 Welcome to the Donahue Group. Delighted you could join us. We have a great half hour of conversation about state issues that will knock your socks off and or at least keep them on because it's awfully cold today and I guess we need all the warmth we can get. I wanna welcome my fellow panelists, Ken Risto, mouthy but humble, social studies teacher. Really just pretty mouthy but there you go. Tom Paneski with a cheerful smile and a wonderful red sweater. Professor of Mathematics at University of Wisconsin Sheboygan Campus. It's like a smothered brothers' routine. You like Tom Best? I really do. And Cal Potter, former state senator, former assistant superintendent of public education and library division. Overall thoughtful guy who really is the passion on the show, believe it or not. You would think that somebody mouthier might be but not so much. So I'm MaryLynn Donahue. Oh we don't ride with a pecking horn going. Before I lose track. Tremendous, fantastic, mouthy, mouthy, okay. Before I lose track and forget my name, I'm MaryLynn Donahue and lawyer with a humble law firm, Hop Newman Humkey, recently relocated 2124 Collar Memorial Drive. They weren't evicted were they? We really were not but it's interesting moving from downtown which I loved to not downtown which has its advantages, clear advantages but I miss being down, I miss the library. Just walking to the library and walking back. You can't sleep this late anymore. You have to drive further now. There you go, it's a mile and a half instead of a half a mile so but in any event. We're here to talk about state issues and there's a lot to talk about. Just in the news today, M&I Bank, the largest bank in Wisconsin posted a huge quarterly loss at the end of 2008. They are going to be laying off a large number of people. Their stock price is tanked so I think it is kind of a sign of the times. I think it's still a very sound bank. I mean, I don't think there's any question about its financial stability but even the good guys are going down these days and JP Morgan is, well, in any event, it's not the cheeriest scene. In the context of, as my mom used to call it, hell in a handbasket, we're looking at a 5.4 billion dollar deficit at the state level. Now I understand that's 5.4 represents what people would like and it's not the actual working deficit and I don't know if I understand that Cal year or our state guy. It's two years, right? That's the two years. That's the two year budget. Okay. I know that Governor Doyle has gone with other governors to ask President-elect Obama for one trillion dollars, you know, sin boldly. How do we get out of this? Well, it's not the first time the state has had budgetary problems. A lot of those, not only is it the wish list of agencies but what you do is most of the budget, 75% of it is formulas. It's shared revenue formula. It's a school aid formula. It's transportation aids and so when you take a look at what the needs will be of districts, school districts, of municipalities and then you look at what you should do if you try to maintain that same commitment in those formulas and that does not mean however that you have to keep the formula. Like for example, two-thirds state pickup of schools, it's a nice commitment but if you shoot for 64% rather than 66% you can save some money there. Shared revenues historically even a certain percentage if you cut 2% there. So a number of these areas can be cut back. So when we talk about five billion, it's if you meet your, fully meet your formula commitments in most cases and one of the things that look at the red vest that we have next to it, Lee Dreyfus used to lament all the time how the state budget is really driven by formulas and it is and that's why I hear people often say, the state out of slash spending, well it's really, if you slash the formulas you actually, because 75% is formulas, you're gonna hurt municipalities and counties and so on in school districts. That's basically how the state operates. And so I think it's a doable situation, freezing state spending, freezing hiring, maybe hedge a little bit on some of the formulas. It can be done but it's not gonna be easy because of course that education today isn't any cheaper and running a county isn't any cheaper or municipalities isn't any cheaper. So they too have to then cut and so there is a ripple effect which can include layoffs on all levels of government and so it's not gonna be an easy task, it's not gonna be a pleasant task. So Democrats who've now controlled the legislature and the governor's office are coming in at a time where they can set the priorities but the whole mess is in their lap. It's not an enviable position. And it's the same at the national level. I mean, Helen a handbasket and here's your handbasket and what are you gonna do? We have all these levels of government and sometimes we lament the fact that we have too many levels of government and I think the governor, McCallum when he was acting governor wanted to do something about that and of course that was a kiss of death for him when he ran for reelection or when he ran for election but there's an opportunity now when you don't have any money, counties, towns, villages, you're