Zepnick gets primary challenge after accusations
MADISON - Eight months after being accused by two female colleagues of kissing them against their will, Milwaukee Rep. Josh Zepnick is being challenged by a fellow Democrat who says Zepnick’s behavior toward women makes him unfit to serve in public office.
“I did not decide to run again merely because Josh’s sexual assaults came to light. However, his conduct is confirmation that it’s time for him to go,” said Marisabel Cabrera, an immigration attorney and member of the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission.
Zepnick, 50, is seeking another term representing Milwaukee’s 9th Assembly District — a position voters have supported keeping him in since 2002.
He says the incidents involved kissing the women on the cheek, and were not assaults. Zepnick has apologized for the incidents, said he has done his best to make amends and stopped drinking. Zepnick said potential voters in his district have been supportive and have moved on from the allegations that first surfaced in 2017.
“People have been disproportionately positive and supportive — they understand there were some dark moments when my life was not in good order,” Zepnick said. “I’m coming up on three years of sobriety … for me it’s in the rear view mirror.”
In late 2017, Zepnick was accused by two female colleagues of drunkenly kissing them at political events in 2011 and 2015 — episodes that resulted in Assembly leadership stripping him of his committee assignments. He also was excluded from meeting privately with other Assembly Democrats about policy and voting matters.
Zepnick, who was not charged with a crime, said he has moved on from the incidents and they shouldn’t preclude him from holding public office. He has sent his own campaign literature dismissing the campaign criticism as “distorting the truth.”
The 2017 accusations were made by the women anonymously to The Capital Times at a time when dozens of women and some men came forward to report alleged sexual harassment, assault and misconduct by powerful men following sexual assault and misconduct accusations against film director Harvey Weinstein.
The allegations brought new scrutiny to state legislatures and Congress over how lawmakers behave. The Capital Times did not identify the women by name but said they each worked for the Legislature and the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, respectively.
Cabrera, 42, disputes Zepnick’s characterization of district residents’ reactions and is sending potential voters campaign literature calling Zepnick a “sexual harasser” who is unfit to serve in the Assembly.
Cabrera unsuccessfully ran against Zepnick in 2016 and said while the sexual misconduct accusations did not prompt her second run, Zepnick’s behavior and attitude toward the accusers now fuel her campaign, too.
“As a woman, that is something that is offensive to me — that he tries to sweep it under the rug,” Cabrera said, referring to a recent interview Zepnick gave Wispolitics.com during which he said, “I don’t think that what happened over essentially a period of five seconds in my life should define my entire career, let alone cause me to not be able to serve.”
“It’s actually that something that affects women for their entire life — it doesn’t just go away,” Cabrera said. “It’s offensive that his immediate response was to blame it on the alcohol. It’s even more offensive that after admitting the incidents did happen and apologizing, he’d challenge the women’s credibility. And it’s outrageous that he would suggest there’s some type of 5-second rule to sexual assault.”
Zepnick, however, said he’s not making light of anything and that he considers the two incidents to be a “one-time mistake.”
“I find it massively disturbing that Marisabel brings up an anonymous allegation about something from years ago,” Zepnick said. “If everyone who faced an ‘anonymous allegation’ were forced to quit their jobs, a lot of both men and women would be out of work.”
Voters in the 9th Assembly District are sorting out the debate as they receive campaign literature from Cabrera this week depicting Zepnick as a “sexual harasser unfit to represent us.”
Zepnick issued his own mailer in response, which says: “Personal attacks and distorting the truth are cheap ways to try and win an election.”
Cabrera said she also is running because she feels her district is “underrepresented” by Zepnick.
She said access to health care is top of mind for voters in the district and that she wants to bring her experience in advocacy for people who might not know how to navigate bureaucracy to the Assembly.
Zepnick said his focus is on finding ways to reduce crime and improve public safety in the district.