 Hello, and thanks again for joining us at the Donahue group or with the Donahue group We're here for a fast-paced half hour of Conversation regarding all sorts of interesting things and as we discovered on the last show we never get off topic because Economic development joining me and being off task this show Kenristo curriculum and assessment specialist in the social studies area for the Sheboygan area school district Excellent. I did it perfect. There you go Tom Paneski a humble math professor at the University of Wisconsin Sheboygan campus Cal Potter former state senator former assistant superintendent of Libraries for the technology and community learning. Thank you Technology and community learning for the Department of Public Instruction me. I'm just a lawyer So in any event we're here to talk about some interesting state. We might even branch out into just some interesting national issues in the brief period of time that we have We're coming off a most most most interesting election Nobody was talking about at least that I heard about the Wisconsin State Senate shifting And if you look at the election returns the state assembly with just a few votes I'm going to go through my pile and just read a couple of assembly district results could have shifted fairly dramatically Why? Cal Tom Ken. Why wasn't anybody talking about the state Senate? As a whole I don't think well I thought a lot of I was not surprised the reason I wasn't surprised is because the some of the seats that were up were seats that were held by Democrats in the past the Racine seat for example the member that went went from Joe Stroll to p-tech And then to Kim plucky right then Republican now. It's back to Democrat again. So it's a district very much Slightly Democrat so that going back If you look at the the Eau Claire area Rod mone was defeated by this Fire chief I believe he was now he was defeated after one term So these are districts that had a potential To swing and have swung in the past and then the second point is that the Democrats were very elated by the well-known Nature of the candidates that they fielded and the quality and there were some very good people So it wasn't that they had anything to Don't work with they had people there who could fend for themselves against an incumbent and when they spoke Were impressive and the voters reacted positively. I mean in case of zine To me the guy was waiting to be defeated. I mean he Well he had over the years he made a life of a concealed carry and a few issues And I think eventually after I don't know how many years he had been in there eight or ten years It's what happened to be 12 He would be it would caught up to my think So I think the swing of three seats was was it was a potential that was there and with what what is even some of the Republican advisors said that Iraq meant about 5% on the national level to Republican losses So if that extrapolates in any way down the down the pipeline You can feel that some of these marginal Republican Democrat seats This should not have been that big of a surprise and in the assembly. There were a number of seats Where there were if the Democrats had had another two or three hundred votes there were any number of assembly seats that could have turned and Well, I think from my own perspective when you have the The legislative body and the executive branch all of the same party. There's mischief It's too much power. The checks and balances are really pretty sorry I think we saw that certainly on the national level and when one party is I mean, there's nothing wrong with partisan Governing they become fat cats and too comfortable Exactly taking care of themselves rather than people's business when it goes on for too long Yeah, and so I think to have to have a mix, you know, certainly makes some sense and so I think on the national level I sure like the mix and it'll be interesting because I It's just no good When one party is in power, you don't get that partisanship that if it's done right Leads to decent compromise and decent legislation being proposed and the process working better but in any event so the state Senate has gone from 14 Democrats to 18 Democrats Republicans from 19 down to 15 and then the assembly itself Five-volt pick up for Democrats They they did really much better They had 39 seats now. They've got 46 the Democrat the Republicans had 60 and now they have 52 and so it's It's it's a closer. It's a closer race. And so I think we'll all be the better for it We'll see a lot different in Dynamics now because the veto pen that the governor was wielding over the last couple years was something that he was He was the stop block now the state Senate can play that role in many cases So the role that the governor played and the criticisms that he got that somehow he was stopping things I think we'll we'll see a different approach to to legislation in this next session and Doyle showed I thought surprising strength I mean everyone said it was gonna be razor razor razor thin. Well, it wasn't 53 45 and then I think the green guy got Nelson I want to say no Yeah Nelson all great. No, no author, but I mean that just shows how we don't pay attention to third-party candidates But but he pulled a few votes. So I think Doyle did come out much better than than any of us really had