gonna have to cooperate, you gotta do something. You're not gonna get what you got in the past. That's a possibility. I don't know if that'll come out that way but. And the other thing is that people have to realize that states are just a victim of this. It's when the times are good, the money's rolling but when the times are bad and you rely on a sales tax and income tax and a declining economy. And technically, strictly speaking, unlike the national government, the state can't really borrow money. They have ways of putting things offline and playing around a little bit with that but creating different accounts but for the most part, they really have to make some tough, tough decisions. The last recession, the big one we had was when. 80. Tony Earl was in office and Tony really did something that I don't think's maybe very easily done today, raised taxes. We went from a four to a 5% sales tax. I voted for that and I heard about it for a couple of elections after that but it was to a point where the 4% sales tax was not meeting your commitment for shared revenue and for school aides and so on and it was either you took a meet ax to those aid programs and we weren't picking up two thirds at that time. We were probably in the 40s percent state pickup for school aides and the only alternative was to raise the sales tax. And it became permanent. And those kinds of things aren't going to happen much anymore. Because this is a much more severe situation than we had at that time. That's true. So I do think the Democrats are going to have a hard time of it. And if I were in the Republican minority, I'd try to make everything I could out of the fact that it's the Democrats that are in charge. Whatever they put forth, that it's an opportunity for the Republicans to be a little vocal, make some hay, make some points, look wise because they don't have the votes. And it's time that they could look wise. So it's interesting. With that in mind, I was intrigued by an article in the journal Sentinel that county executive Scott Walker has refused to provide any guidance to the governor in terms of projects that the Milwaukee County could use money for that would be part of the Obama stimulus package. One of the things that I like maybe this is naive on my part, but if you're looking at a depression type economic stimulus and you're looking at improving the infrastructure. So, I mean, in the 30s, Roosevelt created the civilian conservation camps. Works progress, progress administration. And that kind of thing. I mean, the Obama piece of this seems to be a variation on that. Well, I think Milwaukee County, of all counties should be willing to participate in that. And Holloway, who I think is the president of the county board has done his own list, but I just don't think that's smart for Walker. I don't know. What do you think? I'm absolutely stunned given the needs of Milwaukee County and terms of transportation needs and infrastructure needs to, it's certainly not free money, but here's an opportunity to stimulate the economy, create jobs, give people employment and set the foundation for prosperity. And we talked about Roosevelt. I mean, and then later on, Eisenhower's investment in the interstate system, massive public works programs. And these are roads and bridges and highs we're using today. The County Courthouse in Sheboygan was the PWA, the successor. The post office. It's murals inside. Parts of urban middle school, Evergreen Park and the list goes on and on and I think even the Armory itself had some renovations done during that time. These are things that you know, you're just not raking leaves and digging holes, only have some of the group behind you bury them. These are, this is infrastructure that you're gonna have for 40 or 50 years. It's not like in America where we build a new sports facility every 10 years when the bucks want a new place to play. I mean, the public schools we have are 70, 80, 90 years old. These are, this is an opportunity, as bad as the situation is, this is an opportunity for us to really do some good things that lays the foundations for prosperity later. I just have no idea beyond scoring points with the right-wing talk radio show hosts down in WISN and so on, why Walker's doing this. I was stunned when I read that article. Well, and we'll see. I mean, we keep talking about, I mean, literally just manufacturing money. You know, of course, and this is, I mean, Reagan did this in the 1980 recession. You dramatically increase spending levels. I think we've learned that and it tends to work. It has some built-in inflationary tendencies, but by and large it tends to work. And I think improving, and I hadn't realized, yes, I mean, all these pieces of our community that are just, I mean, there's an article today in the paper about the 75th birthday of the post office and the murals as you indicated. I mean, these are long-lasting public infrastructure pieces that mean a lot to us. And I love going into the post office. I love going into the courthouse, which is a fabulously gorgeous building, at least the original parts of it. And so, yeah, it is, as we say, a puzzlement and we'll see how that resolves. Lots