 Welcome to the Donahue Group. We're delighted that you could join us for some really good conversation. We're all steamed up here about various election issues, and so, you know, there's a little energy running around the set, and I'm gonna start by introducing Ken Risto, a mere social studies teacher, but a rock, a rock at Shawigan South High School, guiding younger teachers, and doing a... A rock is probably a lot right, according to my critics. Doing a fine job. Also in education, Professor Tom Pineski, Mathematics Professor, Associate Dean at UW-Shawigan. Getting really steamed up here, and I just love it, you know, your cheeks get kinda red, and it's pretty sweet. Siding my tongue all the way. Former State Senator Cal Potter. We're gonna have a little Kleenex there for Cal so that when he bites through his tongue, you know he can at least sop up the blood. I'm Mary Lynn Downeyew. I'm a lawyer, usually, with O'Neill Cannon home into Young in Town, and so we're gonna get started on some state issues, and I just have a sense that we might morph into some role. Partisan remarks. You know, all I know is I rely on John Stewart for my news, and that seems to make me pretty smart these days. N.C. Channel, N.B.C. Channel, I mean, excuse me. Fair and balanced. That's the Fair and Balanced Challenge, right? That's the Fair and Balanced Challenge. Yeah, just put Bill O'Reilly together with whoever. I think that some of the more interesting news, and again, the voting problems for the State of Wisconsin, now governed by the Government Accountability Board, which is the merger of the State Elections Board and the State Ethics Board, governed by six, I think, retired judges. Now is being sued by our illustrious Attorney General, Mr. Van Hollen, and I think it's a brand new lawsuit and his basic... It's the only one in the country of its kind, so far. Right, and... No other State Attorney General has filed a lawsuit along these lines. Well, the grovement of his complaint, as far as I can tell, is that the database of the Department of Transportation is matched up against the database of our wonderful Accenture contract. You remember, we've talked for the years that we've been on this show about how Accenture has really messed up and poorly performed on its contract with the State of Wisconsin to get a decent voter list together. We've spent millions and millions of dollars. It's still not done. It's still not functional. It appears to be getting worse instead of better. But the DOT databases don't necessarily match up with the Accenture database, and therefore Van Hollen wants to suggest that there's all sorts of fraud and that this whole piece ought to get settled. I think the timing is lousy. I think the substance of the suit is lousy. It's based on my limited knowledge, but I'm interested in your thoughts. You want to let time go first, because I don't have a... It's the Republican Attorney General. Tell us what he's doing right. Well, see, I don't... What's... He's suing it because... Why is he suing me? They don't line up, but what's he asking? Yeah, there's about 20... What they're saying is that when you look at that Department of Transportation list, where we get our licenses or both types of information, and you look at the state voter registration list, about 20% of those names don't match. One out of five potential voters. So my name might not match, right? And in fact, some of the... In fact, I believe some of the actual folks on the Accountability Board, their names were red flagged. Right. And so the question is, the question is most people are pretty well convinced that the vast majority of those non-matches those non-matches is because somebody along the way and put it the wrong letter or somebody's got a middle initial wrong or there's street as ST as opposed to STREET. Okay, so that's the nuts and bolts. What is the suit about? I mean... Well, the suit is about that the state is not in compliance with the national law that at a certain point in the process that voter registration list has gotta certify that those folks are in fact registered and qualified voters. And so now that Wisconsin and there's other state, a couple of the states are in the same position because of the incompetence of the people that they hired, they've gone through that deadline. And so what Van Hollen is arguing is that Wisconsin's about to allow all sorts of unqualified voters to walk in their polls and vote, which means that you're potentially allowing Democrats or Republicans for that matter to challenge those votes come November. Now, one way out of that is to have... What relief could he have? What's the relief? I don't know. Well, the relief is that he might be asking that those people who don't match up have to cast provisional ballots and then they're gonna have to be hand checked one by one and confirmed, which means that if it's in a close election in Wisconsin and it probably will be, who knows between now and November what's gonna happen in terms of dynamics of this presidential election that Wisconsin's electoral, 10 electoral votes might be really up for grabs. And then of course, this is like Florida all