 Welcome to the Donahue group. We're delighted that you can join us. Again, we're together for a half an hour's worth of discussion of topics of great and monumental interest. And we hope you enjoy our pitter pattern, our conversation. Our group tonight, Cal Potter, former state senator, Tom Pineski, professor of math at UW-Shabuigan. Ken Risto, I'm sorry. She's turning the nurse ratchet here on us. That's great. Former, right? Do you really want to know my title? Would you just tell us your title? My title this year, because it changes every year. With no change in pay, I might add. The Shabuigan press is what am I called? No, I'm a curriculum and assessment specialist in social studies. Curriculum and assessment? Next year, I will be the only curriculum and assessment specialist. All right, for the entire world. And so we're happy to see that. It's a heavy burden on my shoulders. My name is Mary Lynn Donahue, and I'm a lawyer here in town. Or nurse ratchet, as they call her lately. Keeping the insane asylum working. Well, there you go. And we're in fairly insane times. And part of that is at least some sanity, in my opinion, on the part of the jury in Madison to find Scott Jensen, guilty of, I believe, three felonies of misconduct in office, high crimes and misdemeanors, but actual felonies. In our last show, we had talked about what were the odds, because he was presenting an interesting defense, which is, boy, everybody was doing it. What's your problem? And at least, as far as I understood from reading the newspaper accounts, implicating at least half, at least half of the assembly. And assembly staffs in exactly that kind of behavior. We had talked that he might, at the toward the end, cop a plea of some kind, reach some sort of agreement, but no. And the jury was actually out for quite a long period of time. Those of us who do jury trials know that, as a prosecutor, the longer your jury is out, the more trouble you have. And so I had some concerns about the time going on and on and on, thinking maybe the defense would work. What do you think? Well, I was concerned, too, when the jury was out as long as they were. But after the decision was rendered, interviews with the jury really impressed me, the magnitude of the study that they did do while they were deliberating. They requested testimony from many, many people who had come before them. And they really did a good job of making sure that the decision they rendered is one that they were unfound footing with, and they did find them guilty. And we had predicted, I think, as you mentioned last time, that he'd probably cop a plea simply because it would barely come forth with a less sentence as a result of this. I mean, when you look at the other three now that have copped the plea, what they've gotten is fairly light sentence, really, considering what they were charged with. Now this judge just really has a burden because he's got a jury decision of three felony convictions. And what do you do now, as far as a punishment, compared to what Guwala was charged with originally, in rendering a sentence which will come down in May? And as I remember, Guwala was sentenced to nine months in jail with Huber release, so he can go out during the day and... And Burke was sort of at, what was it? Angle Braceless? Yeah, he was pretty much also arrested. Yeah, I think he was, he was fairly lenient in a way. So what does this judge do now that the jury has really clearly said, yeah, he screwed up, he misused public funds, he misused public employees, he's guilty of three felonies. Now does this judge say, well, I have to compare this to the other three? Or does he really throw the book at Mr. Jensen? Yeah, well, and at least on the federal level where there are certain, some would say draconian sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimum sentences, but I think in the federal system he'd be going to prison. I don't think there would be much question of that. And so it will be interesting to see what the judge does do with it. I have to think there's some prison time here as opposed to jail time. Prison in the Department of Corrections, and I can tell you there's no Huber law release privileges. And I think that will be, it should be a signal that we can't do business like we used to. What do you think in terms of the, I just followed this with great interest and a number of the editorials and news reports and so forth columns seem to indicate that the, how can legislative politics get healthy again was the title of one of the columns. Another one, after Jensen, the crisis remains, that was an editorial of the Wisconsin State Journal saying that John Gard certainly has not disavowed Jensen's, well obviously the specific issues have been disavowed, but he could not bring himself to suggest that a convicted legislator might want to consider giving up committee assignments that continue to put him in a position to abuse the public trust. Gard said it's too early to know exactly all that stuff. I'm not going down that road. And among the four of us here, representing all sorts of different political views, it just doesn't seem like, I mean the most