Citizen Action Weekend ’26 Newsletter, Friday, August 21st
Work for Citizen Action of Wisconsin
Citizen Action North Side Rising members co-host $20 Minimum Wage Town Hall
Thanks to everyone who came out to the Milwaukee $20 Minimum Wage Town Hall on Wednesday evening at Kuumba Coffee and Juice. Over 50 people attended, including over 20 members and leaders from Citizen Action North Side Rising
Attend an upcoming $20 Wage Town Hall near you (see image with upcoming dates in Racine, Sheboygan, and St. Francis)
To join our Milwaukee area $20 Wage Action Team, contact: Maletha.Jones@citizenactionwi.org
Learn more about the legislation and take action, urging your state legislators to support the bill.
Attend an upcoming $20 Minimum Wage Town Hall near you.
Join the Wisconsin Living Wage Coalition, Citizen Action of Wisconsin, and other allies for an upcoming $20 Minimum Wage Town Hall near you.
Hear from local residents about their daily struggle to make ends meet at less than $20/hour. Learn more about the current state legislation and find out how you can get involved and help make $20 a reality in 2027!
See image below with clickable RSVP links for other events.
Statewide Healthcare Action Update: Building Healthcare Power Through Mass Listening
Our recent Mass Listening event in Hayward was a great success! We welcomed several new volunteers who are excited to join our healthcare work, collect stories, and help build the people-powered movement for affordable healthcare in Wisconsin. Several community members stopped by to share their stories.
The event was led by two of our outstanding healthcare leaders, Jodi and Mike Melius. Jodi has been driving the Mass Listening work in Hayward, helping bring people together and create opportunities for community members to share their experiences with healthcare. Mike has been leading our research team, tracking legislative support for the BadgerCare Public Option and helping our teams understand where we have support—and where we need to build more power.
We’re especially excited to see new volunteers stepping up to collect stories and engage their communities. These personal experiences are essential to showing legislators what rising healthcare costs are really doing to Wisconsin families.
Connecting the BadgerCare Public Option to Rural Wisconsin
Healthcare Action Coordinator Kristie Tweed also recently presented to the Marquette County Democrats, who wanted to learn more about how the BadgerCare Public Option could help rural Wisconsinites—including farmers and other self-employed workers who often struggle to find affordable, comprehensive coverage.
The conversation focused on the growing burden of healthcare costs following the passage of HR1 and the loss of enhanced ACA premium tax credits. For many rural families, healthcare costs have increased dramatically, making the need for an affordable public option more urgent than ever.
Healthcare leader Joni Anderson joined Kristie to provide additional insight and answer questions. These conversations are an important part of building broader understanding and support for the BadgerCare Public Option—and connecting our statewide healthcare work to the real challenges facing rural communities.
Upcoming Meetings: All Work Groups (Research, Outreach, Story Collection & Coalition Building) will meet Sept. 1st at 6PM on zoom followed by the full statewide Healthcare Team Meeting at 7PM.
You can take action today:
- Email your state legislators and urge them to co-sponsor the BadgerCare Public Option bill
- Attend your local Co-Op Healthcare team meeting
- Ask your local Co-Op organizer or Kristie Tweed, Healthcare Action Coordinator for petitions you can take to events
- Use this simple form to share your healthcare story – stories about rising cost of your healthcare, medical debt, importance of medicaid in your life all help us in our work. We won’t share your story without reaching out to you first!
For more information or to get involved, contact: Kristie Tweed, Healthcare Action Coordinator; 📞 608-317-1331; ✉️ kristie.tweed@citizenactionwi.org
Together, we can build a healthcare system that truly works for Wisconsin families and small businesses.
Citizen Action Driftless Region Update – Come Find Your People – Summer Social, August 31st
The primary is behind us, and whatever the outcome, we all made a commitment to each other that we would show up for the general election no matter what. That’s what movements do. They don’t fold when things don’t go their way. They regroup, they refocus, and they get back to work. One foot in front of the other.
Come join us at Big Al’s Pizza on Monday, August 31st from 6-8 PM for a Driftless region summer social. This is a chance to reset, reconnect with the people who have been doing the work alongside you, and refocus on what matters most heading into the general election.