over again because constitutionally, your electors in December have to cast those 10. Well, if we're still fighting through and challenging which one of these votes and which ones count, will Wisconsin have the opportunity to file those 10 electoral votes? Okay, and is it the suit in the state or in the federal court? It is not clear here. Oh, I'm sorry, it was filed in Dane County Circuit Court. I would say this would be clearly a state issue and not a federal issue. And okay. And so they've got some pretty smart judges in Dane County but the problem is is that he's done this 60 days prior to the election. And so it, I think this brings into sharp relief. I mean, we're taping here in September and McCain and Obama are literally neck and neck. This is 2000 again. But you're all, it's a big turnout and you've got the assembly races and you've got the state senate races. And if you challenge it on the presidential vote, I mean, it also carries down to the assembly race. What the attorney general of the state ought to be doing is saying, how can my staff be helpful in resolving this situation because it is not an example of voter fraud. It's an example of trying to keep track of one out of four people who move every year. They've inputted into the computer system old databases from elections that in Milwaukee and elsewhere where they don't have staff to keep them up. They don't purge dead people regularly because they don't have the staff. You got, like I said, particularly in inner city people, probably, you know, you hear, you being an education, you hear of teachers who literally don't have the same class at the end of the year that they had the first year because there's such mobility amongst poor folks. So those people, you know, they move plus, what is it, eight years before you renew your driver's license? So how, you know, like, 10 years is now. I know my preview, you know, addresses could be screwed up in some databases because I moved, you know, six years ago. And if you, you know, you've got all this logistical problems of inputting data and trying to keep it up for a million voters for a database that went online August 6th. I know, it's, it's, I mean, my sense is Van Hollen has a tiger by the tail here. And if he's not careful, it's just gonna come around and bite his head off. But it can be, I think he sees it as a useful tool. If it is close for the assembly, it's close for the president, these are all bases that he, you know, trying to check. But what if it's close for the Republicans? Yeah, well. I mean, we're taping at a point, and of course there's still two months away, but we're taping at a point when the McCain candidacy appears to be, to me at least, an ascendancy. And I mean, as we said before, Palin has certainly taken a fairly moribund campaign and breathed a whole lot of new life into it. All of a sudden it's great because all of a sudden a lot of men who really thought Hillary Clinton as a woman couldn't handle anything are now really confident that Sarah Palin can. So the sexism that had previously existed has now magically disappeared and I for one am grateful about that. But I mean, Wisconsin could easily go Republican and if Van Hollen, I mean Van Hollen's suit appears to me, at least to me, to be pretty politically based. It's not a problem solving technique, as you pointed out. In two months, we're asking the Dane County Circuit Court to fix something that hasn't been able to be fixed nationwide since 2000. But does the Circuit Court ask to fix it? I mean, that's what I, since they don't match, how do you resolve, you can't fix the physical, not match it. So do you enjoin people in the state of Wisconsin? You get somebody that doesn't match, the alternative is to provisional ballot? Provisional ballot. That's the alternative. So they'll have to rule the alternative. And if they don't rule the alternative, what other choice do they have? Just throw the suit out? I mean, supposedly they could do that. I mean, a judge has some equitable power to craft remedies that could hopefully address something. But a Circuit Court judge in two months cannot address what the state of Wisconsin, using millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars, can't address now. And hopefully, by the time of our next taping, there will have been some action on this. And we'll have read up on it a little bit more and can speak even smarter about it than we are right now. Interesting. It was a bad law from the federal government in the first place. It really was. Voting is something that the integrity thereof should be taken care of on a local level. Just like we take care of our schools, we make sure kids are educated. And if they aren't, we locally find out why the kid isn't in school. And voting should be handled in the same way. For some way that a database in Madison, Wisconsin is going to keep track of over a million people and whether they move or not. And say, because you moved one out of four people, you're prior to voting, you can't vote. I was saying, what a screwy idea that is. And I mean, we're trying. Potentially, again, 20%. So let's say you have a high voter turnout and you