Wisconsin’s OSHKOSH (WBAY) – Some people are wondering what happened to the debates and candidate forums after the November election, especially at the municipal level, which was just over two weeks ago.
The League of Women Voters hosts many of these, but this year some candidates rebelled and declined to take part.
Republicans in particular are declining these opportunities to debate.
Many are accusing the League of Women Voters of taking a left-leaning, partisan tone over the past few years — an allegation the league flat-out denies.
The league claims that the absence of any candidate forums in Winnebago County this year was due to the refusal of two Republican Assembly candidates and a Republican state senate candidate to participate.
Republicans claim the league has taken positions that they disagree with, such as opposing voter ID and filing a lawsuit to stop the state’s voting rolls from being cleaned up.
The league “has mainly developed over the years into a front group for the Democrats, and their forums have reflected that fact,” Wisconsin GOP Executive Director Mark Jefferson said in a statement.
We spoke with a League of Women Voters spokeswoman about that issue.
“We’ve been around for over a hundred years, and we haven’t changed but the political parties have polarized to different extremes, so some people view and characterize our positions as leaning one way or the other,” Linda Bjella, co-president of the League of Women Voters Appleton/Fox Cities, said.
The two candidates for governor in the state could only agree on one debate.
The last time there was only one gubernatorial debate was in 1998; since then there have always been at least two. At 5, we’ll have more information on that on Action 2 News.
A record number of contenders avoid having a debate.
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