of other things going on in the state. We talked in our local show about the mayoral race. We didn't really touch now that I think of it on some aldermanic races, but at the state level, the Supreme Court race is just two. Two candidates, Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson is running for re-election, her third term, third full term. And... These are 10-year terms? They are 10-year terms. And then Jefferson County Judge Kosovic, I believe is the name, not well known, but neither was Judge Gabelman. Now, when he beat Justice Butler, and interestingly enough, as I understand it, the fellow who ran Gabelman's campaign is also going to be running the Jefferson County Judge's campaign. So, you question whether we're gonna have more of the hideous same thing that went on. You bet we are. It has worked. Exactly. That's right. It's worked. Well, the balance of the court has already changed. So, I think, you know, will WMC be willing to put in the kind of money that it did? Shirley Abrahamson is gonna be a whole lot harder, in my opinion, to knock off than Lewis Butler was. I mean, she is one tough cookie. That's right. And Chief Justice, so she's got the platform that she can tout her expertise from. I mean, I think when Sharon Rose took her on 10 years ago, I think the Chief had, I think 70 out of 72 sheriffs in the state endorse her. I mean, she has credentials and endorsements from all over the place. She is 76. I would hope, I would hope at 66 to have a tenth of the energy that she does. I mean, she's just the energizer bunny that she just keeps going. And of course we know nothing about the opponent, but we didn't know anything about Gabelman either. And so it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. I think that the Chief, though, will run a very dignified campaign. I mean, she certainly is going to respond to some of the idiocies that'll be thrown at her. There's gonna be no question about that. Eloquently. Eloquently and within, you know, of course, the independent groups, you know, you can't control what they're gonna say and what they're gonna do and we'll see how that works. But, you know, I just got the impression in speaking with her a couple of months back that, you know, she's fully anticipating having a really horrible campaign and she's fully anticipating, you know, she looked at me and said, I'm not gonna get down in the gutter with folks, but also if things are said that are just out and out as we found on the last campaign just inaccurate, she's, yeah, you're right, she's a tough, she's a very dignified person, but she's tough. But in 20 years, all her decisions can come under question. Oh, yeah. Some of the decisions. Sure. So that could be an issue. Sure. See, the question though is, is oftentimes when you're making a judicial ruling, you're standing up for the rule of law or you're standing up for due process, you're standing up for this little thing called the Bill of Rights. And when you do that, it gets translated into a commercial that you're opening up the jails and letting the prisoners run among us in society. And that's where I always, you know, my blood pressure starts rolling when I watch the television because there are times, you know, where you have to stand for the rule of law and in the process, we know full well that means that you may have to give, you know, someone who's been convicted another trial. And that's kind of lost in the public too. There is this perception that when judges reverse decisions and things, people go running free as opposed to normally they're, you know, missed trials and then trials are done again. And that's my issue with, I think, looking at her. And I think judges are very, very cognizant of that for these days. And of course, part of this comes back to, and this just segues very nicely into a piece that appeared in the Journal Sentinel a couple of days ago, the Judicial Commission, which is charged by the state to regulate judges' behavior. And I mean, that's where ethics complaints are filed and so forth. Did file a complaint against Justice Gabelman for the what they call an outright lie in that ad against Justice Butler about him springing a, you know, a sex fiend who then went out and molested a child. And I mean, it was just not true. And he had requested that the Commission, the Judicial Commission be barred from presenting its case to a special three panel, three judge panel that's looking at this. And the panel said, no, you know, we're gonna go and continue ahead. But I just thought that was very interesting. But then you get, and that's just the tough thing here, is that then you have the Supreme Court needing, as it did with Justice Sigler, they need to rule on their colleagues' behavior. And these are people that they work with. And it's a very, very tough situation, I think. And I think what the Chief is going to be pushing hard for, I think. But I think most of us can agree is that there should be state funding for Supreme Court races. And that there needs to be a way that that happens so that free speech rights are not denied. But that we just, we stop this. I mean... We're back to campaign finance again. I know