 Hello, welcome to the Donahue group. Glad you could join us for a half an hour of interesting conversation I just realized as we were taping our other episode that I forgot to introduce my fellow group members and A tragic sin so in any event I am going to introduce former state senator Cal Potter Professor of mathematics Tom Pineski social work person for the Wagon area school district An assessment specialist in social studies for the shabuigan area school district. Thank you and a member of the faculty It's shabuigan South High School. Very good Me I'm just a adjunct professor University, Wisconsin Green Bay. Very good. Oh, that's it It's truly there's more on your yes, but that's Vitae that you care to share with us Those are the highlights. All right, we should probably do this once a taping is just highlight one member You know just well never mind. I run far afield here I'm Mary Lynn Donahue and happy that you're here with us talking about state issues that might just segue a little bit into I Want to know who Tom Pineski's favorite Republican candidate for president is but hang on to it hang on I'm giving you I'm giving you a half an hour to think about it Dorset somebody That's right, I mean we could have somebody coming through the door here. You just never know On the state level we still don't have a budget and then it's beginning to Become something of an issue for all of those people who depend on the state budget including school districts and municipalities and Just on and on Interestingly enough the Wisconsin democracy campaign has pointed out that in the first six months of 2007 whilst all of our budget Bickering has been going on legislators and the governor have raised two point oh five million dollars in what they term Extravagant golf outings and so forth. It's been just a great time to be a legislator when the budget is In its various birthing that throws. I Think it stinks Cal what do you think I think it stinks? Very much stinks. I think that I mean I'm pretty calm and I always appreciate your well director I'm a member of Common Cause and Jay Hect who's a friend of mine His executive director does post regularly on their website the fundraisers that are coming up And it's just weekly. There's a list of all these different legislators and People who are impacted in state government by the budget process having fundraisers and it's really a shakedown at a time when people are Holding their breath and crossing your fingers that whatever they have in the budget Or whatever you want to get in the budget through the conference committee is they're successful in doing so and so it's the shakedown time to get Money's from those this and you know Jay Hect and Common Cause would say well This is the bidding time the high bidder gets the victory gets something in the budget And I think there's a lot of truth to that and I think it's a sad indictment On the political process because we just went through the scandal where we ended up with some legislators in jail And others who lost the election that there doesn't seem to be any shame here that you would think they would least Knock it off. You know say no less. We haven't done anything legislatively to present prevent budget raising or fundraising your budgets or Campaign financing or anything of substance in that area So they think that at least they would watch what they were doing But it doesn't seem to have changed anything and that's really sad and maybe it it shows that politicians have internalized that people don't pay a heck of a lot of attention to people in government and they can get Away with this type of behavior because there's no repercussion and maybe there's maybe there's some truth to that maybe we've got people so Politicians are so jaded and people have such a poor attitude towards politics and politicians that no matter what they do It doesn't surprise them so they continue to do these dumb things that are not Something that they should be doing. I don't know what it takes I mean to me and I believe a number of states have Legislated that there can be no fundraising during the budget debate time now That leaves a whole lot of other time at least when you don't have a government that can't apparently get to its budget but To me that's that's easy You can't have fundraisers. You can't be raising money. It's like the United Way Non-profit organizations that get money from the United Way generally don't fundraise during the United Way campaign and Everybody accepts that and it's a pretty rational and logical thing to do And I I am kind of flabbergasted that that no, I'm not I'm as jaded as I Why would I be surprised? Why would any of us be surprised but That that's that's the case, you know It concerns me about you know beyond the we've talked about this on and off throughout the years We've been sitting here. I would consider, you know Look the appearance of even the appearance of corruption, which I think really makes it difficult for people to respect the legislative processes Clearly somewhere down the line both sides are going to have to compromise and I think that's difficult enough given Different constituencies having different views of government services and what they consider appropriate levels of taxation I think you layer on to that the fact that on both sides and I count you know I speak as a member Compulsory in some sense a member of WEAC who spends a gobload of money I'm sure paying people to make sure that they don't give on state funding of the two-thirds formula I think it's really hard to get compromised when you're locked in by campaign contributions I mean, I don't know how you get out of that straight jacket. I mean it comes to the point I don't know why they'd want to be in that straight jacket. Exactly And now we have as we were talking just before we went on the air a proposal Stunning proposal. I forget the gentleman represented his name who wants to actually have the state lawmakers Turn over the decision of the budget to a binding neutral arbitrator I mean James Madison's got to be rolling over in his grave right about now someplace saying we have a group of legislators who Are paid are paid to find some kind of common ground and they can't they're actually going to abdicate it to a Neutral party now, of course, he'd still would have to constitutionally They still it I mean state constitutionally still would have to vote on that package and be interested to see how many people would Actually honor