say you have a million votes cast, which is probably what's going to happen. One fifth means 200,000 provisional ballots will have to be somehow in some standard yet to be defined in a process yet to be defined are going to be confirmed such that the Secretary of State of Wisconsin can finally certify the election such that in the first, I'm sorry, I didn't walk in. What is it, the first Tuesday after the first Monday in December, the electors of Wisconsin have to cast their 10. That's a really narrow window. And so then you've got really the same sort of legal issues that you had. It's very similar legal issues you had in Bush v. Gore, which the Supreme Court said, by the way, is not precedent in the Senate, which is stunning to me in a whole other way. Well, of course, that's not true. But there again, they simply said, the clock is running. We've got to make a decision. And so we're going to make the decision. Well, then what does that mean? All provisional ballots count. What does that all mean? And this is, again, a really very, very, very interesting process that's going to have to be played out. To try to find a remedy, I mean, the federal government basically has said, well, you have to be in the resident 30 days, and you can vote. And then the fact that we have onsite voter registration, so you've got people moving in and out of the state living here 30 days, want to vote, go into the voting, want to register, how do you keep a database in Madison, Wisconsin, up to date without having some problems with so-called accuracy? And the flip side of it being that we regularly decry the fact that not anywhere near enough people vote. I mean, 4% of Shboyton County voters came out on September 9th. And obviously, there's some reasons for that, but 4%. Teeny, teeny, tiny. And I think in the Kerry Bush election, Wisconsin was up to 60, 65% turnout, which is huge. That's not huge. 60%. I mean, we should have 80%, 90% of folks coming out to vote. And so again, we're making the system more difficult, more corrupt, less user-friendly, much more expensive. Are you going to have 200,000 people sign affidavits in the month between the election and the electoral college vote? What was he thinking, I guess, is sort of my question. Well, I think he's thinking partisan politics. I mean, who are the ones that are not going to be meshing on the two databases? They're going to be poor people who move around. They're students who move around. People, students who all of a sudden decide they're going to vote in Madison because they've got an apartment there rather than voting back where mom and dad used to take them to vote. So those are the type of situations. And you know how those poor inner-city people vote and those university people vote. What their tendency is, and it's not of the party of the attorney general. Well, and sadly, poor people tend not to vote, which is another whole issue. We'll have more next time, and we'll see where we go. It'll be interesting to see what judges is assigned to the case. Settle down, Ken. Just settle down. I'm pumped. On a little higher level, let me just take the air right out of your sails. Senator Feingold has announced that he's launching an initiative designed to boost R&D research and development for small businesses. Is it for motherhood, too? So cynical. I'm against R&D for small businesses. I want that all to go to big corporations. We're going to have a substantive discussion about economic development in Wisconsin, whether you want to or not. OK. Good idea to have this initiative. I'm all for anybody against economic development in the set. I'm not. The initiative is dubbed now. See, I just feel like I can't even talk about this. E4, economy, employment, education, and energy. I think the education piece of it is pretty interesting. And it's a good deal for Wisconsin. So I'm not getting any takers on this, am I? Oh, no, no. Not one single one. No, I will, because now you accuse me of killing it. So I'll try to resuscitate these dead horses. I think not renewable energy as a source of employment is going to be one of the great waves of the future in the states that somehow figure out how to bring venture capital in the state, the mines in the state, and create those kinds of jobs are going to be winners, as well as pharmaceuticals. And Wisconsin already is a leader in stem cell research and genetic engineering. But those 21st century industries are going to be replacing the old smokestack industries that provided employment for our people. So to the degree that the real issue is, can government really help that process along? I think it can. And I think it should. I think it clearly did in the genetic engineering and those areas where Madison was clearly a leader. Well, we know where our strengths are. They're not in cheap labor. Cheap labor was in China, and now it's moving to places like Vietnam and Thailand. And they're moving out of China in some places in some urban areas where the wages have gotten too high. So we can't play that game, but we can utilize the University of Wisconsin and the technical college system that we have here to train people. And provide