Last Monday, on January 4th, the Wisconsin State Legislature began the 2021-22 legislative session. New members were sworn in and all elected officials looked ahead to the new session.

Inauguration Day is an important reminder that the Legislature includes elected representatives from many walks of life. Our job is to listen to professionals and ensure they have what they need to do their jobs the best they can.

The number of times I’ve heard people say, “We need to help young people engage in our community,” or “We need more young people in politics” is so common I won’t even venture to guess. It’s almost inevitable someone will say something like that at every meeting I attend.

November 6, 2018 marked an historic election in the United States due to the unprecedented numbers of women elected to state and national offices. Iowa, Maine and South Dakota elected their first women governors, Arizona, Mississippi and Tennessee elected their first women senators, and 37 new women were elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. These historic results, however, were not equally distributed between the two major political parties.