the arbitrator's decision once they actually saw it if it ever came to that But still I mean that just speaks volumes as to how dysfunctional state government's gotten I think hardline they're in that's why that person's probably yeah saying that they don't want to take off Manufacturers in commerce or we act or whether their constituency that might be Losing out through the vigorous compromise process that needs to take place because you're a very conservative assembly in a little bit more liberal Senate and it's going to be difficult to split the baby and a lot of these issues And it's not going to a lot of people aren't going to be happy when the compromises come Don't we talk about the health of the system when you have two parties? And so there is that process of debate and compromise and and and you don't have one party as we had from 2000 to 2006 nationally just able to do whatever it wants to do. There are no checks and balances but now we're in a position where Legislators don't remember what it is to compromise. They don't understand that that's part of the process that They live the pandering lives that on these soundbites and so forth well get real I can't Boy, I'm pure. I'm kind of being cow potter today Just kind of all charged up about it But it is disturbing to me that the the whole legislative process on every level just seems more and more corrupt I think part of the state pro challenge to you know, you talk about the lack of public outrage is You know on a national level as outrageous as that is at least there is a certain national media that sort of at least pays Somewhat attention to that but when you get to the state level When most people looking at their evening news and channel, you know, Milwaukee affiliates or Green Bay affiliates in the case of Sheboygan when was the last time you actually saw any any kind of sort of meaningful discussion on what's going on in the state Legislature on the 9 o'clock or 10 o'clock news. It's all body-bag journalism Bleeds it leads and I you know, I don't think I've seen on and I kind of bounce around the different channels At 10 o'clock and sometimes at 9 I don't see any discussion of the state budget I mean maybe 15 seconds 30 seconds. We're on the we're on to the you know, we found a body floating in the river And how's Britney Spears? Well, yeah, you know and and and so I don't and unless you really read the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel when they have an expose from time to time I mean if you listen to talk radio, I mean and on the Sheboygan level, it's all the national right-wing noise machine and Or again, and where would you get that state news? I mean WTMJ is and particularly speaking about those issues in a you know Informed manner where you see both sides of the debate. I I think it's hard for people to get information Beyond that we can't get a budget and now you could see what the game is being played now Is that now the governor? There's this little kabuki dance going on now even though the governor's no longer in the state at the moment is We're going to roll out every couple of days the implications of no budget a couple days ago It was well, you know medicare is going to be played with and then the republicans, you know respond. Well, okay now It's scare tactics And now, you know, there'll be well student scholarships So it was I think was brought up last week and they're being hung up on the university level And so there's this sort of And so I'm sympathetic to letting people know what that is what the consequences are But you had Jesse Jessica Doyle at South High School today for a half hour Promising kids of free public Education a college education if they keep a B average in a program It's not even funded yet and I find that you know, I understand the politics of that Let's promise all the kitties something and then the republicans look at they put coal in their stocking if it doesn't happen But you're already committing even more and I think it happens to be not a bad idea, but you can't Promise people benefits before you even have a budget So I got a feeling well somewhere along the way somebody's going to have to swallow hard I think in the governor's side and say well, maybe that project's got to put be put back in the Back in the bag where it belongs is we can't even agree on current state spending plus additional state spending Didn't just going back and I were spending a lot of time on this but When Gingrich and Clinton basically shut things down in when two thousand Who no wasn't two thousand it was 1995 I Was 95 90 it was after the house, so it'd be 95 probably the 94 by the cycle voters got really mad as I remember and I think that was the end of the Republican juggernaut the contract honor with America depending on your perspective and Maybe there will be that consequence there. I remember my wife and I were we were in there's more of a visual consequence Intelligent a and they there were a lot of things were closed Because the personnel weren't paid and so they were home Whereas in the state of Wisconsin the budget continues at last year's level So, you know the prison guards are working everybody is still yeah And so you don't have any crisis other than the fact that you know something like student Additional commitments of student scholarship for this year are not paid, right? So that's one of the problems that I think really got Gingrich in a box He didn't realize that people wanted these things to continue and operate and when they weren't they know who stopped the budget And that was Gingrich and not the president But you're right, you know, it's not going to be the visuals you'd see on television about schools shutting down and kids sitting in You know kids current you know parents crying because they can't send their kids to school You don't get your social security check, you know, yeah It's it's it's hard for the media to visually show people what that means because that's all the media is interested in on television Is what's visually I mean we got helicopters flying around just to watch a press conference in Chippewagon. I mean I mean we were Getting the school year there was a break-in over at Cleveland and we had Green Bay and Milwaukee Media We were just crawling with Green Bay and Milwaukee Media I think Chippewagon has become it was just a simple it was just a simple break-in and it wasn't like there was a Hostage situation or anything was just a bunch of kids were broken to us get