Sunday, September 8, 2024
By Robert Cloud
State Rep. Kevin Petersen, who currently represents the 40th Assembly District, is facing challenger Duane Wilson in the Aug. 13 Republican primary race for the new 57th Assembly District.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court overturned the previous state legislative maps in December 2023.
In addition to Waupaca, the municipalities of Weyauwega, Fremont, Manawa and Ogdensburg also became part of AD-57.
The Waupaca County Post interviewed both candidates about the issues most important to them.
Currently serving as atate Assembly speaker pro tempore, Petersen was first elected to the Assembly in 2006.
Previously, Petersen was a member of the Dayton Town Board from 2001 to 2007.
A 1983 graduate of Waupaca High School, Petersen received a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of New Mexico in 1989.
He served in the U.S. Navy submarine service from 1983 to 1994. He remained with the U.S. Navy Reserve until 2008.
Although he recently moved to Waupaca from Arizona in August 2022, Wilson grew up in the Waupaca area.
Wilson’s father was from Wild Rose and his mother was from Waupaca.
He attended First Baptist Christian School (now known as Waupaca Christian Academy) until he was a freshman, He transferred to Western Christian High School in Arizona in 1981. He later studied theology at Southwestern Baptist Bible College.
Wilson spent nearly 40 years working in the title service and title insurance industry in Arizona.
Both candidates describe themselves as “pro-life” and oppose allowing abortions.
“I believe life begins at conception,” Wilson said.
When asked if the state should allow an abortion to save the life of a mother, Wilson said any “medical procedure” would have to try to save the lives of both.
When asked about abortion in cases of rape or incest, Wilson said, “I don’t believe because a crime has been committed against a woman that a crime has to be perpetrated against a baby.”
On his website, Wilson said, “Petersen voted for abortion, up to 14 weeks, and worked to pass it, AB975, despite opposition from all pro-life groups in Wisconsin.”
“It is unfortunate my opponent has chosen to misrepresent and confuse voters on this issue,” Petersen said. “But the reality is, I have a strong pro-life record during my time in the Assembly.”
Noting that an 1840 state law banning abortions went into effect after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Petersen said a subsequent court ringlet struck down Wisconsin’s 1849 law.
“That left in place the 20-week abortion limit passed and signed into law in 2015 during the Walker Administration,” Petersen said. “If not for this 2015 law that I passed along with my fellow Republicans in the Legislature, Legislature, there would currently be almost no restrictions on abortion in Wisconsin.”
In this session, Petersen noted that he helped pass a bill that “reduced the allowable weeks for abortion from 20 weeks down to 14.”
Both Republican candidates have made election integrity an issue in their campaign’s for Assembly.
“Free and fair elections are a cornerstone of our democracy,” Petersen said. “That’s why the Legislature investigated the issue and passed nearly two dozen election integrity reforms to ensure elections laws are followed correctly, making it harder to commit election fraud.”
Petersen pointed to Republican efforts to place a referendum question on the April 2024 ballot regarding a constitutional amendment to to prohibit any level of government from accepting non-governmental funds or equipment for elections. Wisconsin voters approved the amendment by 54% to 45%.
“I also passed a constitutional amendment banning illegal immigrants from voting in our elections,” Petersen said, adding that voters will see a referendum on this issue on the November ballot.
Wilson believes that Assembly should have voted to impeach Meagan Wolfe.
She is the administrator of the Wisconsin Elections Commission and has been accused of election fraud, by Donald Trump who maintains he won the presidential election in 2020.
“The RINO-led legislature, combined with the Democrats to stop AR18, the articles of impeachment filed against Meagan Wolfe, from having a vote on the floor of the Assembly,” Wilson said on his campaign website.
Wilson told the Waupaca County Post that Petersen “gaveled her out along with all the leaders.”
State Rep. Janel Brandtjen introduced the resolution to impeach Wolfe, on Nov. 2, 2023, and AR18 was referred to the Assembly Committee on Government Accountability and Oversight.
The resolution never made it out of committee due to lack of support.
According to a Jan. 18 article by the Associated Press, “Republican state Rep. Scott Allen accused fellow Republican state Rep. Kevin Petersen, who was presiding over the session when Brandtjen was ignored, of abusing his power by not recognizing Brandtjen.”
Petersen responded that Brandtjen failed to follow proper protocol for introducing a bill in the Assembly.
Wisconsin Public Radio quoted Peterwsen as saying, “A member working with groups posting for days on social media to attend an Assembly session so that that member can then harass other members in the chambers because they are ineffective passing their bills through the normal process is not decorum,” he said. “As long as I’m in the chair, this will not be tolerated.”
Among the reasons Wilson believes Wolfe should be impeached is that she failed to follow state law when she set up absentee ballot boxes in 2020, during the pandemic.
“Legislation should be passed to outlaw drop boxes for absentee ballots,” Wilson said.
“I agree with the 2022 Wisconsin Supreme Court decision ruling unsupervised ballot drop boxes outside clerk’s offices are illegal because they are not specifically authorized in Wisconsin law.” Petersen said.
He then noted that following the elocution of Justice Janet Protasiewicz in 2023, “the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s liberal majority reversed a near total ban on drop boxes allowing them to be used in the upcoming fall election.”
“The United States Congress in joint session via the constitution certified the electoral college vote of President Biden and Vice President Harris in the 2020 election the same as they certified the electoral college vote of President Trump and Vice President Pence in the 2016 election,” Petersen said. “Questions arise in many elections.”
While noting that Congress confirmed that Biden was elected president, Wilson replied, “Do I believe it was valid? I would say no.”
Wilson pointed to voter fraud in a 1962 Georgia state Senate race that Jimmy Carter won after a judge discovered a stuffed ballot box.
He also noted that in 1948 Lyndon Johnson defeated former Gov. Coke Stevenson in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate amid widespread and documented voter fraud.
In a paper published online by the libertarian Cato Institute, Stanford University researchers Justin Grimmer and Abhinav Ramaswamy write, “All of the claims we evaluate fail to provide evidence of fraud or illegal voting. Trump’s claims of fraud or illegality are riddled with errors, hampered by misunderstandings about how to analyze official voter records, and filled with confusion about basic statistical techniques and concepts.”
Courts rejected Trump’s claims of election fraud in 60 separate cases. Recounts and investigations in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada failed to uncover evidence substantial fraud.
William Barr, Trump’s own attorney general, said the Department of Justice had not uncovered evidence of enough fraud to have affected the election’s outcome.
