Call to Action: Send Letter About AB377
- WAD Board
- 5 days ago
- 3 min read
Jenny shares an update on the Senate Hearing on March 3, 2026 about AB377
What you can do: Send a letter to the Senate Committee members and ask them to vote NO to AB377 using one of these two templates: https://docs.google.com/.../1wsWjJVUQSJnL2evi296U.../edit...
Be sure to follow the instructions and include your name and contact information in the letter/email.
Chair Senator Feyen
Vice-Chair Senator Kapenga
Senator Bradley
Senator Spreitzer
Senator Wirch
Co-Sponsors Senator Jacque and Senator Nass
Email to:
Video description: White woman wearing back shirt.
Transcript:
Jenny: Hello! I will share a quick update on the Senate Public Hearing on AB377. Perhaps you noticed that this is Assembly Bill 377 but a Senate Hearing. You saw that right. The current 2025-2026 legislative session is about to end. The senate is currently trying to vote on any Assembly bills that have passed so that they can become law. However for it to become law, both the Senate and Assembly must have the same language in their bills. Both have their own versions, but the Assembly had amendments me, so the Senate is using the Assembly version. They will need to vote the bill out of the committee and send it to the full Senate for consideration. Then the full Senate will vote on it. Then it will go to the Governor’s desk to be signed into law or vetoed. If it is vetoed, the bill goes back to the Senate and Assembly for an increased majority, I believe that is a two thirds (2/3) vote also known as 66%.
This past October the Assembly committee passed AB377 and sent it to the full Assembly, which was voted upon in January. It passed with a 51-45 vote. The bill is currently in the Senate with a committee. There are only 5 members in that committee, and will only require 3 votes in favor for it to advance to the full Senate. If it passes with the full Senate, it will be sent to the Governor’s office and we will then have to see what will happen with the bill. If it is vetoed and sent back to the Senate and Assembly, do they have enough votes to pass? We don’t know. We will keep an eye on this.
This past Tuesday (March 3rd) at the hearing, everyone in attendance was opposed to the bill due to concerns on the lack of readiness of AI Interpreting. AI technology is still new. AI is capable of transcribing spoken language, but to interpret is an entirely different thing. Many of the people present included representatives from ACLU, American Translators Association (ATA), Court Reporters Association, interpreting agency owners, interpreters. One of the attendees was an Interpreting agency owner, who is also an interpreter, speaks several languages, and has family members who use interpreting services. Then there were two of us, that I know of, who are deaf. The testimonies given by those of us were powerful. I am not certain whether our message got through to the committee. I say this because this past fall the Assembly committee held a hearing and all testimonies were against the bill, and yet the committee voted for the bill, and the full Assembly passed the bill. Not one person supported the bill. Lobbyists were also in opposition. Community members were in opposition. That means the Assembly voted against the interests of the community. We saw the same opposition this past Tuesday through the testimony and those who attended were all registered in opposition. We will have to see how the committee votes on the bill.
What can you do? You can email, call, and or write a letter to the Committee Chair Senator Feyen and the committee members included in this post. In your letter share that you oppose the bill because it can be harmful to interpreting agency businesses here in Wisconsin, our deaf community me,hers, and other spoken language users, because AI Interpreting is not ready. This is a serious concern for us.
Thank you!
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