into the school the day before and what it It's just that it's visual you can go and look at a broken window and you know flyer Bubble-headed bleach blonde in front of the room. Here it is the broken window I'm pretty you know, I just don't I'm pretty I'm pretty jaded about them. I'm pretty jaded about the media I've concurred that's what it is well in Chippewagon just now just it has this apparently there's a an Appleton radio station That has a feature every day like what's happening in Chippewagon Well, I think I think people are pretty good at use it Can't ground it so we got to fly at some place evidently and you know You only could do traffic reports at a certain time of the day We got lots of press releases about this that the other thing but in any event But but I still I don't it'll be interesting to see how this plays out because eventually when push come I mean you're going to have to have a budget and people are going to have to people are going to have to compromise and What will drive it? I think will be the property tax bills that have to be exactly that have to be published And so school aides and shared revenues and transportation aides need to be Finalized and so that means November probably at the latest right We are an orderly society after all as we should be Let's talk about the order in the supreme court Annette Ziegler Was your favorite justice? Hey Right well She's an attorney. She has to watch out. Yeah She made me argue a case one three four A little conflict of interest we actually do have supreme court justices who have to recuse themselves from any number of Disciplinary matters because they get campaign contributions from people and in the In these matters The justices can't vote and we may actually get a point in a point in time when They'll be so beholding to all their campaign contributors that they won't be able to make decisions We won't have a majority but in any event the Judicial commission, which is the first line of of discipline for for judges has determined that a reprimand for justice siglers and in In order and it is my understanding that the supreme court which will make an A final decision on that rather than having the body decide on it is actually appointing a A committee of judges to to ultimately make that decision. I don't know the details, but that certainly seems to be to be a reasonable Approach to it and a cautionary tale for judges who You know as time goes on and you get many many cases coming before you and It appears in justice siglers Circumstances she knew or should have known That these were fairly large cases that and her husband could At least arguably have some financial benefit But there are a lot of line they said clearly there was no benefit to any to her husband or anything From all these all the right There was no benefit. They argued that but they basically said that she should have known better She should have recused herself. Yeah, so it is an appearance of that. Yeah, right So it is a cautionary tale for for judges everywhere But the headlines that I or the the story that I love today Supreme court justice Annette Ziegler will spend the first six years of her tenure term on the court working for free The reason for that is she put in nearly 825,000 dollars of her own money into that campaign The she's get she gets paid 137,400 a year So the first six years she's just recouping what she spent on the election And I know and I have no idea how much Linda Clifford put into her own campaign But the plain fact of the matter is the the overall campaign cost 2.2 or 2.7 million dollars both campaigns together You have to be rich Either that or what many candidates have done over the years is they Give the campaign a loan And then after they're elected they go out and shake down special interest groups to replenish their campaign who then They get money reversed to themselves and I guess I don't know that that's been made illegal But that's over the years that has evolved into a mechanism for candidates to do those type of things I don't know if she's been put in a position where she says this is an outright gift or she Did couch it as a loan as a loan Oh, and I think I think that there's already one person who's declared against Lewis Butler And I can't remember who it is But a conservative person butler is certainly considered to be part of the the more progressive part of the the supreme court which typically tends to split on four three Votes on controversial issues, but you never know. I mean it's like the u.s supreme court They can make their decisions on the funniest little bits and pieces that that you might not normally think would be the deciding reason and and so you get various coalitions and so forth as things go on but um, I guess I'm just I just continue to be staggered by the amount of money that is involved And particularly with the court um, you obviously have to be out there hustling money the judge Or the candidate himself or herself is not doing that because the code of judicial ethics clearly states that Annette ziggler can't go out and say gee cal would you give me some money? It's Annette's campaign just a ziggler's campaign that goes out or linda cliford's campaign people who go out and do that but nonetheless You know why you're contributing Well, you read your own financial statements before they're submitted to the elections board or in this case the new new board And so you read who gave you what and how much and you know, so they're not naive They aren't they aren't although we do know that as you look over these financial lists contributors lists for all races supreme court The Doyle campaign is a case in point where you have contributors giving to to both sides And uh, you know hedging their bets. I mean talk about Absolutely just buying a position I mean you're not contributing to Doyle because you really think he's the best guy for the job And you know the one who can really do it or ziggler or whatever so I Again, I am not surprised. I would like to be but I'm not as to how those things play out So it'll be interesting to see apparently the chief justice is appointed Judge brown from our district court of appeals who's a Very fine judge in my opinion. I I really respect what we have a very good district here. I respect his work a lot And they're going to put three judges together to make recommendations to the court. So So it'll be interesting to see To see ultimately how that plays out Hard to say but in any event