it. We really... Don't tell you much to get there. For the judiciary, there are certainly lively arguments, I think, that can be made on both sides in terms of campaign finance reform in the legislature. But in the judiciary, what do we do when all of the justices have received contributions from people who are before them? And we don't have a majority of the Supreme Court that can even rule on a case. So you have three justices making a decision because four of them have had to recuse themselves because they've gotten money from this or this or this or this. What hasn't happened, has it? It's come close. Several of the cases. It has come close. And now the light, as a result of the Ziggler complaint, the light is shining very brightly on these campaign contributions. And the judges never ask for money. They never personally ask for money. They can't. And so you'll never have Justice Abraham, Abramson saying, give me money, but you have all sorts of people who say that on her behalf and all over the place. They like a person's judicial philosophy, so they wanna support that person's judicial philosophy. Right. And then the judiciary should just, it should be really nonpartisan and this kind of stuff just shouldn't go on. I mean, I don't think we're serving, we're not serving our communities well at all by doing this. Well, see, that's the Cal Potter soapbox. Said very well. It is. It is. I know what I for public opinion. I think on the way over here, I was driving on the way over to the taping here. They did make an announcement that the State Electoral Commission is going to require that at least these independent groups now publicly publish, publicly publish. They would have to, right? Disclose. Disclose where their money's coming from for these ads, we're in the past. I'm sure that will be litigated and who knows what decision will be after this. Do you think that that rule will be in place in time for the judicial? Well, I think it is in place. It's just a matter of whether it's gonna be challenged in some way or another. This is the ruling by the government accountability board, which consists of retired judges. It's in place. Okay. Government accountability board, thank you. Somebody can imagine, go to court and say this is a burgeonment of freedom of expression. That's what the basis of previous court cases has been. Right, exactly. You're not saying they can't contribute, you just have, you're saying, you just gotta make it. That's why I marvel at people who say that this is really bad public policy. So this is disclosure. Yeah, yeah. We're jumping around a little bit, but the state superintendent of education race is, we had a couple of candidates who had to just kind of claw their way in, get their nomination papers back and not doctor them up, but get them in better working order. And so I think there are six candidates running. Now that's not a high profile race. No, it isn't. Particularly this time because we don't have an incumbent the state superintendent, Burmester, after two terms has decided to retire and allow, I think, a very qualified candidate, in my opinion, Tony Ebers, who's a former student of mine at Plymouth High School. Is that right? Full disclosure. He's also a former boss of mine because he was picked as the deputy and I was an assistant superintendent. So I would see him every day in his office anyhow. And he, well, he's a native son of Sheboyin County. His dad, Doc Ebers, was the physician at Rocky Knoll when I was a sanitarian. Oh, is that right? Oh, okay. And his mother's in a nursing home in the county. So he does get back here periodically. So he is, I think he's the front runner being the deputy now and having run previously, he ran against John Benson and he ran against Libby Burmester and she was impressed with him enough that after the she won, she selected him as one of her former opponents to be in the deputies position. So that sounds kind of like an endorsement. Yeah, I think he's a very qualified person. He's served as a teacher, a principal, superintendent in several districts, common sense guy, nice fellow, bright, successful in spite of my teaching, am I getting it? Yeah. Yeah. And, but there are several others that have educational credentials. I think one of the candidates is a Marquette professor. There's another who's a superintendent of schools. There's a teacher running, but as far as endorsements, Tony Evers has already gotten the superintendents and the principals endorsement. I suspect he'll get WEAC. So I think when you deal with these spring elections where the voter turnout is low, once you get the principals and you get the superintendents and you get the school boards and you get the teachers, you've got a block of votes that's really in your corner that's very helpful. Exactly, and it doesn't take much sometimes to tip that balance. Well, thank you for that information. I think he's the candidate to beat in the race. I've met Tony a couple of times at a variety of different meetings or formats or conferences. Yeah, very eminently sensible, real sharp guy. So that primary will take place in February then? Is that it? Yes. Then go down, okay. So probably not as publicized