incentives for people to do their research and development and provide jobs in Wisconsin. And I think Obama's message is one that I think is long overdue. We have carte blanche that if you're in business, particularly if you're a big business, will give you tax breaks no matter whether you're doing your business in China or where. We ought to start looking at what we can do to encourage development and growth in Wisconsin. We are not a warm state. We're not a state that's got cheap labor. But we've got good education, and we've got good work ethic. And I think we ought to look at the tax code and other things to target that. I find it absolutely ridiculous for us to have not had some of these criteria to try to encourage growth and development in our own country and particularly in our own state. So I missed the, to encourage growth of big business or business, you tax them. Is that what you were saying? No, you give them tax breaks. Oh, OK. You give them targeted breaks when they do their work. Because R&D is expensive, and there's no return unless they find something. It's just money poured down a hole for a while, and they keep going R&D, R&D. And until you find something that they can make a profit on, that's money. So they need the tax breaks. Well, and of course, corporations in Wisconsin do get huge tax breaks and constitute now a pretty tiny percentage of the taxes that the state of Wisconsin receives. The percentage, I think, has gone from about 23% down to 3%. So actually, for businesses, Wisconsin is not necessarily a tax hell. It's actually kind of a tax heaven. But I think it speaks to what I really do think is a changing idea of the relationship between business and government. And the old traditional Republican model would be governments stay away from us. Now, I think there's a partnership there that is pretty clear. We spoke in our last month about the agreement that was signed among all the local governments agreeing to work together to encourage businesses to come into Sheboygan County. And I think you're just seeing those partnerships now. But I think Cal's point is extremely well taken, is that it needs to, that when tax breaks are given or when funding is given, there really needs to be a payback to the communities and to the people who are trying to make a living here. Who are now paying for it, through their income tax and sales tax? Exactly. Exactly. So good for Russ Feingold. I think it's an interesting initiative. As an aside, this is kind of not related, but related because it involves energy. I do not like, I mean, we traveled to Madison. We go through Fond du Lac. And we got these windmills, these wind-powered mills and they're just coming up like, just all of a sudden, there's none there. And then the next time you look, there's 10, 12 in there. That is such pollution, visible pollution. And all those neighbors got to not like it because it makes noise if you just drive through and listen and you could hear it just. And we're polluting the countryside with these things. So we say we need wind energy, but we're, I don't know, somebody's going to rise up pretty soon and say, I don't like this. And I'm already saying I wouldn't want to live near it, not in my backyard kind of thing. Bad news. My uncle's a farmer. My mom's brother is a farmer and he lives right in that area and he has one or two on his farm properties. And for which he of course receives a fee or of some sort or another, yeah. And I asked him about the noise and he said, oh yeah, you can hear him. After a certain amount of time, he said, you get a customer that noise because it's there. And he said, but as a farmer I've gotten used to the cow manure smells. And this is a way of bringing income into my farm. And as long as the neighbors aren't screaming, I think you're going to see what'll be interesting is if you continue to have more sprawl out in Sheboyin County, Final Act County. And homes get built and you're there, whether that's going to be an issue or not. Yeah, I mean they're ideally situated in places that are pretty desolate. I mean if you- Well in Wisconsin there isn't a lot of area where you can put them. In other words, whether it's Final Act County or you go through Mayville on Highway 49, you'll see them, that's the same Niagara Questa that goes all the way down there. It's a wind area. Exactly, yeah, so you have to have a wind area and then I do think you need an area that's relatively unpopulated. California has had windmills forever and just huge hillsides of windmills. And they're sort of like those big robots and Star Wars that come marching. I mean they're huge and they're out there. I think it's pretty interesting. I think you bring up an interesting point is that alternate energy, all energy has some price tag of some kind. Whether it's aesthetic or financial or health or availability, there's no easy answer. I think your wife, the stockbroker would say don't put all of your eggs in one basket. And I think in terms of energy policy development that that's not a bad way of approaching it. And working with alternate energy programs, projects, I think is pretty important and is forward thinking