Here's where Senate District 8 candidates Stroebel and Habush Sinykin stand on the issues

In one of the most competitive races in the state under new legislative maps, Republican incumbent Duey Stroebel will face Democrat Jodi Habush Sinykin for Wisconsin's Senate District 8 seat.

The two candidates' platforms agree on lowering costs with targeted tax cuts but diverge on several other key issues to voters, such as reproductive health care freedoms and funding levels for schools, local governments and environmental issues.

Stroebel has represented the 20th Senate District since 2015, but is running in District 8 due to the redrawn districts.

Habush Sinykin, an attorney, ran for the 8th District seat in the 2023 special election, narrowly losing to Republican incumbent Dan Knodl. (Knodl is currently running for the 24th District Assembly seat).

With all of their disagreements on the issues, both candidates also agree that Wisconsin's future hinges on this election, maybe even this race.

Already, records show that the candidates, along with two outside groups, are projected to spend a combined total of $3 million on the race by election day.

Here’s where Stroebel and Habush Sinykin stand on the issues:

Both candidates support tax relief but disagree on root causes of rising costs

While campaigning throughout the district, both candidates say they've heard resounding concerns from voters on the rising cost of living.

To address those concerns, both candidates separately said they're committed to providing targeted tax relief for seniors and for middle class families, leveraging the state's estimated $3.1 billion surplus this year.

Stroebel blamed the federal deficit and federal policies for rising costs. In contrast, he said the last decade of Republican-dominated policymaking in Madison has brought "smart, fiscally responsible decisions."

Habush Sinykin sees things differently.

Her pitch to voters is that a decade under Stroebel and state Republicans' leadership has resulted in Wisconsin's shrinking workforce, uncertainty about reproductive health care freedoms, and the rising costs for Wisconsinites.

Particularly, she blames state Republicans, including Stroebel, who have approved the lowest percentage of funding for universities since they have had majorities in the state legislature, which, to Sinykin, is why Wisconsin ranks 43rd among states in funding of public, four-year universities and why six out of 13 branch campuses will be closed at the end of the school year due to declining enrollment.

More: What to know about the District 8 Senate race and candidates Jodi Habush Sinykin, Duey Stroebel

Candidates clash over investments in local municipalities, schools

One of Habush Sinykin's strategies for addressing rising costs centers around better leveraging the state budget to invest in education, health care, Wisconsin's workforce and law enforcement to take pressure off local municipalities and school districts that have resorted to record numbers of referendums and tax increases to remain operational in recent years.

Stroebel said the state legislature has made major investments in education in recent years, even as student populations have decreased. Instead, he blamed school districts for mishandling the funds they do have, overspending on administrative costs while underspending on teachers.

"It's not always money that solves problems in education. It's important, but sometimes the focus gets to be just a little bit too much on that."

Stroebel said most municipalities have also seen increased funding recently through the bipartisan 2023 Shared Revenue Act that restructured how the state disburses money back to municipalities and counties, which Stroebel supported.

"I'm sure that many communities would always like more, but it (the Shared Revenue Act) was a substantial increase, more than they've seen in years," Stroebel said.

But Habush Sinykin said her conversations with local officials and school districts do not tell the story of success that Stroebel paints, evidenced by the continued tax increases and referendums.

"There's still not enough revenue available at the local level where it is needed, which creates shortfalls for police, paramedics, fire and schools," she said.

"If we can get that money to our communities, they won't need to keep raising taxes and moving to referendums, which puts more money back in folks' pockets to deal with inflation and rising costs."

Stroebel and Habush Sinykin spar on reproductive freedoms and claims about IVF, contraception

In addition to rising costs, Habush Sinykin said she also hears voters consistently express concerns about access to women's reproductive and health care freedoms, an issue heavily featured in her platform, according to her campaign website.

Marquette Law School polls suggest between 60% and 70% of Wisconsin residents believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

She said concerns about reproductive freedoms aren't "just a concern of women but of men, too ― husbands, fathers and siblings who have watched the women in their lives go through miscarriages and problem pregnancies."

If elected, Habush Sinykin said she hopes to codify protections for reproductive health care freedoms into state law.

"The lack of certainty in Wisconsin's law as it exists now is putting families, physicians and healthcare providers in jeopardy," she said.

Meanwhile, Stroebel maintains that he is pro-life but said he supported a statewide referendum on abortion access in the last legislative session.

