10/15/2008 by Richard Thomas

Shirl LaBarre finds campaigning to be so much work she sometimes wonders: if it’s hard now, what would it be like if she won?

“I tell myself, ‘Be careful what your wish for, Shirl,’” she said.

The Republican candidate for Wisconsin Assembly District 74 has an uphill battle to the Nov. 4 election, running against longtime Democrat incumbent Gary Sherman.

In 2006 she received 37.7 percent (8,221 votes), impressive for her first attempt. “I just need another 14 percent,” she said.

Sherman had a tougher fight in 2004 against Republican Barb Linton, who garnered 46.2 percent.

“You always have to take the election seriously,” Sherman said. But the secret of success is, “I’ve never had an opponent who works as hard as I do.”

Sherman, age 59, campaigns the old fashioned way, knocking on around 2,000 doors every election. He also appears at so many events, during and between elections, that his critics have made fun of him. But conversing with citizens provides him with ideas he takes to the Legislature, he said.

LaBarre, age 47, said she knocked on more than 4,000 doors during the first campaign. But given the large area the district covers (Ashland, Bayfield, Iron and Sawyer counties, 6,605 square miles), she decided door knocking wasn’t getting enough results for the effort. This time around she focuses more on appearing at public events.

Neither candidate has made much of a splash in the local media, preferring to connect with people face-to-face. Both have Web sites but seem to have invested minimal effort.

LaBarre’s Web site (www.gofarwithlabarre.us) may politely be described as amateurish, with misspelled words throughout her blog and an issues page touting two issues, guns and God. But at least it has more information than Sherman’s (www.sherman4assembly. com) which contains only a short biography, a list of endorsements, and sign-up for volunteers and contributions.

Besides 10 years as a legislator, Sherman has practiced as an attorney since 1973 and authored three volumes of law manuals. He served as president of the State Bar of Wisconsin and chief of the volunteer Port Wing Fire Department.

LaBarre’s government experience amounts to serving in the Navy and two terms on the Hayward Community School Board. But she touts herself as an ordinary person in touch with the citizenry.

She and her husband own Mr. Ed’s Plumbing in Hayward, but the economy has declined so fast that they have gone from six employees two years ago to none today. “There’s no building going on,” she said.

She said politicians in Madison don’t understand the needs of the largely rural district. “We’re like a different state up here,” she said.

LaBarre said she was “timid” in the 2006 race. This time she’s attacking Sherman’s extensive voting record. In letters to the media and on her Web site she lists Sherman’s votes that have “made me down right angry…I only hope it will light a fire under many if not all of you!”

The list, researched by Northwoods Republicans of Ashland and Bayfield counties, includes Sherman’s votes against bills to give school boards the power to fire convicted felons and to give citizens the right to use force against intruders. It brings up other wedge issues such as Sherman’s vote for charging in-state college tuition rates for illegal aliens; and his votes against making English the official language of Wisconsin, and requiring photo IDs to vote.

On the business side, the list cites Sherman’s votes against tax credits for worker training skills, against nuclear power, against a three-year property tax freeze, and against a statutory firewall to prevent the governor from raiding the state transportation fund.

“I’m not in this to slam anyone,” LaBarre said. “I feel people should have a choice in government.”

Sherman denounces the list as a “real big distortion,” noting, “She’s listing votes I’m really proud of.”

He said numerous items on the list were “gotcha votes,” tacked onto the budget bill as “publicity stunts, not real legislation.”

The Wisconsin Fair Employment Act bans job discrimination based on a criminal record, unless the crime is substantially related to the type of work. Much of the rationale for legislative change stems from the 2001 case of Mark Moore, who was fired from his janitorial job in Milwaukee Public Schools when it came to light that he had been convicted, years before, for throwing a pan of hot grease at his girlfriend and severely burning her young daughter instead. The courts decided in Moore’s favor, saying the crime was a domestic dispute unlikely to replay in a school setting.

“You don’t change the law because of one case,” Sherman said. “That’s playing to the headlines.”

Bills to give schools wider discretion in hiring felons have been introduced numerous times. Sherman did vote yes on one— Assembly Bill 30, May 16, 2007— but he doesn’t remember it. “There were 1,500 bills last year. If I voted for it, it must have been in a form more acceptable.”

A National Rifle Association member (despite the fact that the NRA targeted him for defeat in the 2004 election), Sherman believes the right to self-defense already is well protected by law, though deadly force against an unarmed intruder is less iron clad.

As far as the other votes for which LaBarre takes him to task, Sherman said he will oppose legislation if it’s poorly written or does not constitute an efficient use of public funds. A bill might “sound good when you use sound bytes, but I voted on what the bill is, not what it says it is. I don’t vote for bumper stickers, I vote for the bill. It has to be well-crafted.”

Both candidates talk extensively on the issue of healthcare, though neither has a clear plan on what to do about it. Neither was enthused about the comprehensive healthcare reform bill (also known as Healthy Wisconsin) introduced last year. It died in the Senate and never made it to the Assembly, but proponents plan to re-introduce it in 2009.

Both candidates believe the reform measure would be too expensive. It would levy a 14 percent payroll tax on employers— which might not be a crushing burden on businesses that already insure their employees, but would be for small businesses that do not, Sherman said.

Sherman said healthcare reform “doesn’t have one answer, it has a lot of different answers.” But since 98 percent of Wisconsin residents have coverage now, he said it’s best to wait and see what the federal government will do in the next two years.

LaBarre said her family’s health insurance premiums increase an average 22 percent a year, to a current bill of $1,300 per month. She said insurance agents have told her a large part of the cost is government-required paperwork.

She said she can’t come up with a plan to address healthcare costs until she’s in office and looking at all the options. “People think candidates know everything,” she said. “I stand on merit and integrity.

I know there’s a way to do it.”

Both candidates claim to champion the environment and alternative energy. “People think if you have an ‘R’ behind your name you don’t care about the environment,” LaBarre said.

Sherman said Wisconsin has the opportunity to be a world leader in developing biofuels. He supported projects such as the Flambeau Rivers Paper biomass plant and the use of waste wood by Xcel’s Bayfront Power Plant in Ashland.

Sherman and LaBarre are scheduled to debate Thurs., Oct. 23, 6:30 p.m. at the Northern Great Lakes Visitors Center in Ashland, sponsored by the Ashland/Bayfield League of Women Voters, and on KUWS radio 91.3 FM, Tues., Oct. 28, at 6 p.m.

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