Democrat Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s Support of Soft-on-Crime Candidates Highlights Her Own Record

Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s (D-WI) support for far-left, soft-on-crime candidates over the last campaign cycle has brought to light her own soft-on-crime stances as she gears up for a reelection bid in a battleground state.

Baldwin supported, canvassed, and sometimes served as a surrogate for liberal-backed, soft-on-crime Wisconsin Supreme Court justice candidate Janet Protasiewicz during her recent election to fill the seat opened due to a judge’s retirement, in addition to endorsing and rallying for last year’s U.S. Senate hopeful Mandela Barnes, who unsuccessfully ran against Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI).

Protasiewicz and Barnes were both criticized for their “soft-on-crime” approach.

In one instance, when she was a Milwaukee County judge, Protasiewicz reportedly “suspended the prison sentence of a convicted domestic abuser before he went on to kill two people in 2019,” while in 2022, Milwaukee, for the third year in a row, broke its homicide record. In another instance, as WISN reported, after she refused to sentence a child sex predator to jail time, citing the coronavirus, the man killed a woman in a drunk driving crash.

Baldwin-endorsed Barnes was one of the most radical Democrats in the 2022 cycle. As Breitbart News reported, he pushed for defunding police, allowing felons to retain the right to vote, and believed that the inmate population in his state should be cut in half. He also claimed police do not prevent crimes, and according to Wisconsin Right Now, Gov. Tony Evers’ (D) and Barnes’ Parole Commission allowed at least 884 convicted criminals back onto the streets by releasing them on parole when Barnes was lieutenant governor.

Wisconsin Lt. Gov. and Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Mandela Barnes participates in a televised Wisconsin Democratic U.S. Senate debate in Milwaukee, July 17, 2022. (Morry Gash, File/AP)

In her long career in public office, Baldwin has herself racked up several votes showing her soft-on-crime stance.

In the state legislature in 1997, Baldwin voted against a bill that established a “persistent repeater” category for individuals accused of multiple serious child sex offenses with a mandatory life sentence without parole. And in 2005, when she was in Congress, she also voted in favor of an amendment to eliminate the mandatory minimum sentence for failing to register as a sex offender.

She also opposed “three strikes” legislation in 1994 that mandated life without parole for a third conviction in any one of 10 categories of crime, including murder, kidnapping, taking hostages, arson, armed robbery, sexual assault of children, and carjacking. At the time, Baldwin called the legislation “dangerous” and later claimed it was “very difficult” to vote against it.

However, her soft-on-crime stance does not seem to have stopped at lessening child sex offenses and opposing the “three strikes” legislation. In the state legislature, she also voted against harsher punishments for criminals who commit violent crimes on or near school premises, despite most Democrats joining Republicans on the legislation, and said second-time drunken driving offenders should be sentenced to alcoholism treatment instead of having mandatory jail time.

Furthermore, while serving in the Wisconsin Assembly and heading the legislative committee that oversees the Department of Corrections, Baldwin criticized a “trend of proliferations of criminal legislation.”

Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.