October is when campaigns stop pretending the race is about vibes and the ads get serious. I personally love cruising for the next political ad buy to see what is being discussed around the state. On Facebook, Representative Ryan Spaude was discussing the “lies” being lodged against him. Alright, I’ll bite. What are they saying? Are they actually lies?
The 89th is not a safe seat, and Spaude knows it. In 2024 Spaude beat Brown County Board chair Patrick Buckley by merely 826 votes, or a 51.3% to 48.5% split. He is undoubtably in a contested election as it is one of the closest races from a cycle ago.
Spaude has spent his first term collecting questionable decisions anyway. He voted no on the state budget, then later posed beside a Port of Green Bay coal-pile project that was made possible by that same budget. He even campaigned on bills introduced after the Assembly went home for the year. And when the ads started hitting, he reached for the oldest incumbent trick in the book. Call it all lies.
I do not live in the Green Bay media market but luckily Google Ads Transparency Center does not care. You can sit outside the media market and still watch what a campaign is actually putting on television. What is running against Spaude is a trafficking ad that does not require a focus group to make a viewer uncomfortable.
Now go back to the Spaude’s response. He never names the trafficking spot by name, but it is the most recent ad since he posted the video. He never says the charge is false and just vaguely appeals to “lies.”
So look it up. 2025 Assembly Bill 87, introduced by Rep. Shae Sortwell and cosponsored by Sen. Dan Feyen, relates to restitution orders following a conviction for human trafficking. If a defendant is convicted under the human trafficking statutes, including the child trafficking statute, the court must require restitution immediately. If the defendant does not pay, the court issues an execution against the defendant’s property, the same way a civil judgment gets collected. The Assembly passed it on March 13, 2025, 53 to 44. Spaude was in the no column.
Spaude is free to argue that he disliked certain parts of the bill, but to say he voted against victims is accurate. If I was a betting man, I would bet that the average person would agree. Victims of trafficking deserve every bit of restitution that is entitled to them, but apparently not to Spaude. He simply called the criticism lies and moved on. A former prosecutor who will not defend a no vote on making traffickers pay their victims immediately should not be shocked when a 50/50 district puts that vote on television.
Then there is the prosecutor line, which he cannot help himself from using. Spaude’s experience as a prosecutor is a good resume builder and an easy selling point for voters to make him seem normal. However, FOX 11 reported that the Joint Finance Committee put 42 new assistant district attorney positions into the state budget, seven of them in Brown County, taking that office to 22 prosecutors. Brown County closed 2024 with a backlog of more than 4,600 pending criminal cases. County Executive Troy Streckenbach has put the local cost of that backlog around $6 million.
Well, they were in the budget. Seven new Brown County assistant district attorneys, on top of the pay raises and case-tracking money the same motion carried. Spaude voted no anyway. The Assembly passed 2025 Senate Bill 45, the budget, 59 to 39.
October surprises are usually something the candidate did not see coming. This is the record Spaude built, arriving on a television screen. The 89th is still a toss-up. Spaude can keep saying he is disappointed. Voters in Ashwaubenon and west Green Bay can read the Assembly journal themselves.
And if he is looking for the man on the other side of those ads, the name is Bobby Lindsey. Lindsey is the Republican running to take the seat back on November 3. He is a Marine Corps veteran and a retired law enforcement officer.
