood: universal paid medical leave and universal childcare make it easier to guarantee children and parents are healthy and raising a family is affordable. Making it easier for hospitals and mothers alike to work with doulas, building upon successful pilots we’ve seen across the state, is another step toward improving maternal health and reducing disparities in pregnancy.
But it’s too simple to reduce maternal health solely to questions of pregnancy and delivery — if you care about maternal health, interventions only at the time of pregnancy are already much too late. Wisconsin’s better-than-average maternal morbidity and mortality rates disguise extreme differentiation by race and income. Universal policies like minimum wage increases and income inequality reduction, efforts like local hospital financing to counteract the loss of rural hospitals and clinics in low-income areas, and investment in OUD treatment, mental health and peer support, and rehabilitation address the structural issues upon which maternal health is constructed.
Build a preventive care workforce
If we want to bring down healthcare costs, we need to bring down healthcare prices — but we also can invest in infrastructure that reduces our reliance on expensive and chronic care. Preventive care means paying people fairly to do essential work in places where they already live. Fran will help fund the Department of Health Services to build pilot groups of coordinated healthcare workers, like social workers, nurses, dieticians, community health workers, and peer counselors, into more neighborhoods across the state.
Stop hospital and clinic closures
Wisconsin is hemorrhaging small hospitals and medical clinics. Fran will push to enable the creation of hospital districts — like school districts or sanitation districts — that let communities issue bonds, backed by the state’s public bank, to purchase and sustain their own healthcare facilities.
Housing
Finance affordable construction
Homeowners need stability in their mortgages — so do the people who construct housing. Housing is unaffordable because building housing is expensive, and a major reason construction is expensive is the difficulty of securing cohesive construction financing. Through her public bank plan, Fran can develop a backstop to streamline the financing of affordable housing construction — and bring in new sources of construction financing — bringing costs to build and own down.
Zoning reform
Developers should be able to construct affordable housing almost anywhere. Fran’s affordable housing zoning overlay will streamline the process of building housing meant for regular people, not multimillionaires, and her developer tax incentive structure will make sure the housing that gets constructed stays affordable.
Home ownership
Wisconsin’s community land trusts (CLTs) and limited-equity co-ops (LECs) are innovative housing models that have been proven to make it possible for low- and moderate-income people to own a home, build generational wealth, and stay in their communities — while insulating neighborhoods against rampant speculation. As governor, Rep. Hong will invest in stabilizing, financing, and promoting CLTs and LECs.
Protect renters
We’re going to make sure nobody goes to sleep cold, and that renter protections are consistently enforced. As governor, Rep. Hong will use her executive authority to bolster rental unit regulations, pursue aggressive regulation of slumlords and serial housing-law violators, and make it easier for tenants to flag issues and find support.
Right to counsel
Fran will put front and center a statewide Right to Counsel program, which makes it much easier for people facing eviction to access the legal resources typically only afforded to wealthy people — a program Milwaukee’s pilot has shown saves everyone a lot of money.
Taxes
Property taxes
Representative Hong will cut your property taxes by about 41% by insisting that ultra-wealthy people pay their fair share by increasing the top income tax bracket by 1% and creating a new bracket for millionaires. Wisconsin’s school funding model asks regular Wisconsinites to cover school funding shortfalls through property taxes, raised through hundreds of local referendums over the past few years. We can fund K-12 education for all students if we stop asking Wisconsinites to cover for the super-rich.
Local options for local funding
Wisconsin state law prohibits towns, cities, and counties from making their own decisions about how to fund necessities like road repair, libraries, public transit, and parks. A local option income tax, part of Fran’s “Tax the Rich” package, will let communities decide how they want to take care of themselves without constantly resorting to property tax increases.
Immigration
ICE
At the federal level, we need to abolish ICE and prosecute lawbreaking agents. But here in Wisconsin, Fran will use the full force of the executive branch to protect Wisconsinites of all documentation status from secret police. As a cosponsor of the Keep Families Together bill package, she refuses to let Wisconsin’s resources be used to target Wisconsinites — and demands transparency, the right to due process, and the protection of community safe spaces.
