Serving Trempealeau County
Campaigns, candidates and the county board's political fights — who is running, who is paying for it, and what the record says about them.
Profile
He ran congressional campaigns and helped build a presidential caucus operation in Iowa. Now he sits on the Law Enforcement Committee in Whitehall, filing records requests against his own county — over a contract no elected body separately voted on.
Every records-driven investigation from the courthouse, the morning it publishes. Free. No lists sold.
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Election Results
Jessica Schue takes the clerk of court primary by 18 points and advances to face Democrat Foss in November
Sheriff’s race
Wayne Dahl, Kent Johnson and Erica Koxlien have spent the summer disagreeing. Days before a primary that will very likely decide the office, here is what the record says each would bring to it.
Sheriff’s race
The county code declares the office of undersheriff abolished; state law tells sheriffs in every county but Milwaukee to appoint one. Of its last two sheriffs, one filed an undersheriff appointment with the clerk of circuit court and one did not, and each named a different officer. A new state law, effective 2027, will forbid eliminating the office.
The Flock Camera Fight
Carla Short’s op-ed is the first inside account of the plan, which she says ended after Blair Police Chief Kent Johnson pledged to take the county’s Flock cameras down.
Sheriff’s race
The Aug. 11 primary will effectively decide the office — and the signed agreement in the county’s records puts the license-plate cameras’ renew-or-cancel decision on the winner’s watch. Here is where Kent Johnson, Erica Koxlien and Wayne Dahl stand, in their own words and the county’s records.
Clerk of court
Jessica Schue has spent 24 years at a private law firm. Leni Nilsestuen has spent six inside the county district attorney’s office and nine and a half before that in the Army National Guard. The seat is open because the last elected clerk resigned in October 2024, with more than two years left in her term.
Sheriff’s race
Sheriff Erica Koxlien cleared the 60% bar for the party’s backing in a members-only straw poll after its first candidate forum. The vote binds nobody. With no Democrat or independent filed, the Aug. 11 primary — where Koxlien faces Chief Deputy Wayne Dahl and Blair Police Chief Kent Johnson — is likely to decide the office.
Sheriff’s race
Both candidates in the Aug. 11 primary applied for this job once already, in writing, last fall. Their application files — obtained by the Pioneer under the open records law — make two very different arguments for the same office.
Sheriff’s race
The Blair police chief spent weeks denying he would shut off the county’s license-plate readers on day one. In a video posted to his campaign page, he says the denial was wrong and the cameras would come down — leaving him the only candidate in the Aug. 11 primary who has said he would end the program.
Campaign finance
Wayne Dahl reported more than twice as much money as Sheriff Erica Koxlien. Almost none of it came from anyone but Wayne Dahl. Both reports contain errors under Wisconsin’s disclosure law, and neither one fully reconciles.