Waukesha County Executive Paul Farrow is documenting and sharing his cancer journey to help others while vowing to be at the state Capitol when the budget battle intensifies next year.
“I’ll say I didn’t plan on going as public,” Farrow told WISN’s “UpFront,” which is produced in partnership with WisPolitics. “But as soon as we got it, I said my job as a public servant is to always figure out how to teach, and my mom was always that way, how do you make things better for someone else?”
Farrow was diagnosed with Stage 4 mucinous adenocarcinoma, a rare cancer forming in the main components of mucus.
He’s the son of former GOP Lt. Gov. Margaret Farrow, a former state lawmaker and former chairman of the Republican Party of Wisconsin.
“When I first got diagnosed, it’s a rarity that you talk to three different governors in one day. Gov. Thompson, Gov. Walker and Gov. Evers all called me, and Gov. Evers said, ‘You know if there’s anything I can ever do to help you out,’ and I said, ‘Well I’m working on my budget,’ and he wasn’t very helpful with that,” Farrow said with a laugh. “But we’ve had some really good conversations, a lot of my former representatives and senators that I worked with have reached out.”
Farrow is still working between chemotherapy treatments and is scheduled for major surgery in the coming weeks.
And he vows to lobby for more local funding changes despite the big shared revenue package approved by Evers and the GOP Legislature in the two-year session now coming to an end. A new legislative session begins in January.
“We could go back two years when we talked about shared revenue,” said Farrow, who failed in his attempt to raise the county sales tax. “I was one of the few outspoken people saying this isn’t going to last more than a year-and-a-half, and everybody’s telling me a year-and-a-half we’re done. I mean, we’re back to square zero. Our challenge is as a county is we are the implementer of state operations, the public health things, health and human services. We take care of what the state mandates. The problem is the state doesn’t pay for everything that we need to take care of.”
Farrow said his biggest targets will be Republican leaders and members of the Joint Finance Committee, pushing for more local funding.
“The conversations that I have had so far have not been as productive as I hoped. How’s that for an answer?” he said. “But it’s one of those where I think there’s some opportunity. I know that there is a difference of opinion and how we should use 4 billion of our taxpayer dollars that are sitting idle. At least they’re gaining interest, but I think there’s some changes there, there’s some challenges that we can work through and see what we can negotiate.
“If I’ve got to take the bag I carry my pump in for 48 hours and walk up to the hill and show them I’m willing to fight not only for my own life but the county’s, I’m going to do that,” Farrow said with a smile. “You know you’ve got to pull a sympathy job every now and then, right?”
Also on the show, Republican strategist Bill McCoshen and Dem Joe Zepecki revealed their 2025 picks of who to watch in Washington and Wisconsin:
McCoshen in Washington — RFK Jr.: “I think there will be some dust-ups during the confirmation hearings because of some of the previous statements he’s made, but honestly as sort of a portly guy, I’m looking forward to less chemicals in our food.”
Zepecki in Washington – Pete Buttigieg: “He and his partner have moved to Michigan as opposed to Indiana. Gretchen Whitmer, the current governor, is term-limited. Does Pete Buttigieg run for governor in 2026 or does he gear up for a run at the White House in 2028?”
McCoshen in Wisconsin – Brad Schimel: “Republicans or conservatives didn’t run a very good race for Supreme Court a year ago against Janet Protasiewicz. Brad Schimel is a proven, tested statewide candidate.”
Zepecki in Wisconsin – Gov. Evers: “At the moment we don’t know what he’s going to do in 2026, and if he runs again there is more power in his negotiations with Republicans during this budget, and if he decides not to run, you have a lot of Democrats waiting in the wings.”
