David Crowley’s running mate just gave us a sneak peek at what spending would look like in a Crowley-Godlewski administration: a 187% budget increase for one of the smallest offices in Wisconsin government.
Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski, the Democrat running with Crowley for lieutenant governor, submitted her 2027-29 agency request to the Department of Administration this month. The filing seeks $1.89 million over two years, up from a base of about $659,000. Staff would increase from 2 to 6 positions. Journal Sentinel reporter Molly Beck flagged the request Thursday, and even Molly was forced to admit it’s a “small office” with “few duties.”
Wisconsin’s secretary of state has been stripped of most of its duties throughout the office’s history. The office does not run elections. The Wisconsin Elections Commission does. It does not keep the state’s books. The Department of Administration and the Legislative Audit Bureau do. It does not charter corporations. The Department of Financial Institutions does. What is left is the Great Seal, recording official acts of the governor and Legislature, oaths, some deeds, and apostilles, the stamps that authenticate documents for use overseas.
Godlewski is the state’s top notary with a fancy title and an $83,000 salary, yet sought four new staffers, including a “policy initiatives advisor.” Policy initiatives for an office whose main duty is stamping documents. Apostille volume is real, more than 17,000 a year according to the filing. Processing that work does not require tripling the staff or creating a policy team.
In the last budget cycle, Godlewski already pushed to grow the office after Evers appointed her in 2023 to finish Doug La Follette’s term, as a thank you for dropping out of the US Senate race and supporting Mandela Barnes. La Follette spent decades in a job the Legislature had already hollowed out. Republicans have said for years the office is a taxpayer-funded campaign platform. Godlewski used treasurer and secretary of state as rungs, and now she seeks a trifecta of useless state constitutional officers.
Gov. Tony Evers told agencies to build 2027-29 requests on a zero-growth GPR target. Godlewski’s ask is program revenue, fees, and a bigger slice of DFI money, which is how expansions get sold as “no new taxpayer dollars.” Godlewski ignored that request and chose to grow government in an office most voters could not describe if handed the state constitution.
If Crowley and Godlewski win, she leaves this job for lieutenant governor, another office with a thin statutory to-do list. A 187% ask from the person who wants to sit a heartbeat from the governorship tells you how they think the surplus should be used: first, on themselves.
