Counties should take over State Senate

Recently County Executive Bill McReynolds and other County Executives started a movement to halt the State Government’s raids on the Department of Transportation highway funds through referendum and a constitutional change.

This is a worthwhile effort. I think it is time to take that change a step further, though. The counties need their own representation in the legislature and the natural place for this is the Senate. Having the county boards elect the State Senators would bring about a broader, permanent change in State abuse of a perfectly workable County System.

As an individual I have two votes in the state legislature, one through my assembly representative, the other through my state senator representative. Those two votes do me no more good than one vote would do in the Assembly.

Through a Wisconsin Constitutional Amendment we should expand the State Senate from 33 members 72 members. We would then also change the constitution so that each of Wisconsin’s 72 counties would have one senator elected by its county board. For example, the State Senator for Racine County would be elected by the 23 County Board Supervisors (not the County electorate).

With this change, the Wisconsin Senate, instead of an echo of the Assembly, would become a powerful second voice to control budgets and activities at the state level.