Elected to the Wisconsin legislature at the age of 24, State Senator Tim Carpenter (MA ’96) is one of the most experienced lawmakers in Wisconsin. Sen. Carpenter, who represents Milwaukee’s 3rd Senate District, received a master’s degree in public policy and public administration from the La Follette School while in the Wisconsin State Assembly.
“As a Milwaukee native, I’m very proud to be from Wisconsin, and I have long known that I wanted to be involved in tackling the issues impacting our state,” says Sen. Carpenter. While serving in the State Senate, he has helped pass a wide range of legislation, including mandating automobile insurance for Wisconsin drivers, protecting animals from abuse, and providing support for AIDS programs and anti-discrimination measures since the 1980s. He also co-chaired the Legislative Council Study Committee that created WisconsinEye, the nonprofit public affairs network that shares nonpartisan state government news, and helped Wisconsin become the only state that has a Medicare Part D waiver, commonly known as SeniorCare, which makes low-cost prescriptions available for seniors.
Sen. Carpenter says the analytical skills he learned while at La Follette have been helpful when evaluating legislation that comes before him in committee or on the Senate floor. “There are many individuals who try to influence the outcome of votes by simplifying the effects of a policy in order to sell it,” he says. “Developing your analytical skills will help you avoid falling for a clever sales pitch, and instead be able to draw your own conclusions about how policies might work if they are approved by the state government.”
The state senator advises students interested in policy and electoral politics to diversify their educational focus to all areas of policy work. “It can be easy to focus in on policies that are of interest to you as a researcher, or about which you have particular knowledge—but to be effective in electoral politics you need to make sure that you are addressing the concerns of the public at large or that have a particular impact on a district, and not only niche topics,” Sen. Carpenter says.
After nearly 40 years in the Wisconsin State Legislature, Sen. Carpenter has the following advice for La Follette students and anyone who is interested in becoming more politically active. “The challenges of the future are great, especially with politics becoming more and more polarized, but by getting involved, studying the issues, and developing solutions, you can help to move our great state forward,” he says. “When we put our minds together, there is no problem we cannot overcome.”
Alumni in the Spotlight
To celebrate La Follette’s 40th anniversary, we are highlighting alumni throughout 2024 who influence policymaking at the highest levels in government, nonprofit, and private-sector organizations across the country and abroad.