and how government supports that and how business takes advantage of it, I think is tough. But yeah, lots of people don't like windmills. And I'm not sure I'd want one in my backyard. I think the issue next, somewhere down the line is they're making rapid progress with solar panels is fairly soon, depending on how energy prices continue to go in what direction they go into, having them on your roof will be in your home and your residences will be getting pretty close to being cost efficient. And creating your own energy into the grid that you don't use it, it goes back and really rolls back your meter. So you're gonna be interested to see as you go, for example, our home really does have a fairly large expanse facing south. And I know there's some people unhappy with the new TV antenna, the dishes, kind of sticking around aesthetically. And it'll be interesting to see how subdivisions and their covenants will allow that visual to be allowed in their properties or not too. Solar panels aren't as awful as they used to be. No, they're getting more, they're less obtrusive and they're less ugly looking. No question about it. I think the future is gonna be a photovoltaic cell which is a panel that's very thin. Before it was the hot water system where you put hot pipes through a panel that had black background and heated to water. Now it's gonna be producing electricity. It'll be interesting how this whole thing plans out because the towers that you're seeing put up now are being put up by we energies and utilities to produce the energy in an alternative manner because they're by law forced to, by a certain date, have a certain percentage of their production by alternative methods. When you go to photovoltaics on your roof, you're starting to get into not the corporate area but the individual looking at whether it's more economical to produce your own and invest in your own than it is to buy from the utility. And the sad part about it is, and I've said this before as 30 years ago, Jimmy Carter said we should be investing in a lot of these things, but they laughed at them. And well, now it's coming to a point where we don't like to buy foreign oil and what are our alternatives? Well, in terms of our demand-date utilities do something different and what are utilities doing? They're not gonna put photovoltaic cells on your roof. They're gonna put up wind farms and things that are just an alternative generating system of the utility. And it really isn't probably the way that we totally should be going. We should be fuel cells for the home. I mean, look at your spacecrafts, for example, are all produced by, are run by fuel cells. There's no reason why we shouldn't have had research into fuel cells a long time ago. And that's exactly to go back to where we were earlier in this segment, is one of the really key areas where government and business and partnership could make great advances and create all sorts of jobs for Wisconsinites. As opposed to somebody else. I would like the record to reflect that we sort of agree with Tom. And that doesn't happen very often. And so I think that we should just, I think we should- Most people who don't see them think it's like one of those Dutch things, you know? Like the cookies I used to eat as a kid and they actually see these things and they do look, they really are. Space-like. Yes. Yes, Star Wars. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes they are. They're actually very elegant. I mean, they're tall and they're beautifully designed but they make a lot of noise. But I agree with Tom Taneski. They also come back if we won't talk about that. We only have a couple of- Okay, I gotta write that down. You do, you do. It's on tape. You know, we're good here. We need to talk just in our last couple of minutes. My Wisconsin Democracy campaign bulletin came to me. They had sent out surveys to legislative candidates. 25 for state senate, 243 for the assembly. Of the 25 candidates for state senate, only seven replied to a questionnaire regarding ideas on campaign finance reform. Yay or nay, just most people didn't respond. And of the 243 candidates for state assembly, 95 replied to the survey. McCabe goes on to say there's not a single state senate district up for election in 2008 where the voters will have the benefit of knowing the positions of both major party candidates on democracy reform issues. We only have a minute left, but I think it stinks. Why can't you answer one of these questionnaires? I mean, we've talked on this program over and over about campaign finance reform. Nothing's changing, nothing's happening. All those candidates- Power of incumbency. Recipients of the machine that operates today and since that's the gift horse to say I don't like it and then continue for them to take money from the old sources, they become a hypocrite. If they'd say I don't like it. Well, I'm gonna do it nationally. John McCain is following the campaign finance reform law. And who isn't? I think we know who isn't. Yeah, we've gotten good at actually raising money. Yeah, I know the Democrats are getting as good as the Republicans. We've got to say goodbye on that happy note.