Remembering Wisconsin Stateswoman Polly Williams - Longest serving woman representative

Wisconsin Stateswoman Annette "Polly" Williams

January 10, 1937 - November 9, 2014
Ex-WI Representative Annette "Polly" Williams, longest serving woman representative (1980 - 2011).   She was born in Belzoni, MS.  She raised 4 children and was 77 years at death.

Known for her fierce fight for her constituents public education, especially African American families upwardc mobility in education attainment.  Her due diligence proved "success" in putting in place the first Choice legislation in the United States.

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Williams was the author of the United States' first school choice legislation, approving school choice in 1989, and expanding the program to include religious schools five years later. She lectured at institutions including Harvard, Yale, Marquette, Stanford, and Johns Hopkins universities. From 1990–97, she earned some $163,000 in honoraria and expenses, far more than any other legislator in Wisconsin. The legislation brought Williams national fame, but she began to disown both the choice program and its supporters. Williams later said Michael Joyce of theLynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and other school choice proponents wanted to expand the program to middle-class families by ending the income limits ("Joyce wanted to make it universal") and called it "a Catholic program". She accused choice and voucher proponents of exploiting black parents and children, saying "I haven't changed. The people around me have changed." "I don't agree with the way things are going at all", she said in an interview in 2011. "It's no longer the program that I supported at first." Wikipedia

Happy Trail Lady Polly!