expected and In part it may be your theory that green just held on to his wanting his $437,000 that the elections board took away from him. I don't know but I don't think green ever caught on I Think where he was strong Doyle was strong where he was weak Doyle was weak and you also had baggage that When he was in a Republican very strong Republican congressional district He could get away with voting for big oil Drug companies and whatever and when that started now being played statewide that this is how he voted There were people who were saying wait a minute. I believe we need more extensive stem cell research His votes and congress didn't Reflect that I think people Said we need health care and we need a better drug plan than we have his votes in congress didn't reflect that so I think He had he was close to a way in a congressional district where he could survive Probably any democratic challenge on those issues But statewide when you look at why people voted the way they did Iraq war was the major reason But there are people who are concerned about Their drug costs and their health care costs and stem cell research and a number of other issues that I think the Republicans just did not Reflect a more progressive viewpoint on some of those issues That they should have and it caught up with them. I think yeah The I think I think green I think Really didn't run a very coherent campaign Um The state wasn't in such a terrible mess that people were willing They had to have a pretty compelling reason to vote against oil. I think You know, I think some of the things that I thought green was going to latch on to Um, you know, again, whether they were distortions or were there accurate records, you know about tuition increases at at the uw system and those kinds of things I thought had some legs But it seemed like it was very scattered. I'm going to try to take some shots to see if something gets going here But there really wasn't a consistent message Um beyond You know, uh, Doyle being corrupt and by the time Doyle's team responded that ended up being a wash They were both portrayed as corrupt. They're both portrayed as that so there's no reason to throw that bomb out because I'm just putting another bomb in Yeah And then I think again to beat this old dead horse I think it's really tough to to call the other guy corrupt Even and you know and then talk about how I want 400 000 dollars of campaign contributions Most people didn't pay attention to all the history of what led to that decision and how partisan that may or may not have been All of that when they just see a politician with 400 000 dollars want, you know Laying around that they want to get their hands on and it just doesn't it just it seems just a little bit too Contradictory for most average folks walking down the street and some of the groups I think probably most played their cards I think the nra my newspaper one day came wrapped in a plastic bag Didn't said dumped Doyle. He doesn't like guns and They had big full page ads against Doyle because of his opposition to concealed carry Well, actually polls showed that 60 70 percent of the people didn't want concealed carry So, you know, you start beating up on somebody who who people felt had a reasonable approach to this I think he had friends that some groups that attacked them They couldn't overcome the fact that people thought he took a reasonable approach to some of these issues I think and I think you're right about the stem cell vote. And I think the michael j fox had really Changed some minds near the end. I think there was a little tipping point there I don't have any Well, I'm just the baggage from congress. Do you think so? Well that and and You're right the iraq war and let's say he never came out. He never stood out Never rose to the top. So I went to vote for green Let's just segue I made a point of Looking only at the ads that were on channel 12 between 6 30 and 7 in the morning when the tv set was on and Other than Doyle's ad with his two kids, which I thought was bad. That's very nice. Um And pretty heartfelt and that's when you knew that he was going to win. Yep. Yep You knew that because they must have had the polling data to show that they had a pretty comfortable lead because you're running Yeah, if you're running, you're running the you know me and the me and the kids and he's a great dad And you know, he's like fred McMurray and my three sons only one son short You see that and then you see you still see, you know green continuing to do the sort of attack ads You knew you knew that this election that's what I sat up and said, well, this is over These guys know what I but I don't even know Yeah, I kind of read the ads in the tenor of the ads and it gives you a sense of how desperate care how difficult campaigns are in Well, it leads to um, and I'm sure without much difficulty we could sit down and figure out how much the campaign cost Divide the number of divide the number of voters and and find out, you know, how much each vote cost and in one way or the other Both the journal sentinel and the sheboygan press on the day after two days after the election came out with editorials on Now is the time for campaign finance reform Jay heck had a piece in the sunday milwaukee journal sunday milwaukee journal Even before the election