John L. Merkt

John L. Merkt was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was a graduate of Marquette University High School. He attended Marquette University from 1964 to 1968 and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in secondary education, from the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse in 1971. He married his first wife, Nancy, in 1975. John was united in marriage to Nancy Callaway on November 21, 1992, in the Wisconsin State Assembly Chambers with 400 family and friends present to celebrate. Nancy Merkt died on May 18, 2023.

John Merkt was elected to the Wisconsin State Assembly in 1976 and served for over a decade. In 1995, in collaboration with then State Representative, State Supreme Court Justice David Prosser Jr. and Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson, John Merkt helped push the creation of Miller Park in Milwaukee.[3]

Among his other efforts, Merkt worked to toughen seatbelt legislation and raise the minimum drinking age, from 18 to 19, and later to 21. He also worked to tighten laws and penalties regarding the sale or possession of drugs, especially cocaine; including tripling the mandatory sentence from 12 months' incarceration to 36 months' incarceration for those found guilty of possession or sales of cocaine within 500 feet (150 m) of a school zone. He also wrote Wisconsin's Len Bias Law, which makes providing drugs that prove fatal to be considered manslaughter.

A longtime sufferer of lupus, Merkt died of congestive heart failure at his home on April 1, 2009.[4]