Fugitive Wisconsin State Senator Jon B. Erpenbach Speaks to AP
... #ad▼Eleven days ago, 14 Wisconsin Senate Democrats skipped town rather than vote on an anti-union bill will. One of those Senators, Jon Erpenbach, spoke with the Associated Press from his hotel in Chicago.
Earlier in February, Jon Erpenbach and 13 other Democratic Senators departed the state of Wisconsin during the 2011 Wisconsin budget protests, and prevented a quorum on Republican Governor Scott Walker’s bill to eliminate collective bargaining.
Jon B. Erpenbach (born January 28, 1961) is an American politician. Erpenbach, who is a member of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, has been serving since 1998 as a member of the Wisconsin State Senate. He represents the state’s twenty-seventh senate district.
Achievements of Jon Erpenbach
Senator Erpenbach has been most well known for is his extremely successful and popular Do Not Call legislation, passed and signed into law in 2001. The bill had bipartisan support in both the Senate and Assembly. The consumer protections in the bill include: allowing consumers to add their land or cellular telephones to the Do Not Call list, creating a prohibition for unsolicited faxes, and Increasing the penalties for violations from the current maximum of $100 to amounts between $1,000 and $10,000. The bill was a forerunner of the federal government’s Do-Not-Call Implementation Act of 2003.
Senator Erpenbach also authored the Traveling Sales Crew Regulation bill, known as Malinda’s Law. The law would give traveling sales crew members similar employment rights that part-time workers in Wisconsin are currently guaranteed by state law. The bill would also require all crews to register with the Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection before going door to door in state communities. By registering members of the crew, alerts for members with outstanding warrants in other states can be identified and criminals detained. The Traveling Sales Crew Regulation bill passed last session in the State Senate but was stopped in the Assembly, but is expected that the bill will become law this legislative session.