Tom Nelson

Thomas M. Nelson (born March 3, 1976) is an American public administrator and politician serving as the county executive of Outagamie County, Wisconsin, since 2011.

Nelson was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on March 3, 1976, to Steven and Marjorie Nelson.

He spent his early years in Stockholm, Wisconsin, as his father moved around the state as a Lutheran Pastor At age four, he moved with his family to Combined Locks, Wisconsin, just outside of Appleton, where his father started Christ the King Lutheran Church.

Nelson graduated valedictorian from Little Chute High School in 1994 and went on to earn his bachelor's degree from Carleton College in 1998.

He later received his MPA from Princeton University in 2004.

He was first elected to the Assembly in 2004, defeating Republican incumbent Becky Weber 51 percent to 49 percent.

He was the only Democrat to unseat an incumbent Republican in the Wisconsin legislative elections of 2004.

Nelson is a former member of the Wisconsin State Assembly representing the 5th Assembly district (northeastern Outagamie County, western Brown County, and Maple Grove in Shawano County) from 2005 to 2011.

When he took office on January 3, 2005, he was the youngest member of the state Assembly.

Nelson was assigned to the standing committees on health, insurance, rural development and transportation.

At the start of the 2005-06 session, Nelson was viewed as a top target in the 2006 election but GOP failed to recruit a strong challenger.

Nelson defeated Jim Reigel of Hobart 62 percent to 38 percent.

In the spring of 2007, the state of Wisconsin did not receive a waiver from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to continue SeniorCare, an affordable prescription drug program for low-income elderly.

Without a wavier the state would no longer have the authority nor the funding to continue the program.

At the time, approximately 104,000 were enrolled in the program.

Nelson organized a grassroots effort to save the program and lobbied for it in Washington, DC.

On May 2007, Senator Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold authored an amendment to emergency spending bill for the Iraq War to renew the waiver, which effectively saved the program and extended it through 2009.

Nelson along with other state leaders was credited with having successfully lobbied officials to continue the program.

He continued to work on this issue for the rest of his time in the legislature and as county executive.

“SeniorCare is good policy then, and its good policy now,” County Executive Nelson told a press conference in February of that year, referring to the ordeal of 2007.

Approximately 2700 residents of Outagamie County were enrolled in the program.

In May, the Joint Finance Committee which consists of members of both houses of the legislature and is responsible for marking up the executive budget, announced it would reject Walker’s proposal and continue funding SeniorCare.

Funding remained intact for the rest of the budget process and was adopted as part of the budget in July.

Nelson sought reelection again in 2008, beating Jim Steineke 64 percent to 34 percent.

Members of the Assembly Democratic caucus elected him Majority Leader on November 12, 2008, for the 2009–2010 session.

In August 2008, Nelson called for a special session of the state Assembly in response to the proposed closing of the Kimberly-NewPage paper mill.

The mill employed by 600 workers.

It was a particularly important development because NewPage was the largest employer in the village of 6,803 and the country was in the Great Recession and the number of unemployed rose by 592,000 in August alone.

Nelson authored a resolution that would call on NewPage to continue running the mill or sell it on the open market.

The legislature never convened and the resolution was not adopted.

A member of the Democratic Party, Nelson previously served in the Wisconsin State Assembly for six years, and was the Democratic majority leader for the 2009–2010 session.

He was a candidate in the 2022 Democratic primary election for the United States Senate, he withdrew from the race in late July and endorsed Mandela Barnes.

In 2010, Nelson announced that he was running for lieutenant governor of Wisconsin, rather than seeking re-election to the Assembly.

He gave up his position as Assembly majority leader to help Tom Barrett try to defeat Scott Walker.

Mordecai Lee, a UW-Milwaukee political scientist and former state senator said lieutenant governors could affect the outcome of the race.

“Normally I would say the lieutenant governor is an afterthought.

The mill was shut down on September 8 and was bought by Aim Demolition on June 7, 2011 which subsequently tore it down beginning April 2, 2012.

Nelson would work on another effort to save a mill later in his service as county executive (see Appleton Coated).

Again in 2015, the program’s future was uncertain because Governor Scott Walker did not fund SeniorCare in the 2015-2017 biennial budget.

Nelson was an unsuccessful candidate for United States House of Representatives in 2016 and for lieutenant governor in 2010.