State IDs
It’s nearly impossible to function in America without some form of government ID. Fran believes all people, including all immigrants, should have access to those documents. Fran cosponsored legislation to make it possible for noncitizens to get state IDs, even if they don’t have a Social Security Number — and includes safeguards to keep that data protected.
In-state tuition for DACA recipients
Immigrants deserve the same access to our public university system as everyone else. Fran cosponsored legislation to extend in-state tuition rates to DACA recipients who live in Wisconsin.
Data Centers & AI
CTRL+ALT+DELETE: Data centers
AI data centers are a bad deal for Wisconsin. With little local investment, few good permanent jobs, and spiking energy costs, data center subsidies are irresponsible.
Fran is calling for a moratorium on data center construction until we know how to protect ourselves from their environmental and energy costs.
If a community decides it wants to build a data center, any new construction must use union labor and follow three rules:
- One, it generates long-term community benefit: no tax breaks for private profit.
- Two, it funds new renewable or clean energy infrastructure and adheres to strict environmental protections.
- Three, that infrastructure is publicly owned — so whatever the long-term outcome of data centers, we build something useful for all Wisconsinites.
Labor SHIFT: Workers in the AI age
Silicon Valley marketers and data center landlords hype AI as the most significant economic transformation since the Industrial Revolution. Whether that’s true or not, CEOs and corporations are acting like it is — and we’re seeing the consequences in how they treat their workers. Fran’s Labor SHIFT package is a set of new tools for workers for the 21st century. Labor SHIFT contains:
- No Robo Bosses: Humans must make employment decisions, workers’ privacy rights, and a ban on surveillance wages.
- No Layoffs on the Public Dime: No tax breaks or state funding for AI layoffs and state contractors get scored on AI worker protections
- Control the Future for Workers: A workers’ transition act, worker-led training and retraining, and a state trust fund for long-term local projects.
- Workers at the Table: Workplace AI tools are subject to collective bargaining, and Wisconsin will step in to protect workers if the federal government won’t.
Learn more about Labor SHIFT here.
Business and government
Affordable loans and a public bank
Megacorporations and the ultra-wealthy have access to more low-interest loan options than small businesses. We deserve a bank owned by, and meant for, regular Wisconsinites. The Wisconsin Public Bank, inspired by North Dakota’s century-old model, can be used to give small businesses better rates on the loans they need to grow.
Cut contractor waste
Wisconsin pays thousands of private consultants and contractors. Many of them do essential work at a reasonable price — but some take advantage of lax oversight to provide an inferior product or service at Wisconsinites’ expense. As governor, Fran will commission a thorough study of government outsourcing, figure out where we’re wasting state funds on private profit, and make sure Wisconsin is a responsible steward of public money.
Monopoly
Monopolies devastate local businesses, gouge customers, and tilt the balance of economic power toward megacorporations. As governor, and in collaboration with the office of the Attorney General, Fran will establish comprehensive antimonopoly regulations to keep markets fair and competitive.
Get tough on private equity
Private equity is a form of corporate acquisition that debilitates small and large businesses alike, all to enrich investors who don’t care about the businesses they acquire, their products, their workers, or their customers. Private equity means rural hospitals and small clinics close, manufacturers close up shop, and housing prices get jacked up — and as governor, Fran will team up with the attorney general to crack down on this flagrant corporate abuse, following the lead of states like Oregon and Pennsylvania.
Agriculture
Break up Big Ag
A deregulated agriculture industry has driven small and family businesses out of the market. Fran will lead the charge to strengthen agricultural antitrust enforcement against excessive market concentration and will direct state development agencies to support small and mid-sized farmers.