obvious problems are cured, one would assume, but I mean, has trust in Wisconsin government been restored? Is there a different way of doing business? I don't have any problem with the sentence. I mean one of the jurors said it was the volume, I guess he, at least the juror that I heard, I mean no one current, no one event was the major cause. It was just that there was an accumulation of a lot of little missteps and everything else which shows a disregard for the campaign finance law or whatever it is, and so he's convicted. And if everybody else does it, maybe that'll, they're just saying thank you for it's not me, I'm not on the stand and being reviewed by the same jury. So maybe they'll change their habits. And so Jensen is the fall guy. Tell you were there. Well I think Guard's behavior during this whole thing just shows that the money machine is still in place and they may just be more careful as to whose phones they use and whose office they use and whose staff is taking vacation when they're doing what they're doing, but they're still running a money machine that shakes down special interests for big bucks to run for public office. And in this case Guard is running for Congress so he needs bigger bucks than he needed to run for the state legislature. So he's got some of what of his own behind to cover here because he needs to raise millions of bucks to run a congressional campaign. So we need campaign finance reform. That's what we need. It really, it is the bottom line but I remember Jensen's testimony or part of that theory was is that you could not tell when campaigning stopped and legislating started. That people worked hard but that the whole process was so intermixed and it was hand in hand together that you couldn't separate it. You couldn't say gee when I go home tonight I'm gonna make my political calls, I'm gonna see what money I can raise and it was just the interlock was so tight but I think that you've hit the nail Cal and it's campaign finance reform. If we're gonna spend $28 million on this gubernatorial election people gotta be out there raising that. And you know. And I think his comments were just indicative of how entrenched and arrogant a lot of the politicians have become. I mean I obviously would know the difference between using a phone to raise money in your own office and using your home phone or making the call at home versus making the call out of your office or asking your secretary or one of your aides to go do something political at two o'clock in the afternoon versus six o'clock or seven o'clock at night. There is a line that has been crossed here and I think the entrenchment of those type of activities was so great that the time and money and place and being respectful of the institution of government became so blurred that that's why these comments I think were made. Is it more difficult a line between constituency service and the sort of things we normally expect our elected representatives to do and raising campaign funds? Sure. Is that line. More blurry or about the same as campaigning and doing legislating which I kind of separate the two legislating the law writing as opposed to constituent service. Well I think there's a line. I think I've been out of it a while now and I didn't have to raise a million dollars for a state senate campaign. My last race cost me $44,000 so and I was a little spender at that time but so I never had to shake down a lot of people. I could do chicken dinners and that type of thing on a very local level and raise $44,000 in right letters to my friends and other people and get the money. But when you start talking about millions of dollars yeah there's a melding there of you need to get a check from a special interest group of 20 or $30,000 you may then start as Kuala was doing saying well do you want to play ball and here's what's going to be happening to your legislation if you do this and so I think the lines were crossed and in many it was not only the institution of using the state capital and the state phones and the state employees but also the you give us this and I'll give you this started getting in and as Mary-Lynn has mentioned it all gets to be when you start rating one million or 10 million or 20 million or whatever you have to raise you start getting into activities that are more strong armed, more pointed and eventually really illegal to get that type of money. Let me ask you this those of us who pay attention to politics I think we're kind of fascinated by everything that was going on did we see any outrage on the part of Wisconsin citizens in general about how this had happened to our clean post-lifalit government? And I think that's why the legislature doesn't do anything I mean no public financing bill advanced in the legislature. That's true. And why? Because I don't think they see their constituents probably say a pox in all their houses Democrats, Republicans alike all politicians and if that's the case where's the constituency to say if they don't take this up to some there's hell to pay at the election time there isn't, doesn't appear to be at least. There really doesn't. I'm not getting that sense at