“…Yes, I do think that was appropriate” – Sara Rodriguez on allowing school districts to raise property taxes for the next 400 years.
Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, a Democratic candidate for Wisconsin governor, says she supports allowing school districts to raise property taxes for the next 400 years.
She also said she wants to “eventually” end the Wisconsin school choice program that has helped impoverished kids get a better education.
Her comments came in an interview with CBS 58 reporter AJ Bayatpour, who wrote on Feb. 6, 2026, that he asked Rodriguez, the lieutenant governor, about her administration’s decision “to make a partial veto to the 2023-25 budget that allows school districts to raise property taxes every year for 400 years.”
What was her response? According to Bayatpour’s story, “Rodriguez defended the 400-year veto.”
The video shows that Bayatpour specifically asked: “As you sit here today, do you think the Evers administration did the right thing in the partial veto that allowed districts to raise the levy limit for 400 years?” As noted, Rodriguez is PART of the Evers’ administration, which used the partial veto in July 2023.
“So, that was the tool he had available to him with a hostile Legislature, so yes, I do think that was appropriate,” she said (our bold). “But what we should be doing is actually funding our public schools.”
She then trashed Republican leaders and claimed she wants to freeze property taxes, calling it an emergency.
As for school choice, Bayatpour wrote that Rodriguez said she would “support eventually ending Wisconsin’s School Choice program, which provides publicly funded vouchers for kids to attend private schools.”
“Eventually, eventually, but it needs to be in a stepwise manner that keeps kids and their success central to that process,” she told him.
She also told Bayatpour that she supports encouraging school districts to look at downsizing and cutting staff due to dropping enrollment.
“So encouraging school districts to look at that is something I’d be in favor of.”
Bayatpour also asked Rodriguez about Reid Hoffman, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin’s top donor since 2019, coming up in the Epstein files. Hoffman admits going to Epstein’s island, and the name Reid Hoffman appears in them more than 2,500 times. He denies wrongdoing and has not been accused by authorities of wrongdoing.
“If there is anybody in the Democratic Party that are in these files, that abused children, that is a hard line for us,” Rodriguez said. “We absolutely need to investigate and make sure people who are brought to justice, and I don’t care who it is. I don’t care if it’s a Democrat. I don’t care if it’s a Republican. Every single one of those men need to be brought to justice.”
However, we previously asked Rodriguez whether she would pledge not to take Hoffman’s money or money from the Democratic Party of Wisconsin unless they refund his cash. We also asked her campaign whether she will call on the Democratic Party of Wisconsin to return the $15 million the party took from Hoffman since 2019 (some in December 2025). She did not respond to those questions, and, to Bayatpour, she did not address those points. The party can funnel cash to Democratic candidates and has in the past.
