Shelia R. Stubbs (born February 22, 1971) is an American politician, pastor, and former probation and parole agent. She is a Democratic member of the Wisconsin State Assembly, elected in 2018, representing the south and west parts of Madison, Wisconsin. She is also a member of the Dane County Board of Supervisors since 2006 and she is Dane County's first African American representative in the Wisconsin Legislature. From 2006 to 2020, Stubbs was the only African American to serve on the Board of Supervisors, however African American representation on the Board is increasing. Beginning in 2020, the Dane County Board of Supervisors installed four other African American supervisors in Anthony Gray (District 14, elected 2020), Teran Peterson (District 19, elected 2020), April Kigeya (District 15, elected 2022), and Dana Pellebon (District 33, elected 2022).^[2][3][4]

Background

Stubbs was born in Camden, Arkansas, but moved to Beloit, Wisconsin, as a child (Walter Knight, her uncle, served on Beloit's city council and its police and fire commission). She graduated from Beloit Memorial High School and attended Tougaloo College, earning a baccalaureate degree in political science. She went on to study at Mount Senario College, earning a second baccalaureate, in criminal justice management, and then earned a master's in management at Milwaukee's Cardinal Stritch University. She had worked for eight years as a probation and parole agent with the Wisconsin Department of Corrections before first being elected to the Dane County Board in 2006.^[5] She and her husband, Godfrey Stubbs, have one daughter. The Stubbs' are co-founders of End Time Ministries International Church in Madison. Her mother, Linda Hoskins, is a former president of the Madison chapter of the NAACP.

2018 race

Democratic incumbent Terese Berceau announced on February 2, 2018, that she would not be running for re-election from the 77th Assembly district, and Stubbs announced her own candidacy the same day. With the Democratic nomination tantamount to winning in this heavily-Democratic district, she acquired three opponents (and Berceau's endorsement). In the primary election, she achieved a plurality of fractionally under 50% of the votes, with 7,758 to Shabnam Lotfi's 5,611 (36%), John Imes' 1,222 (8%) and Mark Garthwaite's 968 (6%).^[6][7] Unopposed in the general election for the 2019–2020 Assembly term, Stubbs became the first African-American woman to represent a Dane County district in the legislature, and was the only African-American woman in the Assembly.^[8]

Police call

Stubbs's campaign attracted national news coverage when during her canvassing in a predominantly-white neighborhood, a call was made to the Madison Police Department reporting her and her family (she was with her daughter and mother) as "They are waiting for drugs at the local drug house — would like them moved along." (She did not announce the incident until after the primary.)^[9][10] An anonymous letter purporting to be from the person who made the call, and emphasizing "but I never called the police on you, on a woman of color in the neighborhood... I called on a car, not you" has been received by a local television station.^[11]

Electoral history