We’ll share a brief update on our affordability listening campaign and talk about what comes next, gearing up for our GOTV work in the fall, keeping the pressure on legislators around the Data Center Pause Bill, and pushing hard for the BadgerCare Public Option in the 2027 session.
The relationships in this room are what make everything else possible. Come remind yourself why this work matters and who you’re doing it with.
Monday, August 31st | 6-8 PM; Big Al’s Pizza | La Crosse
The Driftless is organizing. See you there.
Citizen Action Northeast Region Update
This week we are highlighting two members in Northeast Wisconsin who took the big progressive swing here in the northeast area and created an opportunity for unity among those progressive people!
Andy Thompson and Kate Hancock-Cooke brought progressives from their personal networks in Winnebago county together to talk about what we have in common as progressives and decide what Winnebago county progressives would like to push for in the county and at the state level. Many of Citizen Action priorities made the list or were introduced to people for the first time.
Out of the 34 people present, new folks expressed interest in helping to lobby our legislators to ensure Badgercare Public Option gets the support it deserves next session! Winnebago, Outagamie, and Brown counties all went to Fran in the primary and we can all agree that progressive policies are what our area wants! Healthcare, Climate and Data Centers, and school funding were all top of mind in the group.
Andy and Kate both did amazing work getting people together and organizing this county’s progressive people– a small group of us even stayed outside the office for nearly 2 hours after the meeting ended chatting about how we can push forward together.
Last weekend, Members of the Northeast Co-op gathered for “Dump Big Tech Week” to take a stand against data centers. Rep Amaad-Rivera Wagner joined us to support the 2% rate cap and fight for climate protections. Our Members talked about how powerful it was to hear the sound of a data center at volume. They said it sounded maddening almost like the sound of a horror movie–powerful stuff. We think it’s time that Wisconsin Dumps Big Tech and focuses on people and the planet over profit.
Upcoming events to put on your calendar:
- September 9th: Next Team Meeting for North East Wisconsin 5-8PM
- September 14th and 21st: Learn how to be a better organizer, how to build power and organize your community with the Fundamentals of Organizing Training. Currently we are planning on having satellite meetings across the valley.5-8PM
- October 21: Living Wage Town Hall: Appleton Beer Factory 6:00PM
Citizen Action Northwest Region Update
Citizen Action Northwest Co-op members and advocates met with State Representative Christian Phelps (Democrat from the 93rd Assembly) on August 17 in Eau Claire to discuss state legislative priorities on topics such as childcare, healthcare, data centers, and public education.
Citizen Action in the News
The day after the surprising outcome of the Wisconsin Democratic primary for Governor, Citizen Action’s Robert Kraig was on the Earl Ingram Show for a deep dive on what happened and where we go from here. Watch and Listen here.
Citizen Action’s Robert Kraig was on the Jeff Santos Show to further reflect on the wild Wisconsin primary and the Data Center dilemma for Democratic Gubernatorial standardbearer David Crowley.
Watch and listen here (at 1 hour 35 minute mark of video).
Jeff Santos is a nationally syndicated progressive talk show which airs in Wisconsin on the Civic Media radio network weekdays 2 to 5 PM. Robert’s regular interview shot on the show is 3:30 on Wednesdays.
Listen to “Embracing commutations” Battleground Wisconsin Podcast
We debrief Wednesday evening’s $20 Minimum Wage Town Hall in Milwaukee where over 50 community members and leaders learned more about the legislation, and why it is needed in this moment in history and what it would mean to people who attended the town hall.
The latest Tick report presents new research from a 35-year monitoring study clarifying the ecological forces behind Lyme disease risk, including the surprising finding that mice matter more than deer in the spread.
We unpack AI Data Center’s taking center stage in the governor race post primary. We look closely at both candidate’s records and statements on data centers since the primary election and urge our listeners to engage both candidates on the issue and urge them to do better.
We welcome Mark Rice, WISDOM’s Transformational Justice Coordinator, to discuss the historic day Friday when for the first time in 25 years incarcerated Wisconsinities will get commutation hearings. We dive deeper into what more can be done in 2027 to reduce the state’s prison population and discuss new polling showing a majority of Wisconsinites favor a form of clemency for some individuals.
Listen to the show.
