Johnson: “I can’t sit on the sidelines while our rights are being taken away and our Congressman cares more about the MAGA agenda than the people he claims to represent. Our fight for change in Wisconsin starts right here, right now.”
Today, Democrat Tara Johnson, former La Crosse County Board Chair, announced her grassroots campaign for Wisconsin’s third Congressional district to take on Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden.
While Tara has spent her life serving people and getting the job done in La Crosse, Congressman Van Orden has become a creature of Washington, doing the bidding of special interests and the MAGA agenda and voting to strip away health care rights from Wisconsinites while gaining national notoriety for embarrassing temper tantrums in the halls of Congress.
“Western Wisconsinites deserve a leader with a proven track record focused on doing the hard work to get the job done for them, not politicians like Congressman Derrick Van Orden, who are taking us backward,” said Democrat Tara Johnson, announcing her campaign for Congress. “I’m running for Congress because I have the track record of bringing people together to solve tough problems for working families, rural communities, and people who have been left behind. I’ll always fight for access to safe, legal abortion rights, expanding access to more affordable health care and prescription drugs, and ensuring Social Security and Medicare are there for the generations who earned it.
“During his short time in Washington, Rep. Van Orden has embarrassed us with his temper tantrums, joining insurrections at the Capitol on January 6th, and voting again and again against real solutions that would cut costs and make life better for people in every corner of this district,” continued Johnson. “Enough is enough – I can’t sit on the sidelines while our rights are being taken away and our Congressman cares more about the MAGA agenda than the people he claims to represent. Our fight for change in Wisconsin starts right here, right now.”
Tara has spent her life giving back to the community and getting things done. After becoming the first in her family to graduate college with the help of student loans, grants, and service industry jobs, Tara spent fifteen years in the United Way system, working her way up to Executive Director of the United Way of the Greater La Crosse Area. At the United Way, Tara led the effort in communities around La Crosse, Milwaukee, and Green Bay to fund organizations that give everyone the chance to succeed.
After seeing the need for local elected officials who understand the real challenges people face, Tara stepped up to run for the La Crosse County Board of Supervisors, taking on a longtime incumbent and winning. During her twenty years on the La Crosse County Board of Supervisors, including nearly a decade as the first woman Chair, Tara successfully brought people together to provide quality County services, balanced budgets, enhanced cost savings, improved infrastructure, innovative development, and help for small businesses.
Now, Tara’s running for Congress to use her experience to bring people together to take on the hard fights for the people of Wisconsin—expanding access to affordable health care, fighting to restore reproductive rights for women, protecting Social Security and Medicare for those who earned it, improving our public schools, and voicing the needs of rural Wisconsin communities that too often go unheard in Washington.
Tara lives in Shelby, Wisconsin, in southern La Crosse County. Married to a union electrical contractor, Tim Padesky, and the mom of two adult children, Nicholas and Layna, Tara understands the importance of affordable and accessible health care and strong public schools.
