“We all share a commitment to protecting kids in school and ensuring they can safely learn and grow," one Wisconsin legislator remarked with relief in January of this year. Unfortunately, the word "all" did not fully apply to the belated effort to make grooming minors for sexual exploitation a crime. One woman who stood on the side of groomers now wants to run the whole state, in fact.
Swann Marcus recalled the episode last night in an essay on X. The story starts with a law-enforcement intervention against a teacher actively grooming a student of his, but when police arrested him, prosecutors discovered that Wisconsin had no criminal laws forbidding grooming behavior. The state legislature responded late last year with a bipartisan, comprehensive statutory structure that would allow prosecution for grooming before sexual molestation actually occurred. It passed almost unanimously.
Almost:
The Wisconsin State Assembly responded to this by drafting a bipartisan bill that made it a felony to engage in any course of conduct clearly and obviously intended seduce or lure a child into engaging in sexual acts or exchanging illicit images. It passed 193-6 and was signed into law by the Democratic governor. Francesca Hong voted no.
4 months later the first person was charged under the new law. He was 36-year-old man who met a developmentally disabled 16-year-old in a public park when she was 13 and spent the next three years trying to manipulate her into running away from home so he could make her his live-in sex slave.
To recap: Earlier *this very year* Franesca Hong was one of only six people to vote against a bill that made it illegal to take affirmative action designed to lure a minor into sexual acts and the very first person the bill Hong voted against was used to arrest was a guy who tried to rape an underage girl with Down Syndrome
I have never seen a Democratic candidate this bad. This is like Mark Robinson territory[.]
Did Hong really vote to protect groomers? Indeed she did, as the Wisconsin Examiner reported at the time. Marcus got the story correct, including the backstory on the necessity for the law, although his 193-6 has a pretty large typo. The bill passed 93-6, still an overwhelming and bipartisan endorsement:
The Assembly also passed AB 677, which would make grooming a felony crime in Wisconsin, in a 93-6 vote. Reps. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee), Angelina Cruz (D-Racine), Francesca Hong (D-Madison), Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire) and Angelito Tenorio (D-West Allis) voted against the proposal.
Bill author Rep. Amanda Nedweski (R-Pleasant Prairie) said the bill will help protect children and noted that she started working on the bill about 18 months ago due to the case of Christian Enwright, a former Kenosha teacher who pleaded guilty last year to over a dozen misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct after he had an inappropriate relationship with a 14-year-old student.
“Anyone who followed that case and saw the messages that Enright sent would know that his behavior is far more than disorderly. Because of the lack of a criminal definition of grooming, that was all he could be charged with,” Nedweski said. ...
“This is not about vague feelings or misunderstandings. There needs to be a pattern of predatory behavior with the intent to have sexual contact with the victim,” Nedweski said. “This bill came as a result of months of conversations with law enforcement prosecutors, district attorneys, educators and victim advocates.”
All six votes against this bill came from Democrats. Why? The Examiner didn't report on any explanation from Hong, but the response from Phelps sounds suspiciously similar to Democratic Socialist rhetoric about prisons and law enforcement:
Phelps told the Examiner in a statement that he voted against the bill because it didn’t seem like a “good-faith effort” to make children safer. He said the behaviors covered in the bill are already illegal.
“Creating redundant crimes to advance a political agenda doesn’t make anyone safer; it just pads the statute books, locks more people in our failed carceral system, and ignores real solutions like prevention and survivor services,” Phelps said.
Er ... what? One key "survivor service" would be to make sure the predator gets put behind bars for a lengthy period of time. As logic and hard experience have taught us, the best "prevention" for sexual predation is to lock up the predators when they are discovered. Phelps didn't want sex predators to enter a "failed carceral state" at all, because the radical socialists want to return to an anarchist/nihilist state of nature where chaos reigns and authoritarians with Marxist orientation can then assume power by force.
Those are Phelps' words, not Hong's. But isn't it time for her to explain that vote to voters in Wisconsin, especially since Hong now wants to run the executive branch that would enforce this law?
Addendum: I find it interesting that these nuggets are already emerging. I'd bet my bottom dollar that this is a last-ditch effort from David Crowley and the DNC to derail Hong's bid today in the gubernatorial primary. Tom Tiffany would have sat on this until after a Hong primary win.
Also, the latest episode of The Ed Morrissey Show podcast is now up! Today's show features:
- Why are AOC's ovaries making national news?
- The Democratic Socialist wants to make a point about The Patriarchy, but Andrew Malcolm and I suspect it may have more to do with the 2028 presidential cycle. Or is it a dodge around her longtime partner and occasional spouse?
- Plus, Andrew and I discuss the primary results in Michigan and the socialist moment in Wisconsin.
The Ed Morrissey Show is now a fully downloadable and streamable show at Spotify, Apple Podcasts, the TEMS Podcast YouTube channel, and on Rumble and our own in-house portal at the #TEMS page!
Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.
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