all either it's almost as if we walk around and sort of as voters as citizens we at one level expect government to be honest but we're not at least bit surprised when it's corrupt and because we're not surprised we're not outraged and I think you're right I think that, I think Tom is right is that there's but the grace of God goes I you know and thank goodness and maybe and I'll be a little more careful and maybe a little less blatant about it for a while and hunker down till the next guy gets caught and sort of like speeding on the freeway you know you just sort of kind of stand out of the radar screen hope you're not the one that gets pulled over by the state patrol. Right. As a prosecutor of traffic offenses I can tell you the number of people who came yet come in and say but everybody was going as fast as I was is typically blue by me just a minute ago yeah that's right typically not a defense that I or judges pay a whole lot of attention to and yet and it seems to me when we think about all the money that gets raised what does it get used for? It gets used for pretty manipulative uninformative television commercials. Right. Right? It's morning in America and you you know wave a flag or play a nice song and this that and the other thing I mean there's some other campaign activities ads appear in newspapers and yard signs although the bigger the campaign and the farther away from the hometown the less you see of that but all these millions and millions and millions of dollars go to TV ads that do not inform the electorate in fact they seem bent on misinforming and that's even more irritating so that we have this corrupt system to raise $20 million for the governor's race so that we're all subjected to $20 million worth of bad TV commercials. Well I mean but don't they have offices in various cities and they have to staff them and they have to have phone banks and they certainly want to pay people to well not maybe these are volunteers but then they provide them food and lunch and so there are some legitimate where I mean legitimacy where the money goes. I mean they're lately I'm not even talking to a tell to a person when they pick up the telephone. Oh I know it's a it's a tape recording. I'm actually talking to George Bush in the last presidential election he's actually calling my house. Yeah. That's right. That kind of sets you back doesn't a little bit. You know. Whoa. That's true. What did I do? I'm sorry. Did it talk to you? Yeah. Yeah. But he that's and what we're also finding out is that if both sides are raised in 20 million dollars and they're both throwing a lot a lot of you know negative campaign ads and I know that's either beholder I suppose but pretty much people didn't end up just throwing their hands up and saying I can't I can't make heizer's tails out of any of this stuff about who's lying about what and whom and they just walk away even more frustrated and more cynical about the process. Pay really less attention to the real what the issue practically really is. I'll never forget the first time I saw the Swift boat ad and I think we were on vacation some place or I was in a I remember being in a motel room and sitting and watching this ad and I turned to my husband and I said that's it. Carrie's done. And it was. He never ever got back and you know it took him three weeks to respond to it and you know say what you I mean it was it was a powerful ad that did not advance the public discourse to put it mildly in my opinion but these are powerful things you know these powerful images that are created and and it leads us to a government that's just you know a mile wide and maybe an eighth of an inch deep and and it's it's pretty discouraging from my perspective. And it worked but it works in another way similar way but in another otter kind of way you remember Russ Fingal's first you know first campaign where you had two people it was in a primary situation we had two people just throwing all sorts of negative ads and and Russ comes on quite honestly and had a great ad campaign where he just basically stands around and you know that these I think these mash darkened mashed potatoes you know but I didn't know anything about what Russ Fingal stood for I didn't know what his positions were all I know is that he was the guy that I guess that wasn't throwing mud. Now I maybe should vote for a person on that basis maybe you shouldn't but I don't find that too an informed type of television either it was clever. I mean Russ's second one is you know here I'm going the fact that I remember it and all of you too tells you how powerful it is going to Green Bay going to Wisconsin well yeah it's brilliant in the sense that it was entertaining and amusing but the the plain fact of the matter is is I didn't find it all that informative about what what Russ voted for what he what his vision is for the next six years in the Wisconsin Senate. It's like who has the best Super Bowl commercial. Exactly you know and if your candidate comes out with a brilliant commercial like I know Wisconsin like the back of my hand. Sure. I mean I'm thrilled I'm delighted. Swift Boat Ad comes out. I am in dismay and