Even though his voice may be just above a whisper, which he warns his listeners the moment he starts, Tim Burns is fighting for the values held by citizens across Wisconsin. To promote his candidacy for the Wisconsin supreme court, Burns, with the help of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse’s College Democrats, visited the campus on Monday evening to speak to students about why their precious vote should be casted his way.

Burns, who is a leading attorney in the battle against large insurance companies, looks to stand up for Wisconsin’s working families.

“Everybody wants and deserves opportunities for themselves and their children,” Burns said. “In essence, that’s the main reason I’m running for the Wisconsin supreme court, because in the span of my adult life, since probably a couple years before the Ronald Reagan presidency, and certainly continuing the whole time after that, equal opportunity for the children, the people who struggle, the people like my parents has disappeared in our country and has been replaced by this system that Senator Sanders has quite rightly described as all of the income and wealth going towards the top one percent and the rest of us working longer and harder for less and less. Our supreme court is a huge part of the problem.”

“Courts have the final say in our country on almost every political issue,” he reminded the students. “We won’t be able to change this country without changing the courts.”

Burns blamed Wisconsin’s photo identification laws, which he hopes to change if elected, for Wisconsin’s electoral college votes going towards Donald Trump in the last presidential election. He is concerned by the president filling the supreme court with Republicans, which, according to Burns, limits the protection of reproductive choice, along with the rights of workers and voters. To battle against these hardships, citizens will need to look towards their state governments instead.

“I’m planning to vote for Tim Burns on Tuesday, Feb. 20, because, to me, his value stand with where my values stand, and he’s going to be a progressive voice on the court, which I agree with. I think that a lot of the issues the state supreme court deals with are way too important to pass this election up.” Stephanie Boebel, a member of the university’s College Democrats organization, said. “His values on equality and voter rights are something that really resonates with me, especially Wisconsin’s voter identification laws, those really affect students. For example, most people’s campus I.D., if you got issued them in 2016 are going to be expiring before the November midterms, so many students are being left without a photo I.D. Voter identification laws can really harm students and disenfranchise our votes, and that’s something that Tim Burns doesn’t support and hopes when elected to change.

“I so strongly disagree with the notion that [the vote] won’t count. So many people have marched and fought and have struggled for that right, and our success as a country, if we stood for anything, has been the idea that collectively we can govern ourselves and, on our better days, we can do that. We can’t do that if our fellow citizens sit home,” Burns commented on the resistance of some to cast their vote.

To learn more about how to vote, visit myvote.wi.gov. Voting for the Spring primary election, which will include Burns’ name on the ballot, will be conducted on Feb. 20. If living on campus, go to the Recreational Eagle Center to have a say in the election.