ellis and erpenbach came out with plans again or Indicated their desire to do real campaign finance reform. There's now a split legislature, which Gives you at least some play back and forth. Will it happen? Should it happen? What'll it look like? Can we go another two years or four years just with this same old stuff? I guess that's my question to To this first twilight panel here Or is it just so I don't I mean, I don't I don't get Hung up on the campaign finance reform issue. I Let people do it. Let them fight for campaign finance reform. I don't I think they tread on First amendment rights real easily when they start playing that game. So I don't I'd kind of stay away from campaign finance reform I think the record-setting amount spent in this gubernatorial race Will simply escalate further And what it means is that as the numbers get bigger bigger and double-digit millions means you shake down the special interest groups Even harder and earlier And that means you're more beholden to them. I don't care what anybody says When you're getting money from big oil or big drug companies or whoever it happened to be When a vote comes up and you've been given millions of dollars You'd have to be dumber in a box of rocks to think that you're not going to somehow give consideration to the group that gave you that money Well, I've been in the room I've been in the room. I sat and asked the legislators, you know, here's the 30 things that we act wants You know, what's your view is on them and we're scoring them. I mean, it's like a clipboard. I'm going yes, no, yes, no, yes, no, yes, no And they leave the room and you know, well, what do you think the message is is if you don't tell us what we want to hear Do you think we're going to give you any kind of endorsement to our membership? Or are you going to get any kind of money from the the political action committees of the association? All right, I'm sure I'm sure it's on the and you know, there's nobody saying if you do this, we're going to give this money Nobody's that dumb But that's that's that's the reality of it and I'm sure the wisconsin's association of manufacturers isn't doing it Any differently and those are the two biggest political action committee groups in the state with the casinos right behind um, remember we talked in past shows about the faith Of the wisconsin electorate and its legislature to do the right thing To do things for constituents instead of for naked self-interest is six percent Six percent of the people think that that legislators will so act so the other 94 percent do not There seems to be a disconnect between the the Is the cynicism so deep and so entrenched That people just think it can't be cured and so their interest in real campaign finance reform is Not that great Campaign finance reform is not going to cure human nature I think human nature is such like you said you're going to be beholden to somebody you're going to do what You think is best or what is you know, you're in the office. You want to keep your office Was bill proxmire beholden I remember and And now you got a unique individual in bill proxmire. Yeah, and herb coal herb coal. Yeah herb coal Yeah, he's got a lot of money. He can run his own campaign and yeah, so he doesn't have to be beholden to anybody I uh I think the electorate after every so often says well, I know people are going to Take advantage of the situation so we vote them out But doesn't it change the doesn't it change the dynamics though if if if uh, there's some sort of meaningful campaign finance Which includes public financing of campaigns, you know, we got to put that on the table I would think you got to get the money from someplace Unless you set up a situation where people are forced to accept very very small donations and they're forced to broaden their base And I think you'd almost have to have as a piece of it Uh a complete or a very severe limitation of outside force sources of money coming in and helping you I mean, doesn't that change the dynamics now? I'm listening to what my people in my district want as opposed to what Reac wants or what Wisconsin Association manufacturing wants. I mean, we're on the local level But what do you do with the george soros? I'll just give the democratic party, you know 20 million bucks from there Well, that's you know, I mean, what do you that is that? Yeah, I mean you have to have that if you want sure can I agree I agree that you're absolutely right if it's not a if it's not a meaningful package of you know Comprehensive reform you're just going to be shifting money and giving one team advantage over the other question Well, and I think that's what mccain feingold did In in many respects, but I'm you know, and I also think you're right that it giving the existing supreme court I'm not quite sure if a meaningful package like we're talking about is going to challenge He's going to survive a first amendment challenge. I think it's worth, you know finding out But I think you're absolutely right. I think the court will strike it down But personally I don't know why anybody Should be allowed to come into my congressional district or my senate state senatorial district And whether it be, you know a guy like george, you know, who's a liberal democrat or whether it be You know name your favorite, you know