as the Supreme Court race, but an important position nonetheless. Scott Jensen is back in the news. You may remember that his felony convictions for misconduct in office were overturned by the Court of Appeals and as you said, this doesn't mean that he gets to go scot-free and out romping around and caucusing again, but his pitch to the Court of Appeals was that his retrial should be in Waukesha County instead of Dane County and the Court of Appeals has recently ruled that no, the new trial will be in Dane County. He can certainly, excuse me, appeal that to the Supreme Court, hard to know what'll happen there, but he continues to duke it out. So yeah, and I think the trial court in that case probably did not make a very good decision in the initial matter. So the conviction was overturned. I think we're getting fairly close to the end of our show, but we just wanted to touch on a couple of other small things. Most of us here know Jamie Owlik. Jamie ran against Joe Libham for State Senate approaching four years ago, not quite three. I'm not sure when Joe's term is up. Well, we just had an election for assembly, so that's midterm. So it's two years ago. So it was two years ago. It feels longer ago. Yeah, I was gonna say two. I was gonna say two, yeah. In any event, Jamie is an incredibly nice young man, an Iraqi war veteran, and I met him when he was running against Libham, and a little naive at that time, not quite understanding what it meant to run against an icon, as it were. And, but he, Kevin Crawford, who is a very popular and energetic mayor of Manitowoc for 20 years, good guy, just a great guy, has decided to retire. So Jamie is in the race, and I guess there is a primary, and I know our listeners probably don't care a great deal about the Manitowoc mayor's race, but I wish... I feel within your name, I guess. People would know Jamie. I think he was a very personable young man. Yeah, and skilled. Yes. He was a bright guy. I think he has a master's degree. Well, he was elected County Clerk. I believe he was elected in the Manitowoc County. That's right. He served that for several years. Yeah, so kind of a good guy. And I just wanted briefly for you to talk about the lawmakers being forced to accept their raise of, I think it was 2.5%? Yeah, the $49,000 a year. Considered two thirds of full time. It's built, the salary is based on two thirds of a middle management position in state government. And the system of not voting on these raises is something that was put in place by many of us in the 1980s, when we would never be able to get the enough votes to have a pay raise. And you'd go several terms without any type of raise. And all of a sudden people saying, this is crazier. No, we're making such and such. Everybody else is making this as, here's what the Department of Labor or something says we should be getting. Here's what the other state workers are getting, the non-union people. We ought to have some type of increase. Well, nobody would vote for it because they're all pausing for holy pictures, you know, to their constituency. So they finally said, all right, let's put it into an independent panel based on middle management, two thirds of middle management, whatever they get as non-union employees is what legislators would get. And it worked well for years. Well, it's now gone into maybe a displeasure with some people, but I think it's still the best way to go. I agree. It's always hard when you're an elected official to raise your salary and kind of tough. We're coming to the end, and we're coming to the end in more than one ways because this is our last Donahue Group taping of state issues, and we just all wanted to say goodbye to all of you, our listeners. Ken Ristow said it was like seven or eight people, and I think it was more. But we've had a fine run of it. We've been here. One minute to go, she gets on there. Seven or eight thousand people, I think she meant that. I do have a personal fan club, a very nice lady. It's just one person, and she said she likes the clothes I wear, so I thought that was pretty nice, and I kept that letter, I'm telling you. But we want to thank all the folks that we've worked with out here. Channel 8 is really a fun place, and Scott and Carrie have been great. Steve and Fritz are loyal camera people, and Fritz, as I said before, are built-in laugh track, and so we've always enjoyed that. Watch Public Radio. I'm actually at the point where I have to agree with what Milton Storm wrote in a letter to the editor, which means that, and those are very diverse opinions, but calling attention to the fact that Charter has moved Channel 8 to channel something or other. Public television is an incredibly important piece of American, current American fabric, and we need people to support it, because anybody here in Sheboygan can have a TV show. We've had a great time of it. If you're thinking that you want to do it, you come out and try it. It's great fun, but we need to support our public television station, so with that, we bid everyone adieu, and who knows, maybe when Hillary Clinton is president of the United States, we'll come back and start the show up again. Thanks so much for listening.