State lawmaker running unopposed, doesn’t have to campaign and can work on assignments

La Crosse’s Billings will represent 95th District seat once again

If you’re an elected official who has no opponent on the November ballot, you don’t need to spend much time in October campaigning.

La Crosse’s Jill Billings finds herself in that situation.

The lawmaker is the lone candidate for the 95th District seat, and she said that running unopposed gives her more time to concentrate on her assignments to committees and task forces.

One of those committees deals with recidivism on how to get convicted criminals back to work after serving their sentences.

“Re-entry into the community for people who have served their time and making that transition better so people can get jobs,” she explained.

Billings also is spending campaign season working on studies of opioid addiction in the state, and ways to reduce the child death rate in Wisconsin.

You may not hear much about the child death rate in Wisconsin but it’s a concern that is being studied closely.

Billings recently was appointed to a state panel to examine why children in the state are dying – an extension of work she’s been doing on an assembly committee on children and families.

“Wisconsin is down there with Mississippi and Alabama, where we shouldn’t be,” Billings said. “So we’re working with the judiciary, the executive branch and the legislative branch.”