Green Bay, Wis. — A special election in November, timed with the presidential election, will determine who gets to occupy Mike Gallagher’s vacated eighth congressional district seat. Republican voters in Wisconsin will have three candidates to choose from in the special election’s August 13 primary: Roger Roth, Tony Wied, and André Jacque. Roth and Jacque are experienced state legislators, and Wied is a gas-station entrepreneur bearing the blessing of Donald Trump. One of them will face Democratic candidate Kristin Lyerly, an OB/GYN practicing in Northern Minnesota with past Planned Parenthood affiliations.
Jacque, who has made his living in various government roles, is quick to remind people that he started work at the age of 15 “flipping burgers and working a till.”
While the Republican National Convention was in full swing, I drove north, away from the madness in Milwaukee, to the quaint De Pere downtown, just minutes away from Green Bay’s Lambeau Field.
Entering a coffee shop, I’m greeted by André Jacque and Will, his comms guy. Physically, Jacque is a barrel of a man. In conversation, he is singularly focused, unapologetic in his views (especially regarding protecting the unborn), and an ideological purist when it comes to legislation — attributes with tradeoffs in the pork work of coalitional politics.
Jacque is somewhat famous in the Wisconsin state legislature for producing stacks of legislation, a habit that has cost him as it irritated his leadership. He recalls what he sees as the wages of pursuing conservative policy: “I was stripped of my committee chair and lost staff for having pursued prevailing wage, and honestly, they were not pleased that I pursued making Wisconsin a right-to-work state either as labor chair — and the pro-life agenda as well.”
He continues, “That’s something that legislative leaders in both chambers have worked against, some of the pro-life legislation that I brought forward, and you know, [I’m] very proud to be a pro life candidate in this race.”
Given Jacque’s obvious relish for legislating, I asked him what he thought of the Supreme Court’s ending of Chevron deference. Would it induce Congress to consider bills more seriously before passing them? With federal bureaucracies no longer able to interpret the laws as they wish, did Jacque see a place for wonkier legislators? “I’m glad you asked about the Chevron deference situation,” he says, “because that’s actually something I’ve been very involved with at the state level.”
He explains: “So, in 2018, I had actually proposed legislation to eliminate guidance documents as having the force of law as well. As stopping what’s called ‘sue and settle,’ where you had basically the ability through settlements litigation with a friendly administration to grant additional powers to the bureaucracy, and have that ported into state statutes.”
Scott Walker’s loss in the November 2018 governor’s race delayed the legislation, but it was successfully passed before the end of that year. Jacque notes that he was involved in the bill-drafting process in a way that his opponents may not have been: “I’ve been very hands-on in the drafting of that legislation to make sure that there aren’t unintended consequences — individually working with the attorneys as opposed to just putting that off on a special interest.”
Jacque has neither the fundraising nor the political pedigree of his opponents, so he’s seeking to make up that deficit through retail politics. In his telling, when Roth and Wied attended a couple of local events for June Dairy Month, Jacque attended eight and “spent at least a couple hours at seven of them” volunteering.
Furthermore, Jacque has sought out as many endorsements as can fit in the district, with nods from the Wisconsin Professional Police Association, national police organizations, and a majority of Republican sheriffs, and veterans’ groups have given him awards as a legislator. If Jacque should lose the August 13 election, it will not be for lack of shaking hands and making phone calls.
Roger Roth was the first to announce his candidacy immediately after Gallagher’s resignation announcement, and I was curious why Jacque thought the primary fight worth it against a candidate with statewide name recognition and support from its most recent Republican governor. Interestingly, Jacque says there were some in Roth’s orbit who quietly suggested he run as an alternative, as well as phone calls from elsewhere in the state and district saying the same. Jacque considers himself the pure conservative, something he says voters would not receive in the allegedly deal-making, capitulatory Roth, who was willing to work with Democratic governor Tony Evers.
At a Friday primary debate, this distinction was obvious when both men were asked whether the 2020 election was stolen. Roth said no, and then qualified that with concerns about minor infractions that ultimately did not alter the outcome, while Jacque asked if he could respond “Hell yes.” He then listed his many concerns about how the 2020 election was suspect in his eyes and mentioned that he’d signed on to a letter asking Mike Pence to postpone certifying the election.
That exchange was revealing. Jacque is a man with moral certainty who will do and say things without regard for political realities or prudence. Should he win the primary, he could very well lose a general election because Wisconsin’s northeastern voters are leery of election skepticism and abortion absolutism. What voters seemingly needn’t worry about is Jacque’s changing for anyone, whether that change be his views or his ubiquitous campaign polo shirt.