Rebecca Ann Kleefisch (née Reed; born August 7, 1975) is an American politician and former television reporter who served as the 44th Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin from 2011 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party, she was elected to the position on November 2, 2010, as the running mate of Governor Scott Walker; the pair narrowly lost reelection to a third term in 2018.
Kleefisch was a candidate in the 2022 Wisconsin gubernatorial election, but lost the Republican nomination to businessman Tim Michels in the August 9 primary.
Early life, education, and career
Rebecca Ann Reed was born in Pontiac, Michigan. Her family later relocated to Ohio, where she won the Miss Ohio Teen USA 1994 title. On August 16, 1994, she competed in the nationally televised Miss Teen USA 1994 pageant as Miss Ohio Teen USA in Biloxi, Mississippi, but did not place in the competition. Reed graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She was a reporter for WIFR-TV in Rockford, Illinois, and then was a reporter and later morning anchor for WISN-TV in Milwaukee, before leaving in 2004. Kleefisch formed her own company, Rebecca Kleefisch Enterprises and was a contributor to Charlie Sykes' program on WTMJ Radio in Milwaukee.
Kleefisch supports Wisconsin's 1849 abortion ban that went into effect in 2022 after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision by the United States Supreme Court eliminated the constitutional right to an abortion in the United States. The law bans abortion in all instances except to save the life of the mother. Kleefisch believes that abortion should be illegal in all other instances, including after rape or incest, or to protect the health of the mother. As lieutenant governor, she expressed support for the view that women who have become pregnant due to rape should "'turn lemons into lemonade'" by carrying their pregnancies to term.
In 2010, Kleefisch compared marrying a same-sex partner to marrying an animal or an inanimate object. In a radio interview, she said: "This is a slippery slope. In addition to that at what point are we going to be OK marrying inanimate objects? Can I marry this table or this, you know, clock? Can we marry dogs? This is ridiculous. And biblically, again, I'm going to go right back to my fundamental Christian beliefs [that] marriage is between one man and one woman".
She later apologized for her "poor choice of words".
In 2022, Kleefisch expressed support for same-sex marriage, saying: "I am in the same place that I would say as a vast majority of Wisconsinites and Americans are. My opinion has changed . . . gay marriage will be legal when I am governor of Wisconsin."
Kleefisch opposes the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and has supported efforts to repeal the legislation. She has called the ACA "an abomination."
Kleefisch criticized Wisconsin's progressive income tax system and has promised "transformational income tax reform" if she were to become governor. She suggested eliminating taxes on retirement income.
Kleefisch is open to paid family leave, saying "we need to make sure that moms and dads have time to bond with their babies. That's absolutely something that I would look at as governor."
In 2009, Kleefisch said that there is "no consensus that people have caused climate change."
In 2012, when she faced a recall election, Kleefisch criticized the recall process, arguing that it has become a "spectacle" and were designed only to recall officials guilty of grave wrongdoing, rather than used as a way to resolve policy disputes. In 2021, however, Kleefisch championed the recall election of four Mequon-Thiensville School District over policy disputes. In 2022, she proposed removing some election-related powers from the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission and transferring them to the state Department of Justice, headed by the elected state attorney general.
In 2020, she praised Donald Trump's trade policies, as well as his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. After Trump lost the 2020 presidential election and made false claims of fraud while refusing to concede, she defended Trump's false claims of fraud.
In 2021, she called for a ban on sanctuary cities, as well as a ban on the teaching of critical race theory in public schools.
Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin
Although Kleefisch's husband Joel had been a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly since being elected in 2004, Kleefisch's own first entry into politics began when she ran for Lieutenant Governor in 2010. During her Republican primary campaign, Scott Jensen was her strategist; she made appeals to conservative talk radio hosts and Tea Party groups, as well as social conservatives and the Christian right, circulating a flier saying that, if elected, she would be "relying on the wisdom and faith she has in Jesus." In the primary election, she defeated four rivals, including Brett Davis, who had support from the party establishment and was favored by Scott Walker, the Republican candidate for governor. In the November 2010 general election, she won election on a single ticket as Walker's running mate.
Kleefisch spent eight years as lieutenant governor under Walker. Along with Walker, Kleefisch played a major role in supporting and promoting the $3 billion incentive package to Foxconn.