Kelda Roys (D) Gubernatorial Candidate Questionnaire Answers
Full Name
Kelda Roys
Date
7/15/2026
jalen@keldaroys.com
Phone Number
6085754063
Office Sought:
Governor
Do you currently or have you previously held public office?
State Senate District 26 / State Assembly Representative, District 81 (2009-2013)
Is there any cannabis related legislation you have sponsored, co-sponsored, or publicly supported? Would you like to provide a brief statement about your stance on cannabis reform?
In 2009, my first term in the Assembly, I co-authored Assembly Bill 554/Senate Bill 368, to legalize medical marijuana. I sponsored the same bill in my second term as well. Throughout my career, I’ve always supported the legalization of medical and recreational cannabis. Most recently, I cosponsored Senate Bill 1045, comprehensive legislation to fully legalize, regulate, and tax cannabis use for adults in Wisconsin. Adults should be free to use marijuana without fear of prosecution. We need to stop using our criminal justice resources to prosecute and incarcerate people for cannabis. We can earn revenue, increase Wisconsin’s agricultural economy, and help stop the unequal enforcement that drives racial disparities in our criminal justice system. It’s time to legalize cannabis for recreational and medicinal use, and grow Wisconsin’s economy.
Do you think individual states should keep their laws in line with federal laws regarding the legalization of cannabis?
No
Do you support ending federal prohibition of cannabis?
Yes
Do you support regulating the HDC (hemp derived cannabinoid) market created under the Industrial Hemp Program / Federal Farm Bill?
Yes
If answered YES to the above question about regulating HDC’s, would you support the 2025-26 legislation Senate Bill 682 and Asseembly Bill 747, commonly known as the Testin/Kurtz HDC Reg Bill?
Yes
Do you support legalizing and regulating the responsible use of cannabis by adults in the state of Wisconsin?
Yes
Would you support a two year moratorium implementing any excise tax to evaluate true administration/regulation costs before automatically attaching an exise tax to a regulation program?
Unsure – I Have Questions
If you support an excise tax above and beyond what is needed to administer a regulation program, what percentage of excise tax do you feel is appropriate? Where do you think excise tax should be spent?
Do you think cannabis should be classified as a Schedule 1 drug?
No
Do you support medical use of cannabis in the State of Wisconsin?
Yes
If you support medical use of cannabis, do you also support patient’s rights to cultivate their own medicine or assign caregivers to do it for them?
Yes
Do you support decriminalization of cannabis in the State of Wisconsin?
Yes
Do you support automatic expungement of non-violent cannabis possession convictions?
Yes
Would you (join, support or not support) The Wisconsin Cannabis Caucus
Join
Is there anything that we have missed or that you would like more information on, please do not hesitate to ask. If you are interested in speaking with a stakeholder in the industry or participating in any election coverage events such as farm or production tours, webinars, zoom town halls or if you are willing to host a hemp cannabis specific event in your district, please provide additional information below:
It’s past time to legalize cannabis for both personal and medicinal use. This could be a significant benefit to Wisconsin’s economy, and help hundreds of small, growing, local businesses survive and thrive. It could have huge benefits for our economy, and especially for rural communities, farmers, and small businesses. For far too long, we have waged a failed war on drugs, using the criminal justice system to address the public health problem of substance use disorder. While many drugs are deadly and should not be available, cannabis is not among them. Adults should be free to use cannabis – not ticketed or imprisoned. We cannot afford to use our scarce public safety resources on enforcing laws that are unjust and unnecessary. A recent poll conducted by Marquette University confirmed that 59% of Wisconsinites think cannabis should be “fully legalized and regulated like alcohol.” Legalizing and regulating cannabis offers economic, medical, environmental, and social and criminal justice benefits. Criminalizing cannabis has contributed to Wisconsin’s shameful racial disparities. Wisconsin incarcerates a higher percentage of its African American population than any other state in the nation. When enforcement resources are directed towards communities of color, people of color are arrested, convicted, and imprisoned at higher rates than whites, even though there is overwhelming evidence that rates of drug use are the same for black and white people. While legalizing cannabis is far from enough to address Wisconsin’s unequal system of criminal justice, it is one important and easy step towards repairing it.
