Rep. Shelia Stubbs (D-Madison) said in a constituent newsletter on Wednesday afternoon that she plans to continue serving in the state Assembly, while taking on the position of director of Dane County Human Services, a role that oversees the county’s largest agency with a $240 million budget and around 800 employees. Dane County Executive Joe Parisi said later on Wednesday, however, that Stubbs will step down from her lawmaker role after she is confirmed in the new position.
Rep. Sheila Stubbs (Photo courtesy of Wisconsin Legislature)
“Just to set the record straight. Rep. Stubbs will submit her letter of resignation to the state Assembly as soon as her appointment as Human Services Director is approved. Period,” Parisi told Channel 3000 News.
Stubbs’ resignation from the state Assembly would leave an open seat in the Assembly and a special election would need to be scheduled by Gov. Tony Evers. The vacancy could put greater pressure on Democrats to ensure there are little to no absences in their caucus during floor sessions to ensure Republicans don’t briefly hold a veto-proof supermajority.
The conflicting announcements follow comments made by Stubbs at her church that worried members of the Dane County Board of Supervisors.
Board chair says she spreads misinformation
On April 14, Parisi announced Stubbs had been named to the position and said a resolution would be introduced the following week and confirmation would likely happen in May.
The weekend following the announcement Stubbs, as first reported by the Wisconsin State Journal, took to End Times Ministries International, a church she co-founded and serves as a pastor, to urge her congregation to email the Dane County Board supervisors and call on them to confirm Stubbs to the position immediately.
Stubbs is heard in a Facebook video, dated April 16, saying that getting her confirmation would be a “political fight,” and that the board said she needed to resign before she was confirmed. “They said I can’t do two jobs at one time,” Stubbs said in the video. “I can walk and eat and talk if I need to. It’s my choice if I want to [resign].”
Patrick Miles, the County Board chair, said the board did not ask her to resign before she was confirmed, and that he spoke with her about there being flexibility for when she would resign the Assembly position. He said it was concerning to hear she had spread misinformation.
“I fear it’s an example of how she’s going to operate when we have disagreements over budget and policy issues,” Miles said. “Rather than discussing and debating the merits of those issues, it’s going to turn into these other things.”
Stubbs also claimed in the video that members of the board were putting her under scrutiny because she is Black, saying “they have never had a Black lead a department, and I would be the first.”
“No other director has gone through the scrutiny that I am going through, the only difference is, and you figure it out. I’m the first Black,” Stubbs continued. “God gave me that job… And I believe we’ll take it by force.”
Another person who spoke to the congregation said they would potentially “storm the Capitol” if Stubbs wasn’t quickly confirmed. A subsequent letter published in Madison365 claimed the board was attempting to block Stubbs’ confirmation.
Miles said the letter and claims were surprising because the process was happening at the expected pace with a resolution introduced the week following the initial announcement and committee meetings placed on the calendar. He said the scrutiny Stubbs claimed to be under came from members of the board asking to look over documents related to the hiring process, but that request was made because of how quickly Stubbs was hired — the position application closed and two weeks later Stubbs was named.
The four top candidates for the job were Stubbs, current interim Director of the Dane County Department of Human Services Astra Iheukumere, who is also a Black woman, Alderwoman Regina Vidaver and Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs Director April Heim.
Miles said it is the expectation that the person who holds the position would dedicate all of their focus to that job.
District 3 Supervisor Analiese Eicher echoed the sentiment, saying that being “head for the Human Services Department is a big job, and I think it’s something that we want someone who’s going to be 100% focused on that job in that department. I think the expectation from the board … is Rep. Stubbs would serve singularly in that role.”
Miles said there are also concerns that holding both jobs would present a conflict of interest given that the funding for the county government often flows through or comes from the state.
Stubbs declined to answer questions from the Examiner about her appointment after a Tuesday Assembly floor session.
Can Stubbs serve in two full-time positions?
If Stubbs is confirmed as the director and refuses to resign her position in the state Legislature, she would be serving in two full-time positions and earning two full-time salaries.
According to the contract, Stubbs would make a starting salary of $181,500 as the director, and she brings in $53,000 a year as a state representative. She would be making over $234,000 a year for both jobs.
This would not be the first time Stubbs would serve in two positions.
Stubbs served simultaneously as a state representative and a Dane County Board supervisor from 2018 to 2022, something she acknowledged in her application for the director position. She said the pandemic was part of the reason she continued in both.
“It should be noted that I served in both political positions at the same time for 4 years because I wanted to serve my constituents to the best of my ability,” Stubbs wrote in her application. “Unfortunately, we experienced a pandemic, and I did not want to leave my county board of supervisor office when my constituents had greatest needs.”
The county supervisor role, however, is a part-time position where office holders bring in about $10,000 per year. The position also had part-time hours. Stubbs put on her director application that she worked around 15 hours a week in the position. In contrast, she listed 80 hours a week for her position as a state lawmaker.
While there are Wisconsin laws that limit holding multiple offices, there are no statutes that expressly prohibit a state lawmaker from serving concurrently as the head of a county human services department, according to the Legislative Reference Bureau.
Stubbs is not the first state legislator to hold multiple jobs.
Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee) serves on the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors, which is a part-time role. Rep. LaKeshia Myers (D-Milwaukee) also faced some scrutiny earlier this year when it was reported that she worked a second full-time position as Dean of Students for Whitman Middle School in the Wauwatosa Public Schools.
However, it’s also not unusual for lawmakers to resign after taking on another position. Rep. Supreme Moore Omokunde (D-Milwaukee) resigned his seat on the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors after winning his seat in the state Assembly. Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley resigned his position as a state representative in 2020 to comply with the state law.
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originally published at https%3A%2F%2Fwisconsinexaminer.com%2F2023%2F04%2F27%2Flawmaker-plans-to-stay-in-assembly-and-work-full-time-job-new-boss-has-other-ideas%2F by Baylor Spears
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