Agriculture cooperatives
Agricultural cooperatives keep power and profits in the hands of producers—not distant corporations—by fostering member-owned, democratically governed enterprises that share resources, reduce costs, and expand market access. Under Fran, cooperative business models will get first priority for state business development funds.
Wisconsin farmers feeding Wisconsin
The pandemic-era Badger Box program was a huge success, proving that Wisconsin farmers can feed Wisconsin families. As governor, Fran will support initiatives like Badger Box and expand state funding for programs that connect Wisconsin producers with schools, food pantries, and community institutions.
Protections for all farm workers
Fran knows that we need to defend and strengthen the rights of all farm workers. That means fighting for fair wages, health and safety standards, overtime pay, and a full defense of the rights of all farm workers, including immigrant farm workers who make our state function.
Preserve farmland for the next generation
Fran will push for the creation of a Wisconsin Farmland Trust to purchase and protect agricultural land from speculation, ensuring long-term access for beginning farmers, young farmers, and farmers of color through affordable leases, conservation easements, and cooperative ownership models.
Clean water, clean soil, and regenerative agriculture
Climate change and pollution affect the way we farm in Wisconsin. Fran will direct the state to provide technical assistance and other supports for farmers adopting regenerative practices like cover cropping and agroforestry, expand the Producer-led Watershed Grant Program, make state support for county conservationist programs permanent, and aggressive regulation and consequences for agricultural or non-point polluters.
CAFOs
Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations have significant implications for water quality, rural communities, and the viability of family farms. Fran supports local control over CAFO siting and required bonding for proposed CAFO operations so local governments are empowered to develop ordinances related to CAFO operation and communities are protected from financial liability from bankruptcies or disaster cleanup.
Cities, Towns, and transit
Revenue sharing
Fran will right-size a grossly unfair revenue sharing model that leaves cities and towns across the state scrambling to access the tax revenue they generate. State and local governments are partners, not rivals. Fran can uphold the state’s end of the deal by:
- Lifting restrictions on how much a local government can levy to fund essential services, indexed to local costs
- Giving counties and municipalities access to means of financing beyond property taxes
Regional Transit Authorities
Regional Transit Authorities give local government options to raise revenue, collaborate regionally and more efficiently, and develop transit systems that meet the needs of their people. As governor, Fran will fight to enable legislation for RTAs with dedicated revenue options and local governance authority.
Safe, complete streets
Over a decade of Republican rule has made our streets less safe for people inside and outside of cars. Fran believes that muncipal development should prioritize safe design for all users—with sidewalks, protected crossings, bike facilities, and transit-supportive street design.
Transit-oriented development
Wisconsin’s housing and transportation systems are siloed—which drives up household costs and makes it harder to build affordable housing near jobs, schools, and transit. Fran’s administration will support efficient policies that make it easier to get around, build affordable housing, reduce infrastructure costs, and support small businesses.
Rural and suburban microtransit
Rural and suburban areas across Wisconsin have little to no transit service, leaving seniors, low-income families, and disabled residents stranded. Under Fran, Wisconsin will develop state-supported public microtransit pilots where fixed-route service is not viable; helping people get to their jobs, access healthcare, and tend to their daily needs.
Paratransit and medical transportation
Our medical transit systems are fragmented, leading to missed medical appointments, worse outcomes, and unreliable service for disabled and elderly residents. We’re going to expand Medicaid’s Non-Emergency Medical Transportation services and guide our transit plans with an eye for paratransit—because healthcare you can’t get to isn’t accessible healthcare.
Stable funding for rural transit
With little reliable transit or intercity bus services, many residents of rural Wisconsin counties are isolated or have limited access to jobs, healthcare, or education. Fran supports rural transit agencies and intercity bus routes to help people get around the state, no matter where they live.
Public groceries
Communities across the state are suffering as America’s largest grocery corporations close stores that serve low-income and rural populations. Fran wrote a bill to create publicly-owned grocery stores to serve Wisconsinites with universal access to healthy, affordable food.
