WI-SD08: Rental-property-owning Wisconsin GOP lawmaker sponsored bill that gutted tenants' rights

Wisconsin state Sen. Duey Stroebel (R-Cedarburg) sponsored a 2013 law to gut tenants’ rights while owning over a dozen rental properties in the state.

Stroebel reported owning 12 different residential rental properties on his 2024 Statement of Economic Interests, including property in Milwaukee, Cedarburg and Saukville. In 2013, Stroebel sponsored Assembly Bill 183, one of many landlord-favored bills from that year which greatly benefitted landlords like himself.

According to his own testimony for the bill, Stroebel knowingly included rhetoric that prevented cities from creating laws calling for landlords to communicate with tenants beyond the baseline state laws. The bill also allowed landlords to withhold information about code violations from tenants, ro keep or sell personal property left behind by renters without notifying them and to hold tenants responsible for insect and/or pest infestation.

Stroebel’s bill also gave landlords an edge by remaking the legal process for evictions by expediting the process, shortening the timeframe for each step and allowing landlords to ask sheriffs to remove tenants faster.




https://heartlandsignal.com/2024/10/30/rental-property-owning-wisconsin-lawmaker-sponsored-bill-that-gutted-tenants-rights/