Assembly Committee on Local Government

UPDATE 6/16: The snitch house bill is likely to pass the legislature today. Please join the action to demand governor Evers veto it.

UPDATE 6/11: Yesterday the Joint Finance Committee put $1 million into the budget for snitch houses. The full assembly will vote on slew of bills on Wednesday June 16, including this and other fake police reforms. Please contact assembly representatives (listed below) before then to demand they vote against any bill that will expand police funding or scope of work.

Here at ABOLISHmke, we’ve put a lot of attention on the snitch house (AB258) bill (also known as COP house) ever since it passed the senate with unanimous support. Well, that attention is starting to register victories. On June 2nd the Committee on Local Government held an executive session on it, and every democratic representative voted against it. Despite this, it still passed the committee — republicans dominate the legislature in Wisconsin.

Senators Lena Taylor and Van Wanggaard, introducing their snitch house legislation on May 18.

During the May 18 public hearing on the Snitch House bill (SB124/AB258 also known as COP house bill) Lena Taylor and Van Wanggaard revealed that their co-authored, pro-cop legislation is everything we fear, and worse. We already have a long article detailing snitch houses (bootlickers call them COP houses) but, the more we learn and reflect on supporter’s statements at the hearings, the more we have to say.

There is so much to unpack from Taylor and Wanggaard’s introduction that we are going to put out a three part series, starting this week. The bill gets its first assembly committee vote on Wednesday, June 2. Please call or email the democratic members of the committee before Wednesday!

This series will cover how snitch houses:

Reduce public safety by expanding police capacity to harm communities.
Advance displacement of people of color to benefit real estate developers and landlords.
Expand the role of police, letting them absorb and determine which neighbors receive much needed community resources.

Before getting into these harms snitch houses may cause, let’s take a quick look at the hearing—and the shady politics going on behind this legislation.

Tag: Assembly Committee on Local Government

Contact Representatives to Block Snitch House Legislation!

Snitch House Series