Author: Jonathan Brostoff

State Representative Jonathan Brostoff welcomed the Mexican Consulate to the 19th Assembly District on August 30, and emphasized the importance of access to the services the Consulate provides. The Mexican Consulate in Milwaukee will provide a much-needed service to our community offering legal advice, passports, consular IDs, and voter registration cards. They hope in the future to also provide community outreach, health care advice, education resources, financial programing, and more. The Consulate can serve up to 150 people each day and will also run a monthly mobile service to other selected cities in Wisconsin. “The increasing diversity in Milwaukee,...

April 12 was Equal Pay Day, a day to reflect on the appalling fact that in Wisconsin women earn 79 cents for each dollar men earn when working the same job. Equal Pay Day, always a Tuesday in April, symbolizes at what point in the year a woman’s earnings equal that of her male counterpart’s annual wage of the previous year. The pay gap between women and men has been shown to be a constant issue regardless of the educational level of the workers. Since the initiation of the Fair Pay Act of 1963, there has been a continual...

Two years ago, Act 203 was passed and drastically changed Milwaukee’s mental health system, in an effort to resolve the existing system’s mounting problems. Act 203 created The Milwaukee County Mental Health Board, made up of 13 mental health professionals and advocates. This board creates policies for the Behavioral Health Division, responsible for care and treatment of people with mental illness. Now, two years later, I thought it was time to get first-hand information about the real effects of the new law. The hearing provided our community with a window into a county mental health system — now often...

Assembly Bill 885 (AB) 885 mandates a government takeover of Milwaukee County’s debt collection and Representatives Brostoff, Bowen, Kessler, and Sinicki are taking a stand against this legislation that attacks Milwaukee taxpayers Representatives Jonathan Brostoff (D-Milwaukee), David Bowen (D-Milwaukee), Fred Kessler (D-Milwaukee), and Christine Sinicki (D-Milwaukee) stood together on February 16 to oppose Assembly Bill 885 (AB) 885, which mandates a government takeover of Milwaukee County’s debt collection efforts. AB 885 would require a state takeover of delinquent debts, such as from unpaid property taxes, and send them to the Wisconsin Department of Revenue for collections. This legislation would place...

Representatives Stuck and Brostoff introduced LRB 4602/1 along with Senator Chris Larson in order to keep Wisconsin’s drinking water under local control. The legislation would prevent the privatization of Wisconsin’s water utilities. On January 29, Rep. Stuck (D – Appleton) and Rep. Brostoff (D-Milwaukee) introduced legislation which would prohibit the privatization of Wisconsin’s water and sewer utilities. “In light of the recent Republican attempt through AB 554 to allow out-of-state for-profit companies to take over Wisconsin communities’ sewer and water utilities, putting profit ahead of access to clean, affordable water, we are introducing legislation which will prevent any private...