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Your Business Advocate: Meet Your 2023-2025 State Legislative Leadership

Every two years after the elections are over, the members of each party caucus meet in the capitol to elect their internal leadership for the next legislative session. There are several new faces in leadership after several retirements and resignations, including former State Representative and Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke. The leadership teams in both houses decide the direction the caucuses will take on policy and political issues during the term.

Senate

  • Majority Leader – Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg). The Majority Leader is the leader of the Republican Caucus in the Senate and can make the vast majority of decisions in the Senate. He Chairs the Senate Committee on Organization that decides what the body will vote on and has the largest office staff of anyone in the Senate. He also gets to decide who chairs what committees and who will make up the membership of those. The Majority Leader also traditionally runs the political committee supporting their party’s candidates in the next election. This will be LeMahieu’s second term as leader.
  • President – Chris Kapenga (R-Delafield). The Senate President runs the legislative sessions on the floor of the senate. He’s the one you will see on TV at the front of the senate calling votes and allowing a senator to speak on the floor. This will be Kapenga’s second term as president.
  • Minority Leader – Melissa Agard (D-Madison). Senator Agard is new to this position as she replaces the retiring Janet Bewley (D-Mason). The minority leader does the same job as the majority leader for her party, just without any real say in what happens outside of the Democrat caucus. She runs the political committee supporting the Democrats in the next election and appoints members of her caucus to the committee slots given to them by the majority party.

Assembly

  • Speaker – Robin Vos (R-Burlington). Speaker Vos enters his 6th term as speaker, the longest serving speaker in Wisconsin history. The speaker has even more power in the Assembly than the majority leader in the Senate. He has near total control of everything that goes on in the assembly.
  • Majority Leader – Tyler August (R-Lake Geneva). This will be Rep. August’s first term as majority leader after several terms as Speaker Pro-Tempore. In his previous position he was much like the Senate President, presiding over the assembly floor sessions. As majority leader, he is mainly the internal leader of the Republican caucus helping offices move bills through the process, staffing issues, and helps run the floor sessions.
  • Minority Leader – Greta Neubauer (D-Racine). Rep. Neubauer will begin her second term as minority leader after Rep. Gordon Hintz (D-Oshkosh) stepped down last session. Neubauer manages the internal dynamics of her caucus, leads their election efforts, and appoints members to various committees.

Each caucus has several other members in leadership positions, including State Rep. Lee Snodgrass who serves as Minority Caucus Sergeant-At-Arms. For a full listing, see below:

Senate Leadership Teams

Assembly Leadership Teams