conservative who's throwing money around in any you know The money should only come from the from the the district From which I mean that's the way it should be crafted and the reporting laws should be immediate We have the technology to do that and the but the money produces Really stupid Results and the the money is used for television Advertisements that by their nature in order to be successful misrepresent dumb down Cloud and just in general bring down the the quality and the level of the political system Tell me those of you more learned that I in england is my understanding That campaign seasons are sharply limited. That's correct. It's six weeks or three weeks. Yes Okay, if you want to do campaign finance or not campaign reform strike finance Well, and then and then make the tv stations I mean if they're for every dollar that they receive an advertising income They're required to provide, you know a half an hour Well, not for every dollar, but if you see my point Which is that you provide free time to candidates and even some of the nutty ones, you know or the third party candidates that Deserve to be heard and whether they're the libertarians or the green party or Ed thompson or whoever it is is that you make everybody part of the debate I mean it's just There are different ways to approach it for the supreme court to say as it has in the past that That free speech and money are the same To me is is a distortion. I think a different court can certainly You know come to a different point of view. Well at the media stations the newspapers and the radio outlets and the tv offer free ad time They all do that. That's that's that's a cash cow They don't want to give that away. Yeah, there's a lot of no obviously that's the financial interest There's I mean you mean the advertising firms that create these these ads make huge amounts of money You know you've got lots of folks who benefit from the from the monster that's been created here But the timing on this issue is very important because the further we get down into the next session The more people have raised money that if they were were to enact reform becomes illegal cannot be used You got the green issue, you know, how can you transfer? Illegal money or whatever So you really need to do something quickly Yeah, well and there was strong support for the merger of the state ethics or the recreation of the state ethics board and the state elections board And so that may not be clearly unreasonable and I think ellis mike ellis always acts like he has nothing to lose And I don't think he does An urban bot comes from a pretty safe district and to bring that back And then the folks I remember in a previous program Railing against the people who had killed the bill in the assembly, but during their campaigns were Were all for it and how could the legislature have done that when in fact, you know, there was that cynicism You know, that was just so stunning and breathtaking to me But so senate bill one as it was called in those days. I don't think is It's not that revolutionary And maybe it's a small step forward I was interested in your comment that the republicans and democrats fielded good candidates And we've talked about, you know Just not having competitive races and that'll always I think to some extent be the case, but I mean there were genuinely competitive races As as we saw let's just go back a little bit and talk about the The one republican bright spot and it took an awfully long time to to come to to bear Van Hollen beating Kathleen Falk by pretty slim Pretty slim majority. In fact, I it's my understanding She would have been entitled to an automatic recount because it was less than one and a half percent Of the votes cast and so the cost would have been borne by the state And it took her a long time to decide and I'm sure it was a careful decision Your thoughts why did nobody knows who JB van Hollen is? Maybe not that many more people know who Kathleen Falk was Why did he win? Within democratic circles, I think she never did garner the votes of support that other democratic statewide candidates got. She's didn't get obviously what Cole got or Doyle got and People who have done analysis of that will look at places where there have been were democratic Strongholds like Dane county And say that She never did Endear herself to those who thought she never should have run against incumbent pig lot and shagger in the first place So you start You know saying she lost what by 9 000 votes I'm sure you can find 9 000 people out there Fond du Lac county where pig lot and shaggers from and maybe that whole area of six district where she ran in for Really recently for a congressional bid one time and Dane county That she just Couldn't pick up all the democratic votes that she needed to have in order to beat In a state that can go either way Uh be be the prosecutor who had some very hard hitting ads about her lack of prosecutorial Experience and things of that nature even though the attorney general Is an administrator. Yeah, it should not be prosecuting cases, but uh in any event. Yeah, that's exactly right And I don't think Falk I think Falk waited way too long to respond to those types of things And then when she did, um, I think it's hard for again unfairly probably I think it's hard for a woman