Disability
Home healthcare access
It’s long been proven that home healthcare—getting care at home instead of being warehoused in a nursing home—is better for patients and the state alike. Fran will begin a comprehensive review of our home healthcare allocation process, led by patients, to develop a best-in-class system that gets people the care they need.
Disability income limits
In Wisconsin, a person with a disability who makes one dollar over $37,650 loses all access to Medicaid and other disability programs — meaning people who want to work aren’t allowed to. Fran will remove this hard cap and replace it with a model that lets people who can work but still need disability care live the lives they deserve.
Support home health workers
Like social workers and nurses, home health aides are the backbone of our long-term-care infrastructure. But because wages are so low, many families can’t find enough aides to meet demand. Fran will direct the Medicaid program to require a living wage for home health aides — essential labor demands respect — while ensuring people who receive home care don’t see their hours restricted.
ABLE accounts
Fran supports establishing tax-free Achieving a Better Life (ABLE) accounts, savings accounts for people with disabilities to cover disability-related expenses without affecting their eligibility for disability benefit programs.
Labor & Unions
Put a stake in Act 10
Fran will nail the coffin of Act 10 shut and lead the fight to enshrine a constitutional right for all workers, public and private, to organize. She’ll lead the fight to repeal economically damaging right-to-work laws and reinstate prevailing wages.
Ditch right-to-work
Anti-union “right-to-work” laws make for worse hours and deadlier workplaces by making it harder for workers to unionize. Fran supports a repeal of 2015 Wisconsin Act 1 and restore tools unions have used to fight for worker power.
Union labor for state infrastructure
Rebuilding Wisconsin isn’t a metaphor. We’re going to need to break ground on new, ambitious infrastructure if we want to right-size the state — and we’re going to do it with union labor.
Work with workers
Wages and working conditions are the bare minimum. Fran believes that our government functions best when its workers participate in executive decision-making and would develop a tight, functional relationship with the state workforce.
Ban non-competes
Non-compete clauses make it difficult to move to higher-paying jobs — and far too many employers use them. Fran will ban non-compete clauses and enforce stiff penalties for including them in employment contracts.
End captive audience meetings
Captive audience meetings — forcing workers to sit through anti-union propaganda lectures — are a classic anti-labor tactic. Fran will resuscitate Wisconsin’s 2009 ban.
Union dues tax rights
Union workers shouldn’t be penalized for exercising their rights. Fran will push to restore union workers’ rights to deduct their union dues from their annual income tax.
Bodily Autonomy
Constitutional protection of abortion
Fran will lead the fight to join other states by preserving abortion access and other forms of reproductive justice in the Wisconsin state constitution.
Expand the definition of reproductive health
A patient can’t access abortion—or any other form of reproductive care—if they can’t get childcare or time off work. Fran’s universal childcare and paid leave programs will expand the definition of what “reproductive justice” means in Wisconsin.
Gender-affirming care
Fran will prevent legal retaliation against medical professionals for providing gender-affirming care and educators for using students’ preferred pronouns.
Employment protections for trans workers
With trans rights under attack, Wisconsin needs state-level safeguards to ensure vulnerable individuals will be protected regardless of what happens in Washington. Wisconsin law already protects individuals on the basis of sexual orientation — Fran will push to add gender identity and expression to the list.
Opioids, Substance Use & MENTAL HEALTH
Use the opioid settlement funds wisely
Wisconsin’s state government will receive a total of $238 million in opioid settlement funds. Fran understands that we have a responsibility to use them wisely: by creating a public advisory body, regular opportunities for public input, and working with community groups and researchers to ensure that money is spent on evidence-based substance use treatment and overdose prevention programs, not wasted on ineffective punitive or carceral strategies.
Remove copays for mental health and substance use care
Fran will push to guarantee that private insurers that the state can regulate eliminate time limits and prior authorization for a wider range of buprenorphine products and will follow New Mexico’s example in eliminating cost-sharing for all behavioral health services in commercial insurance plans the state can regulate, including medications for OUD.