absolutely convinced that the election is over and I was correct. You know Super Bowl commercials are one thing but electing you know powerful people to run the country. Well in any event getting down off the soap box does the elite the elite talking. No no I have to say I have to say we're on the field we're just you know in the last election I thought bronze I thought I thought Russ's ads were a little more informative and still very very visually interesting to look at. There was a number one where he was sitting in a crowd of people and his criticism of his opponents health care proposal was it didn't address the needs of large numbers of people and he kind of just stood up and said you know all of a sudden he just pops up and you know they got the message very quickly rightly again accurately or not accurately that at least there was a substantive policy discussion there or something that we could talk about. I think the English system and I don't know the details all I know it's very brief three weeks six weeks and I would like my proposal is we'll have as much free speech as you want but not on paid TV and you go six weeks and you put your position papers out there we'll invite all the candidates to come to the Donahue Group where they can in a learned and calm and respectful way lay out their agenda for the future and make our decisions that way. Face the fierce onslaught of our rapier like questions. There you go. Are you pro-choice or pro-life? OK, that's it. Or pro-funny. So in any event well moving right along because things are funny on the state level we have a couple of referenda coming up in the November election time just in time for the governor's race. I love it. One is the death penalty an advisory referendum on reinstituting the death penalty in Wisconsin which has not been in place I believe since 1853 when the spectacle of the whole process was convincing enough to the electorate to stop it. Of course coming hand in hand with the the Avery issue I at least was not surprised and also the gay marriage referendum question are both interesting. I think the death penalty won because of the context of the Avery Hallbach matter has some likes this time. I agree. Yeah, I just agree. I mean that was. It's pretty visceral. Yeah. Reading about it. I mean I read about it. I mean it was just yeah gruesome anything. Does he you know death penalty is warranted. It was just a gruesome kind of activity. It's really a shame that is coming and the push is coming at this time. I think the topic deserves a more cerebral look. One of the interesting aspects about the 1853 constitutional prohibition against death penalty came from the electorate and it came because people at that time were executed by public hanging and the hanging that got the people upset was I believe in Racina Kenosha and public square. The person who was being hung dangled from the rope for a very long period of time before they died and even the crowd who came there to observe this spectacle as a sort of sporting event I'm sure were so outraged in the newspapers then took off and had editorials saying this is barbaric that a society that purports to say the greatest crime is killing somebody and goes ahead under the public auspices of dangling somebody from a rope for so many minutes to watch them die. This is just that warranted or stop and it did stop by constitutional amendment and now we're seeing the steam trying to be generated to have an advisory referendum that have passed will then put pressure on legislators who previously were on the fence or had inhibitions about reinstituting the death penalty putting pressure on them saying see here against your constituents that passed an advisory referendum therefore you need to get on board and pass this constitutional amendment to reinstall the death penalty. If memory serves me right Governor Doyle as opposed to the death penalty is this a clever ploy on the part of Republicans Tom do you think to put him on the spot in a why not? It's not the meeting right? Yeah. Tell us what you know. Sounds like a good ploy to me. If you're if he's not for the death penalty and I am well then why should I vote for him? Why not? I mean that's politics and I you know like you just said the citizens and the local people rose up against the death penalty back in 1853 was it did you say? Well the citizens could rise up again and say I think we need to reinstitute it and that would again be legit. The citizens have a voice and making decisions about what goes on in their state. It would be nice to have a as as Cal pointed out a more cerebral discussion about what's involved. Well what's involved in killing somebody? I mean when you kill somebody in 1853 it was there for everyone to see. Today by lethal injection or in some states still by electrocution it is done with the witnesses of the warden or a few people it's cloistered away no news media. People don't know what goes into this barbaric act of killing another human being. Human being. And that's one of the things that I don't think will enter this debate because it is so sheltered. I'm strongly opposed to it for a number of reasons. One