another Matter that is of great interest to me. I grew up basically on lake michigan on fourth street We used to go down to the rocky Rocky beach we called it was the clifton avenue beach, which is now closed My husband grew up literally on the sand, you know out the back door and you're you know in a sandpile We just took our son our younger son up to northland college in Ashland which the college about a mile from Schwamegan bay on on lake superior. We learned that lake superior has 30 quadrillion gallons of water I think lake michigan's a little smaller than that, but probably has some number of quadrillion gallons of water Right after a trillion I was going to say I don't even know how much that is. Yeah And uh national debt gets there now. I got a good joke about a brazilian But in any event and how much that is a thousand trillion is a quadrillion Yeah, okay Lake michigan in any event before I get completely Yeah by the math here Is losing 2.5 billion gallons of water a day Apparently based on some army corps of engineer misengineering in the st. Clair river That's what I've read. I don't know if that's true or not It seems to me that politically the great lakes are becoming a pretty big issue Lake superior is down a foot In the last year Just in the last year and I understand these cycles tend to come and go but like Warming trends, they're coming on a little more intently and not bouncing back like they used to Is this a an issue that That we sitting here in these very comfortable green chairs need to be worried about well, I think the scientists are telling us that On the oceans with the melting of the ice because the temperature is warming and you can debate how fast and How much is human and how much is other factors, but the fact is that the world is warming They're giving what polar bears 50 years or so Expected before extinction and they're saying that many of our coastlines are going to be inundated with water And one of the inland ramifications is going to be the lowering of lake and river levels And so the inland lakes are going to go down because they are still higher than The oceans and that as the temperature rises we're having evaporation So what you're saying is that engineering quirks and problems that drain water Inorientally faster are only going to exacerbate a problem. That's not only going to be one that Prevents us with less water for fishing and water for for drinking But it's also shipping that's going to be very negatively impacted and shaboying with its leisure boat fishing and milwaukee with its The ocean vessels that come in Chicago elsewhere are all going to have a difficult time with Lowered lake levels. So yeah, we ought to be concerned about it. It's economic. It's it's life Sustaining it's many different things to us and we have taken it for granted And I think too many people are still taking the Cal Thomas viewpoint that somehow man's activity of six and a half billion people And they're only where 170 years ago a billion people is not having any impact on climate And maybe global warming is a bad title for it But man's impact on the on the ecosystem and the climate and the water distribution is becoming Very very more rapid than we thought it was and we better pay attention to it And I think there's a yeah There's a recognition among the governors in the midwest and the lake great lake region that this is a an incredible natural resource an asset that needs to be managed and there's already you know sort of Discussions of you know being the old pack of fresh water and Discussions of maybe shipping it to places like Colorado in the southwest where water tables are Are not being replenished and wells have to be dug and aquifers are becoming less and less filled with water Simply because of the climate changes and because you're sticking millions and millions of retirees You know in these areas that really can't support a typical American lifestyle And so there's some discussion of the governor of michigan Won a federal uh court case where Absent congress because congress refuses or isn't capable of doing anything about this or reaching some sort of covenants So she went off and started to talk about how we're going to manage The lake michigan in her case and like here on i says i think And uh lake superior and she's inviting the other governors to take part in that that process so that this Is managed intelligently and respectfully so that the economy isn't Really harmed and people's lifestyles and health aren't harmed And you add a layer on top of that also, you know all sorts of invasive because you opened up to see we all sorts of invasive Animal and plant life that was never there before that's starting to crowd out that which was indigenous And there's some real discussion about creating more regulations about ships and when they traverse these areas And cleaning the bottoms to keep certain things out and there's going to be some expensive costs involved in doing that And i know that manufacturing is fighting some of that and understandably but And then just the conservation of the i resource i guess after every large rain when a huge amount of untreated sewages Discharged into lake michigan Scientifically with the thought that the lake can absorb it and so forth But if you want to go down to the lake and swim Well, you better take your e-coli tester along with you to make sure that the water is not contaminated It just seems to be a mismanagement of Of a huge resource i'm always pleased to say to people i live a block from the biggest lake in the united states the biggest freshwater lake in the united states and So not to take care of it seems to be kind of silly We've got one minute left. I know i always i always think about the Every other summer or something there's major floods So water just and texas just recently in that whole southwestern area has just been flooded for weeks and weeks Where's the big, you know cry for water? I mean they're just inundated they had too much and then Missouri usually floods and the mississippi changes its course every Ten years or something because of floods so nature it does Provide but sometimes in excess since you're talking we only have a few seconds left Who's my candidate? I don't have one I'll tell you it was it was initially meant romney Okay, but i'm having second thoughts. I think there may be a better candidate. I loved rudy juliani's comment But we gotta wrap up We'll keep talking about this. Thanks for joining us