Cut red tape for OUD response
Administrative hassle is an unreasonable barrier to lifesaving care. As governor, Fran will cut the red tape by expanding reimbursement pathways and removing obstacles that exclude some providers from being able to bill for services, and simplify requirements for healthcare facilities to become certified community health centers.
Promote training and harm reduction
Wisconsinites with OUD deserve to live long enough to recover. Fran will increase access to and public awareness of overdose reversal drugs and test strips and will support grassroots harm reduction groups with experience implementing evidence-based, street-level overdose prevention strategies that save lives, keep people out of the hospital, and reduce HIV and hepatitis C transmission.
Expand access to OUD medication in prisons and jails
People who have recently been released from prison or jail have the highest risk of fatal overdose. Fran will direct Wisconsin to implement a program based on highly successful interventions in other states to offer people who are currently and formerly incarcerated access to medication-assisted treatment.
Cannabis
Legalize cannabis
It’s simple: Cannabis should be legal. By developing a licensing system like Michigan’s, staffed by regulators familiar with the industry, Fran will finally make this safe recreational and medicinal drug legal in Wisconsin and use the revenue to fund languishing state infrastructure like rural broadband. Fran will also exhaust every resource possible to expand eligibility for expungement, work to get people out of jail, and help get them good-paying jobs in the new industry.
Criminal legal reform
Conditions of Confinement
Fran proudly supports the Conditions of Confinement legislative package, a suite of 17 bills targeted at the state of incarceration in Wisconsin. This package includes:
- Formally abolishing slavery as a punishment for crimes
- Access to hygiene products
- Regular bathing periods
- Heating and air conditioning
- Greater supervision and regulatory authority — including public transparency — about what happens in our jails and prisons
Public defenders
Everyone has a right to an attorney, but public defenders face overwhelming caseloads that slow down the system. Wisconsin hires far too few public defenders — previous budgets allocated funding for only a quarter of the lawyers needed. Fran’s budgets will listen to the needs of the underfunded and overlooked components of our criminal justice system.
Crime prevention
Community initiatives like afterschool programs, neighborhood organizations, and public recreation help keep people out of jail. Wisconsin’s local governments need state support in designing and implementing comprehensive crime prevention programs.
Fran sponsored a bill to make developing these programs easier and will support counties and cities that invest in noncarceral approaches to crime prevention.
Recidivism
Fran wants to make sure we do everything possible to keep people who have served their sentence from returning to jail. By investing in reentry programs and wraparound services like mental health treatment and housing support, we can make sure people who leave prison can stay out.
Juvenile life sentences
We do not serve justice by locking children away for life. 27 states have banned life sentences for juvenile offenders. As governor, Fran will see that Wisconsin follows suit.
Gun safety
Responsible gun sales and ownership
Many Wisconsinites are terrified of gun violence at home, in schools, and in public. At the same time, Wisconsin has a rich social history of hunting and gun ownership. Fran believes we can protect both our social traditions and our people by making sure the guns in our state are purchased and owned responsibly. That means background checks and red flag laws that keep weapons out of the hands of kids, domestic abusers, and people in immediate risk to themselves or others; safe gun storage policies, and taking 3D-printed guns off the streets — responsible gun policies supported by most Americans, including a majority of gun owners.
Special session on gun safety
Fran believes, alongside most gun owners, that an unambiguous demand for gun safety can coexist with a longstanding culture of responsible gun ownership. As Governor, she’ll call a special legislative session to establish evidence-based, firm, but fair guidelines that are good for Wisconsinites.
TRIBAL NATIONS
Expand the Wisconsin Tribal Education Promise Program
The Wisconsin Tribal Education Promise Program supports enrolled members of Native nations attending the University of Wisconsin with tuition grants and scholarships. It’s essential infrastructure for Native students and Fran will see it expanded to the rest of the UW system and tribal colleges.