I don't think a society that says murder is bad ought to get in the business of killing somebody. Another reason is people say it saves money. Well actually to build death roll maintain death roll pay for all the appeals there isn't a lot of savings net savings than keeping somebody locked up. But and also there another thing a lot of people don't realize is that there's probably been what is a 30 some people over a certain number of years that were found subsequently to have been killed executed when they were actually innocent. And we're also there also been some convictions where the person who they purported to have been had been killed has found shown up later to be still be alive. So there are a number of instances where the justice system has not been perfect. And I don't see that as getting any any more pure and perfected to warrant re-instituting of the death penalty in my opinion. And I would pile on. OK. I'd had a fourth. And that is those people who are executed across this country are people of color and people who are poor or mentally retarded or mentally diminished. Now the court may or may not we don't know what the where the court is going to go on that issue the Supreme Court. And so when you start seeing the when you start seeing the discriminatory effects of that of that program that that that makes me nervous. And I know that there's there's studies in either side about the deterrent effect. I think it's odd that if we really want this thing to be deterrent that we should go back to public hangings again or public that's much public hangings. But you know let's strap the gurney out in the middle of Madison and let's have this televised. I'm sure Fox and other I'm sure Fox and the other channels will cover it because it's nothing like just everything else we've seen on TV. It's blood and gore. It bleeds and leads and let people actually see this execution for what it is if it's going to be deterrent. I mean I mean I hide it behind. I sort of not. But does anybody really believe that Avery was if he's if he's guilty of what it is he's charged. He's you know allegedly does anybody really believe in their heart of hearts that he did this mental calculation in his head about well listen if I really get caught doing this I'm going to be probably excellent. Oh wait a minute I can get I'll do this in Wisconsin because it's only going to be life. Most people most people don't really go through those calculations deciding whether to take a homicide or not. I mean we wish people were that rational. Well and we wish that there is at least some rational discussion back and forth as to the pros and cons and and so that at least does not become pandering or ploy. But that we actually have viewed as the cure all I think things that I brought up with innocent being executed or the discriminatory nature of it. I mean an OG Simpson of the world who has resources to hire the best lawyer will not die a cloister van Bielow will never die. Those people will never die. And if that's all exposed and we get a decent ruling by the electorate that's informed I think that's that's what we should strive for and neither will Tom delay. How did that guy win that time here. But that's for another day. There you go. Successfully spun as a loyalty test. There you go. We only have just a little bit of time to cover a bunch of other issues. The attorney generals race entered the Sheboygan County the Sheboygan County bar association hosted three of the actual candidates and Peg Lauten Schlager is one of her deputies was was here. I was not able to attend that bar meeting but I understand that the discussion was lively. Time is short but do you think Peg Lauten Schlager gets through the primary against Kathleen Falk. Well I only know what I read in the paper and I know that the drunk driving conviction was very heavily played upon by her opponents and I think it depends probably how visible that is in the people's mind when they go to vote. I think they're forgiving to a point but they also expect that the chief justice officer of the state to to not be involved in crimes and being convicted of crime is so I think it depends probably how much that issue is is played. I mean otherwise Peg is done I think a good job in her job I mean she has she's a she's a good person she works hard she made a mistake how many people will forgive her for that mistake I think depends on how visible that mistake is drawn out over months and before that election. How's Kathleen Falk I mean I've kind of noticed her a few years ago I kind of liked her. She's a pretty formidable character we only have a less than a minute left but you know she came in on that governor's race like gang busters and really got a lot of traction fairly quickly and so my question OK so I wanted to hear that so would Doyle like to run with Kathleen or would Doyle like to run with Loudon's Lager and I'm guessing it would be Kathleen. Clearly no love loss between Doyle and Loudon's Lager in any event and then then of course there's a problem of the drag on the ticket. We have so much to talk about we have to wrap it up but we're coming back so thanks very much.