to go negative And when she did it was rather late in the game and I I not quite sure that was the right response I think she waited too long to respond to some of the accusations about her Uh that she would be supporting or she did support when she was assistant attorney general frivolous lawsuits I think she could have substance until we responded to that and said looked in the camera and said You know, here's the kind of frivolous lawsuits we're talking about And lay out the case and say now if my attorney my opponent thinks that this is frivolous Then is that the kind of person you want for attorney general because that's what an attorney general does makes those kind of substantive decisions And actually never ever responded to that charge at all I mean on its merits and I think I'll I hate to say it, but I think a woman candidate comes off much more Uh appealing to the average voter if they do that Then just to sort of respond in kind saying well, he let off a murderer or something like that And now we get into a tit for tat about about that issue and and in the midst of that People still say well, she never prosecuted a case and she seems to be kind of weak on crime Yeah, I mean, I didn't know who Van Hollen was before Disselection I knew who Peg Lavin Schlager was because she's the attorney general So I really don't know why he won unless you know there's some That like you know cal says the democratic party who's Disappointed that uh Some of the members in the democratic party disappointed that Peg had a an opponent and that she got beat But maybe the crime issue that I do remember those ads Kathleen Falk is never prosecuted never those you know, I've done this I've done this is j.b. Van Hollen she Trying to time the bush too was particularly ineffective I thought there was one series of ads or one ad that they ran for a while where they say he's a bush nominee Bush nominated him to You know his his attorneys position and and they had a picture of him standing next to bush If you got a voting record like we talked about with mark green Maybe that flies if you got bush coming in and trying to raise money for you and you're standing next to him I'm sure van Hollen was on the stage somewhere, but I'm sure he was smart enough to stay outside the camera angle Yeah I thought that was particularly ineffective. What is falk's future? You know, she came out of the democratic gubernatorial primary four years ago pretty strong And she got in very very late came in third but a respectable third and and seemed to be a rising star and All tales being told seems to be doing a good job as dain county exec Two strikes and you're out cal. What do you think? I think she'll have a tough time doing another statewide race as a democrat because The wounds that are still there will take a while to heal. I mean she's I think got a niche that she can play in dain county, but I think she's going to have to go back and do some seriously serious defense mending amongst democrats in order to Be a winner on the ticket. Yeah Big challenges ahead for the legislature and the and the governor 1.6 billion dollar Revenue deficit being projected again I thought Balance budget at the election time and then after the election time. It's back to deficit. Well, this is for the future budget I think oh, I know I know Well the feds are cutting back on the feds on medical assistance medicaid are really taking the states to task and we have a population that needs that those dollars and That is just one of the big ticket items that they have to rest there Well, we often ask why in the world would you want to be a legislator? One of the reasons is is because if you don't take your sick days you can convert them into payments toward health insurance premiums This has just Really Kind of caught on fire in the last couple of days kind of but doesn't remind you of the tom aimant Um pension business I mean is this an issue that the that the voters are going to be really outraged about and take some steps to change Do you think or is it just one of those little flash fires that will that'll settle down? Well, the holidays are coming and Sugar plums You know, I don't think I think some people will always be concerned because uh people are cashing in for something You know, I think what was really uh infuriating people is Are these people not that sick? You know There was a kind of the article in the schmawki journal sentle gave the implication that people were out people were not there when they Should have been there and they should have had their sick days docked and and it wasn't it wasn't done That's what's going to get people. I think very angry because they're they're juke in the system and they're not playing by the rules There's lots of of public employees and I was even private employees that can take sick days and convert them into something You know, whether it be a cash stipend or what all state employees can Well, this state employee can't Well, and no, I mean no, I mean wisconsin. I mean that I worked for the university for 39 years here and I Never took a sick day. So I have a nice little You lose them or you lose them. I wasn't looking where to use them, but we're wrapping up We're wrapping up and we'll see where we go with this the next time we come back. Thanks for joining us