Address the MMIWR crisis
The crisis of violence against Indigenous women and relatives is centuries old and must be addressed with the full force of the Wisconsin government, in cooperation with and following the lead of tribal nations.
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives (MMIWR) survivors have trouble navigating overlapping and incomplete legal systems. Fran would prioritize the development of enhanced legal navigation and representation services for these survivors as well as funding for MMIWR shelters and crisis and counseling centers.
Fran recognizes the findings of the Wisconsin Department of Justice’s MMIWR Task Force and seeks to consult with tribal leaders and experts about necessary policies and how the governor’s office can best support their implementation in collaboration with the attorney general.
Tribal partnership in the Department of Natural Resources
Fran appreciates Governor Evers’s appointment of Dylan Jennings, a member of the Bad River Band and the first Indigenous member of the DNR’s seven-seat Natural Resources Board. But tribal partnership in Wisconsin decisionmaking cannot be left to chance or the convenience of future governors. As governor, Fran will push to add at least one seat to the Board reserved for a member of Wisconsin’s tribes.
Veterans
End veteran homelessness
Fran believes that ending veteran homelessness should be a cabinet-level priority. That means reorganizing programs that already exist — developing more active veteran outreach programs, facilitating cross-agency coordination, and giving program officers authority to help veterans with housing costs. It also means patching gaps in veteran support infrastructure: restoring the Veterans Housing and Recovery program, reopening closed facilities, creating landlord incentive funds for veteran housing, and supporting rapid grant processing for support service providers. Fran will pursue a capital grant to make it easier to build veteran-supportive housing
Benefit navigation
Veteran benefits and services are spread across a loose network of federal, state, and nongovernmental institutions. Navigating that web is hard, and it means veterans struggle to file disability claims, enroll for VA healthcare, and take advantage of state benefits. As governor, Fran will create a Veterans Benefits Navigator program to fund community outreach and enrollment assistance and will support legal aid organizations supporting veterans seeking discharge upgrades.
Invest in veteran mental health
Fran supports legislation bolstering the Veterans Outreach and Recovery Program, which helps support veterans with substance use or mental health issues.
Expand state services for veterans
Fran believes that Wisconsin needs to protect its veterans. She’ll simplify and expand the Veterans Assistance Grant program and create “fast track” eligibility determination for veterans at risk of eviction or utility shutoff.
Invest in retraining
Wisconsin provides retraining grants for veterans who find themselves un- or under-employed. Fran will double the grant ceiling and extend grant durations.
Remove obstacles to veteran healthcare
Veterans are put on a strict timer and need to jump through unnecessary hoops to receive healthcare assistance. As governor, Fran can direct the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs to adjust its healthcare aid program to make it easier to apply for and receive aid.
Environment, Conservation, and climate change
Climate change
Fran is a proud sponsor of the Climate Accountability Act, which requires Wisconsin to create a viable plan to reduce carbon emissions by 52% by 2030 and be carbon-neutral by 2050.
As governor, Fran will introduce legislation to:
- Adopt a binding clean electricity standard similar to Michigan’s, which requires 60% renewable power by 2030 and 100% clean electricity by 2040.
- Allow for faster electric vehicle (EV) adoption in Wisconsin through purchase rebates, port creation incentives and EV-ready building codes, and electric school bus incentive programs.
- Create a state green bank, which uses public funds to attract private investment in solar, energy efficiency, and resilience projects. Connecticut’s Green Bank has generated $3 billion for its state economy.
- Enact labor standards, similar to those in Michigan, Illinois, and Washington, that allow all workers and communities to benefit from clean energy. These standards include project labor agreements, prevailing wages, and community-benefit agreement requirements.
PFAS
Clean drinking water is a basic human right. Yet exposure to PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” is putting communities around our state in jeopardy. The state Natural Resource Board has failed to implement science-based limits on PFAS in drinking water and a Republican legislature has shielded polluters from financial responsibility for the harm they cause. This is intolerable.
