To Help Your Family, Vote for Knoke

This letter to the editor, by Celeste Koeberl , appeared in the Hudson Star Observer on October 22, 2026.

Thank you to the Hudson Area Chamber of Commerce and First Presbyterian Church for the Q&A with the candidates in Assembly District 30, incumbent Republican Shannon Zimmerman and challenger Democrat Kevin Knoke.

Zimmerman explained he has juggled his legislative job with family care.

As I listened, I was more and more persuaded to vote for Knoke.

Most of us have elderly parents, a spouse, children, grandchildren or other family members who need our help and time.

Unlike most of us, Zimmerman had the privilege of being absent from his job — he missed one-quarter of the Assembly’s floor sessions and more than 225 votes in the 2025-26 legislative session — without taking a pay cut or getting a pink slip.

You might think the family experiences Zimmerman recounted would make him support paid family leave for all our families — but he doesn’t.

Instead, Zimmerman has voted to block paid family leave at every turn, even though 73% of Wisconsinites support paid leave for new parents.

In 2023, Zimmerman voted with Republicans on the Joint Finance Committee to remove Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ proposed paid family leave program from the state budget, and he voted against even studying paid family leave in Wisconsin.

Zimmerman said then about paid family leave: “I’m sitting here listening to this today, and this is lunacy personified.”

Later, Zimmerman and his Republican colleagues ignored Gov. Evers’ call for a special session on family-friendly proposals, including paid leave.

In 2025, Zimmerman again voted to remove paid family leave from Gov. Evers’ proposed state budget.

All of us deserve reasonable job accommodations for our family duties when we need them.

To me, it’s crazy to reelect Zimmerman, who has already served five legislative terms, when he’s clearly shown he doesn’t care about helping families other than his own.

I’m voting for Knoke because it’s time to replace Zimmerman with a person who will show up and do what helps us all.

To help your family, please vote for Kevin Knoke in Assembly District 30, too.