"I'm not the king. I'm a policymaker, and I need to recognize where my constituents are, what they're thinking and what they would like to have happen. It's not just what Duey says goes."

However, Sinykin said Stroebel has had plenty of opportunities to support a referendum on abortion ― or even IVF protections ― during Evers' special sessions on abortion, though she also feels that reproductive freedoms are too personal, private and fundamental to be left up to a public vote.

On Oct. 8, Stroebel filed a cease and desist order against Habush Sinykin over her campaign's advertisements, which claim he has voted against access to in vitro fertilization and contraception.

Habush Sinykin and her campaign point to Stroebel's co-authoring of a proposed constitutional amendment in 2019 and his support for Wisconsin's 1849 law banning abortion, which all 22 Republican members of the state Senate, including Stroebel, voted against repealing.

Both the proposed amendment and the 1849 law contained language that defined conception as the start of life, which Habush Sinykin argues is not compatible with IVF and contraception and is how Alabama found itself with a state-wide freeze on IVF procedures earlier this year.

Stroebel is also endorsed by Wisconsin Right to Life, which also believes life starts at "fertilization" and largely avoids mention of contraception and IVF, according to the organization's website.

Stroebel vehemently disagrees that either piece of legislation would threaten contraception and IVF, clarifying that the 2019 amendment died in a committee he served on.

“I have never voted to restrict access to IVF, and I never will. Any assertion otherwise is a lie," Stroebel said in a letter accompanying the cease and desist order.

Asked about the cease and desist order, Habush Sinykin's campaign manager, Robby Abrahamian, said they stand by the ad.

"I can’t speak to what Senator Stroebel says he believes today, but his record is at odds with IVF,' Abrahamian said.

Both sides have hired law firms over the matter, the campaigns said.

Habush Sinykin calls out Stroebel for obstructing millions for education and addressing PFAS

Habush Sinykin has publicly criticized Stroebel and the Joint Finance Committee, of which Stroebel is vice chair, for obstructing millions of already-approved investments by the state legislature over disagreements on implementation.

In particular, she's criticized Stroebel and the JFC for refusing to release almost $50 million approved by both chambers in 2023 to implement new literacy curricula in Wisconsin schools, $125 million to address Wisconsin's PFAS, or "forever chemicals," problem also approved by both chambers in 2023.

The $50 million for schools is frozen with the committee in retaliation against Evers' decision to veto other parts of the bill pertaining to the process for distributing the money, which the Dane County Circuit Court ruled was lawful after Republicans mounted legal challenges.

Meanwhile, that money remains frozen well into the school year during which the new literacy curricula is supposed to be implemented.

For over a year, the PFAS money has remained in limbo due to a stalemate between Democrats and Republicans over who should be held responsible for contaminated sites has held the funding up.

Stroebel and other State Republicans have sought to prevent the Department of Natural Resources from holding landowners of contaminated sites responsible through a bill which Evers vetoed in July, saying the bill would place the cost burden on taxpayers.

Habush Sinykin, Evers and other state Democrats want the money released to the DNR without legislation shielding landowners.

Stroebel blames Evers' vetoes for his committee's refusal to release the funds. Habush Sinykin blames Stroebel and the rest of the Joint Finance Committee.

Funding for Cedar Gorge Clay Bluffs Nature Area in 2022 highlights split over environment, conservation

Habush Sinykin also pointed out Stroebel's lack of support for the Ozaukee Washington Land Trust's attempt to preserve the area now known as the Cedar Gorge Clay Bluffs Nature Area after the funding was frozen in the Joint Finance Committee, which almost killed the project.

In a 2022 interview with the Ozaukee Press, Stroebel had supported a private buyer's desire to purchase the land even as he continued to receive money (around $3,000 since 2021) from Federal Conservation Reserve Program funds intended for farmers, which Stroebel failed to report, according to reporting from the Heartland Signal. Evers eventually circumvented the Joint Finance Committee with American Rescue Plan Act funds.

"Senator Stroebel is trying to reinvent himself suddenly, from this far right obstructionist legislator in Madison to this middle of the road bipartisan champion. His actual voting history does not reflect that," she said. "People are looking for legislators who can work together and across the aisle to move Wisconsin forward."

In response to Habush Sinykin's accusations of partisan obstructionism, Stroebel said, "there's a lot of grandstanding that goes on in the legislature, but we do get a lot of good things done working together."

Contact Claudia Levens at [email protected]. Follow her on X at @levensc13

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Where do the 8th District Senate candidates stand on the issues?