Democrat looks to flip GOP Assembly seat in Wausau area

Public education funding, child care affordability and tax cuts are key issues in the race for the 85th Assembly District — a toss-up district in north central Wisconsin that encompasses Wausau and Weston.

Rep. Patrick Snyder, R-Schofield, faces a challenge from Yee Leng Xiong, a school board and Marathon County Board member who also serves as executive director of the Hmong American Center.

Snyder has served in the Legislature since 2017. Prior to serving in the Assembly, he was a morning radio host for WSAU, and he served as outreach director for U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy. Snyder was drawn into the 87th Assembly District under new voting maps approved by lawmakers in February, moving him out of the 85th by a couple of blocks. If he wins, he said he and his wife plan to continue renting an apartment in the district.

The district is among the most closely divided in the state, according to a Wisconsin Watch analysis of recent voting patterns, and could be influential in determining which party controls the Assembly at the start of the next legislative session in January. Xiong has knocked on 7,000 doors in an area where Democrats are hoping not only to win an Assembly seat, but help Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin improve their margins in rural areas.

Here’s where both candidates stand on important issues in the district.

Education funding

In an interview with Wisconsin Watch, Xiong said the state needs to provide additional funding to public schools in the state.

“When we invest in our teachers, when we invest in public education, we’re investing in the future of our nation,” he said.

In particular, he said the state should fund programs that help recruit and retain teachers and provide additional dollars for students with special needs. 

He also said lawmakers “need to look at the funding formula (for public schools). We need to look at it, reevaluate and see if it’s actually still effective.” Xiong noted with concern that almost half of all Wisconsin school districts will have gone to referendum by the end of the year to pay for capital projects and operating expenses. 

“That means that something’s not working,” he said.

In the short term, Xiong said, the state could tap into its sizable budget surplus to provide some immediate aid, but he added that’s not a sustainable solution. Instead, the state needs to reconsider the funding formula as a whole and determine if additional revenue streams need to be considered in order to bring long-term financial relief to public schools.

During the most recent legislative session, Snyder supported a bill that increased funding for public K-12 schools by $1 billion. The funding was tied to $280 million in new funding for private voucher schools. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers signed it.

Snyder did not respond to multiple interview requests for this story.

Child care affordability

The state should be doing more to address the shortage of child care providers in Wisconsin, and it should also be working to bring down the cost of child care, Xiong said.

In the immediate term, he said the state should be investing in Child Care Counts, a program created by Evers using federal COVID-19 funds to provide payments to child care providers on a regular basis to help keep their doors open. The program is credited with keeping thousands of child care facilities open during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

In October 2023, Evers extended the program through June 2025 using $170 million in federal funds. He has previously sought to include $340 million in the state budget to support the program, but that plan was scrapped by Republican lawmakers.

“Right now, the cost for child care is more expensive than tuition at (UW-Madison),” Xiong noted, a nod to a September 2023 Forward Analytics report that found that the average annual cost of infant child care in 2021 was $13,572. For the 2024-25 academic year, tuition at UW-Madison for a Wisconsin resident is $11,606.

He pointed to recent action from the Marathon County Board, which approved $200,000 to train 30 child care providers and open 240 additional child care slots in the county, as an example of a program the state should consider.

Snyder supported a slate of Republican-authored child care bills during the most recent legislative session. During the floor session, Democrats attached extending Child Care Counts as amendments to one of the bills. Snyder voted against the extension.

The GOP-backed package included bills that would have allowed parents to contribute $10,000 in pre-tax money to an account to pay for child care, created a $15 million loan program to help child care centers pay for renovations, established a new category of child care centers that could serve between four and 12 children, and increased the child-to-child-care-worker ratio allowed in some child care centers. None of the proposals became law.

Tax cuts

Lawmakers need to reduce taxes for middle class Wisconsin residents, Xiong said in an interview, criticizing Republicans for supporting a tax cut in the state’s most recent budget that would have largely benefited the state’s highest earners.

“We need to look into ensuring that what we’re doing is we’re supporting the middle class,” he said, noting that people should not have to worry “whether they can afford groceries this weekend, or whether they can afford the utilities.”

Snyder has supported significant tax cuts during his time in office. During the 2021-23 legislative session, he backed reducing the state’s third-highest tax bracket from 6.27% to 5.3% — a $2 billion cut. That rate covers income between $27,630 and $304,170 for single filers and between $36,840 and $405,550 for joint filers.

Snyder co-sponsored another plan that would have raised the annual amount of tax-exempt withdrawals from a retirement account from $5,000 to $75,000 for single Wisconsin residents age 65 and older and up to $150,000 for joint filers. It was vetoed by Evers, who said it would reduce revenue by $658 million in 2024-25 and $472 million in each subsequent fiscal year.

During the most recent budget cycle, Snyder backed a $3.5 billion income tax cut that would have focused its largest reductions on the state’s highest earners. The plan would have cut the top tax rate from 7.65% to 6.5% — a 15% reduction for high-earning joint filers who make $405,550 or more annually. It would have reduced the second-highest rate from 5.3% to 4.4%, a 17% decrease.

Evers vetoed those cuts from the budget but left in place reductions to the state’s bottom two brackets.

This article first appeared on Wisconsin Watch and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.