If elected to the Wisconsin Assembly from District 79, I will work to inflict harsher penalties on drivers convicted of Driving Under the Influence.
Here’s why.
As a nurse’s aide while completing a mid-life college degree and seminary training, I became care giver for a quadriplegic woman who had lived in the same room for twenty-six years at the facility where I came to work.
Let me explain to you what quadriplegic means.
It means paralysis from the neck down. It means in her case she could not see, because she had been blinded. She could not talk, because her larynx had been crushed. She could only squeal acknowledgement or disapproval, sometimes panic and I cared for her about one year and a half. She remained another thirteen years in that room after I left the facility and the community upon graduation. I got word from the staff when she died.
As a newly married young woman on her way to work as a waitress in a nearby town, she had been run over by a drunk driver.
Thirty-nine years is a long time to live in the same room unable to move, unable to see, unable to speak, all because someone who knew better went ahead and got behind the wheel.
That is why I will work to inflict more severe penalties on those who drive under the influence of alcohol or drugs. My usage of the word ‘inflict’ is intentional. No matter what the current penalties for DUI in Wisconsin, I will work to make them worse.