Lena Taylor

Lena Taylor was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She graduated from Milwaukee's Rufus King High School in 1984 and went on to attend the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, where she earned her bachelor's degree in English in 1990. As an undergraduate, she became a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. She continued her education after graduation, earning her J.D. from Southern Illinois University School of Law in 1993.^[1]

After graduating from law school, Taylor went to work as a public defender for more than two years, representing indigent citizens in need of legal services. In 1996, she opened Taylor and Associates Law Office, a general practice firm on the north side of Milwaukee.

Taylor made her first run for public office in the Spring of 2003, in a special election for Wisconsin State Assembly necessitated by the resignation of state representative Antonio R. Riley. In the Democratic primary, she faced Ted Kraig, then co-chair of the health care task force for Citizen Action.^[3] Taylor prevailed in the primary with 68% of the vote, and faced no other opposition for the special general election in the heavily Democratic district.^[4][5]

About a year after Taylor joined the Assembly, her district's state senator, Gwen Moore, announced a run for United States House of Representatives, creating an open seat in the 4th state Senate district for the fall 2004 election.^[6] Taylor declared for the state senate, and faced a competitive primary against six-term incumbent state representative Johnnie E. Morris-Tatum from the neighboring 11th Assembly district.^[7] She prevailed with 47% of the vote; Morris-Tatum received 36%, and a third candidate received 17%.^[8] She faced no opponent in the general election.^[9] When Democrats won the Senate majority in 2006, Taylor was named chair of the Senate committee on judiciary and corrections, and was also appointed to a seat on the powerful budget-writing Joint Finance Committee.^[1]

In the fall of 2007, Taylor announced she would run for Milwaukee County executive, challenging Republican incumbent Scott Walker in the Spring 2008 election.^[10] Walker was already widely perceived as a likely candidate for governor in 2010, and Wisconsin Democrats saw the campaign as a chance to derail him, while Republican donors—both in the state and around the country—funneled money into his campaign.^[11] Taylor was badly outspent in the election, with Walker raising more than $500,000 for the campaign.^[12] Walker prevailed, taking 58% of the vote and went on to win the 2010 gubernatorial election two years later.^[13]

She was re-elected without opposition in 2008, and retained her committee positions as Democrats continued in the majority.^[14] As chair of the judiciary and corrections committee, she expanded the committee's work on criminal justice reforms and implemented the "State of Justice" tour, bringing committee hearings to several different locations around the state of Wisconsin.^[15]

After the 2010 election, Republicans gained full control of state government, winning both chambers of the Legislature and the governor's office. Shortly into the start of the 2011 legislative term, Walker proposed his controversial "Budget Repair Bill", which would eliminate collective bargaining rights for Wisconsin's public-sector unions. This resulted in mass protests at the Wisconsin State Capitol, which continued for months. Responding to public pressure and unable to slow down the legislative consideration of the bill, Taylor fled the state with 13 other Democratic state senators in order to deny a quorum. The situation received national attention, and Taylor was a frequent guest on progressive political talk shows, appearing several times on The Ed Show.^[16] During the course of debate, Taylor made statements comparing Walker's proposed legislation to Adolf Hitler's plan to eliminate unions.^[17] On her Twitter account she wrote "LIKE HITLER in 1933, WALKER is busting unions."^[18][19]

Ultimately, Republicans in the Senate stripped out budget-related items from the bill in order to bypass the quorum requirement. After the bill became law, Democrats attempted to capitalize on the outrage caused by the passage of the anti-union legislation and shifted to a recall campaign over the next year. Republicans countered by attempting to recall several Democrats who had fled the state, but Taylor was not targeted due to her strongly Democratic district.^[20][21] Recall elections were ultimately held for 13 state senators and the governor, 3 Republican state senators were successfully removed from office, and Democrats were briefly restored to the majority in the state senate. During that time in the majority, Taylor served as co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee.^[22]

Prior to losing their majority, however, Republicans passed pivotal redistricting legislation, which implemented one of the most successful gerrymanders in U.S. history. The 2012 election was the first on this new map, and quickly restored Republicans to majorities. Taylor's district remained overwhelmingly Democratic, and she faced only an independent opponent in 2012, winning her third term with 86% of the vote.^[23]

Taylor would go on to win two more terms in her Senate district. The only opposition she encountered in those elections was a primary challenge in 2016 from state representative Mandela Barnes, but she managed to prevail with 60% of the vote.^[24][25][26]

In the fall of 2019, Taylor launched a campaign for mayor of Milwaukee, challenging four-term incumbent Democratic mayor Tom Barrett in the 2020 Milwaukee mayoral election.^[27] She survived the February non-partisan primary, which narrowed the field to the top two vote-getters,^[28] but was defeated by Barrett in the general election, receiving 36% of the vote.^[29][30][31]

After incumbent Democratic Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin Mandela Barnes announced he would not run for re-election, Taylor briefly entered the race to succeed him, announcing her candidacy in October 2021.^[32][33] She ended her campaign just two months later, on December 25, 2021, choosing instead to focus on the upcoming Milwaukee mayoral election.^[34]

After Joe Biden was elected president in 2020, Tom Barrett received an ambassadorial appointment and vacated the mayor's office after his Senate confirmation, necessitating a special election in 2022. Taylor ran again, but this time fell to third place in the non-partisan primary, behind acting mayor Cavalier Johnson and long-time city councilmember Bob Donovan, and therefore did not advance to the April general election.^[35][36]

In the 2023 Spring election, Taylor sought election to a municipal judge seat in Milwaukee.^[37] She was defeated in the April 4 general election by Molly Gena, the managing attorney of a pro bono legal services provider.^[38][39]

In April 2018, Taylor used the term "house nigger" during a dispute with a bank teller. When the teller refused to cash a check for insufficient funds, Taylor called the teller a "house nigger". Both Taylor and the teller are African Americans.^[40]

On January 26, 2024, Governor Tony Evers announced he was appointing Taylor to fill the Wisconsin circuit court judgeship in Milwaukee County left vacant by the resignation of judge Audrey Skwierawski. Taylor would resign from the Senate later that day, and was sworn in as judge on January 30.^[2]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lena Taylor.

• Profile at the Wisconsin Senate
• State Senate website (Archived Dec. 24, 2023)
• Campaign website
• Senator Lena C. Taylor (2023–2024) at Wisconsin Legislature
• Senator Lena C. Taylor (2021–2022) at Wisconsin Legislature
• Profile at Vote Smart
• Wisconsin's 4th Senate district map at Wisconsin Legislature
• Campaign 2008 campaign contributions at Wisconsin Democracy Campaign