Among her first acts as governor, Fran will:
- Direct the DNR and the Department of Health Services to carry out comprehensive public testing for PFAS in schools, childcare centers, and surface water across the state.
- Refuse to spend public money on products to which PFAS have been intentionally added, such as firefighting foam.
- Establish a Cabinet-level commission on PFAS to develop comprehensive legislation for monitoring and regulating PFAS levels.
- Introduce legislation that delivers immediate relief for communities affected by PFAS, including free PFAS testing for all wells in impacted communities, bottled water and filtration systems until permanent solutions are in place, and municipal water connections in at-risk communities.
- Require polluters—not taxpayers—to fund cleanup and long-term PFAS monitoring. Fran will oppose any legislation that limits polluters’ liability for the harms they cause.
Conservation
Wisconsin’s natural beauty isn’t a corporate asset. Our forests, lakes, streams, and wildlife habitats are a huge part of what makes Wisconsin a state people want to live in and visit. But this common treasury is in jeopardy because of an assault on the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program, which enables the state to take care of our environmental resources. Over the last three decades, the state’s investment in Knowles-Nelson has generated a 100% return on investment, but Republicans have refused to renew the funding for the law in the state budget. Wisconsinites deserve better.
As Governor, Fran will fight for a fully funded 10-year reauthorization of Knowles-Nelson, no limits on project size, and greater representation for stakeholders on an independent Stewardship Board, which will advise the DNR on projects and approve projects over $2.5 million—no more anonymous vetoes of conservation projects.
Restore the DNR
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) was created to protect our state’s vital natural resources. But over the last decade, a combination of staff reductions, legislative interference, and pressure from politicians have weakened the agency’s ability to defend the public interest.
As governor, Fran will:
- Sign a budget that gives DNR the staff and resources to faithfully implement the laws the legislature has passed—so Wisconsinites aren’t on the hook for subsidizing funding shortfalls through ever more expensive hunting and fishing licenses.
- Appoint DNR leadership based on scientific and regulatory expertise rather than political loyalty or ideology.
- Appoint members to the Natural Resources Board that reflect the diversity of stakeholders in the state, including conservation, public health, tribal sovereignty, recreation, and sustainable agriculture.
- Ensure DNR rulemaking follows the science to require that the quality of our water and air is based on sound analysis of risks rather than the interests of polluters.
Line 5
The proposed rerouting of the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline illustrates much of what is wrong with how environmental policy works in Wisconsin today. Wisconsin’s waters belong to its people, but projects like Line 5 threaten tribal sovereignty and turn natural resources into numbers on a balance sheet. We simply can’t afford more threats to our environment.
Fran supports the legal challenge to the proposed reroute filed by groups like Clean Wisconsin, Midwest Environmental Advocates, Sierra Club, 350 Wisconsin, the League of Women Voters, and the Bad River Band: DNR and Enbridge have to be held accountable to state environmental laws. Fran supports an immediate stay of construction while the legal challenges proceed.
Fran stands with the Bad River Band’s fight to defend tribal sovereignty. Treaty-protected rights are not optional, and they are not negotiable. As governor, she would direct state agencies to honor the sovereign-to-sovereign relationship between the state and tribal governments and fully consult with and respect the rights of tribal nations in permitting decisions.
Economic justice
Economic Justice Bill of Rights
Fran authored the Economic Justice Bill of Rights, which calls for:
- A job that provides dignity at work and pays a living wage
- Adequately funded public education and affordable, accessible child care
- A union, public or private, and collective bargaining
- Affordable, accessible, and comprehensive high-quality health care
- A clean, sustainable environment and healthy planet
- Decent, sustainable community infrastructures including safe, affordable housing, transportation, and broadband
- Equitable access to capital, investments, financial institutions, and retirement
- A fair, restorative, and equitable justice system
- Recreation and participation in community and civic life
- Life, self-determination, and freedom from oppressions for all Wisconsinites, regardless of documentation status.