 Hello and welcome back to the Donahue Group. We have our panel members chatting already. We can hardly wait to get into it. Joining me for this round of discussion, Ken Risto from the Sheboygan area school district running the social studies department, course of study, and soon to be running the school system. Oh. This is incredible. We have a new episode. It gets worse. Isn't that what he told us? Darth Vader. Tom Paneski in a quiet role at the University of Wisconsin Sheboygan. You're welcome to come to the university. As a math professor. I appreciate the invitation, Tom. Thanks. Cal Potter has it best of all. He's retired, former state senator and assistant superintendent for library services at DPI. And I'm Mary Lynn Donahue, local attorney and still practicing law at least for a little while. We're talking about state issues or extending our scope a little bit beyond local issues in this episode. I guess it's not really an episode, is it? I mean. It is for me. You know, kind of like. This experience. This experience. In this chapter. Another episode. So, in any event, we, a bunch of interesting things to talk about. We had touched last time on the death penalty. The Senate joint resolution, as I understand, with some modifications has now been forwarded to the assembly for its consideration. Various polls tell you various things depending on how you word questions as to whether or not people are interested in the, or believe that the death penalty should be imposed. It's an interesting time with the Zachariah. Zachariah's Masawi. Did I get that right? Very good. Thank you, Mr. Social Studies. And really always thinks he's smarter than I am and generally is. So this is just yet another example. That jury is out even as we speak now. On that question, or the question that's always death penalty? Thank you. Stephen Avery, of course, that just a kind of a hideous situation that, I mean, it's the right time, right kind of thing. Any thoughts, any additional thoughts on, I'm pretty sure it's going to come out of the assembly. I can't imagine that it would not and not subject to the governor's veto because it will be a constitutional amendment. Well, it's going to be advisory. Yeah. Yes. That is true. The previous attempts by Mr. Lusay, Senator Lusay, who's sort of made a career on trying to re-institute a death penalty in the state, seeing no success in having a constitutional amendment passed, which needed a pass in two successive legislative sessions and then put on a ballot, did succeed in getting the sufficient votes for an advisory referendum. And I presume there are some there who had reservations about voting yes, but saying, well, who's against asking the people what their thoughts are. So it's going to be interesting to see whether it does pass or not, or even gets out of assembly because there are some religious groups, Catholic conferences not support. I know church, I remember is not in support of the death penalty. So there are certain religious groups that have lobbied the legislature in the past against the death penalty and have not had it come to a vote. So it'd be interesting to see if this goes forth for the November election. I wouldn't surprise me if it did. I have to think that it's going to. What's the procedure because if it goes before the, if it comes up in November, we vote on it and say it passes, then what you have to do it again? Well, then that would set the stage. What I think the game plan here for the proponents is that there are legislators in the past who would say, well, I'm not sure what my constituents believe. I'll therefore go with the Catholic conference and the council churches who are against it. Sure. And in their vote against it in the committees and on the floor of the legislature. Now you put it on the right advisory referendum and it passes 70, 30, let's say theoretically. All of a sudden they're in a difficult position when this thing comes up again as a constitutional amendment to vote. No, because they see their political opponents saying, well, the vote in your district was 70, 30. What are you voting against this for? Presumably, all of a sudden it becomes a very political issue representative versus constituent opinion type situation. And thanks for pointing out that it is an advisory referendum. I think I had missed that. I thought it was just the regular process. The gay rights one is the constitutional amendment that will be in November that will be a constitutional amendment. So there will be a referendum on the death penalty and then a constitutional amendment to vote, if you will, on gay marriage in November. Which would tend to turn out sort of the more conservative voter. I think some conservative pundits would say that there was some thinking behind that, but we'll never know. Well, it's right on the Carl Rove manual, right? It sure is. I mean, it's a bad thing. I'm just simply saying that's what the guy's played. You'd think that would be a bad thing. We've got to bring up somebody else talking about campaigning finance, which is out of some other manual. I don't know. But I don't think we're having any constitutional amendments or voter referendum on campaigning finance. I just think, you know, it's unfortunate, but I just think that now that a couple of people are going to jail, I think the voters are going to, you know, get back to living their lives and thinking, oh, they've got the message now they'll behave themselves. That's a delusion. That's an illusion. Well, I mean, let me just, if you get people out to vote, I mean, however you get them out to vote, the more people that vote, the better representative government you have. So if you get 60% of the people out to vote because you put those items on the constitutional amendment and then the advisory amendment. Certainly one could argue that the gay marriage amendment is completely unnecessary and is nothing else. But if you get people out to vote, people feel strongly about that issue and so they'll come out and vote. And they may be Democratic voters, you know, so otherwise they'd be sitting home. I think the Democratic Party should stop sitting in the corner and cowering over these issues and step up and actually be an opposition party and let's have a vigorous debate on both those issues. You win, lose, or draw. I mean, but this idea that we're going to criticize Republicans for putting issues on the table for people to talk about is, I think, really cowardly. Let's bring it, you know, to quote the president, let's bring it on. What are the troubling aspects? Bring these discussions on. Matter of fact, I just happened to be reading an article in the other day of the amendment itself. And it goes on, it not only says gay marriages between a man and a woman, but it also goes on and says prohibits other such unions and so on. And it gets into this whole area of joint type of unions as well as possible agreements, contractual agreements on benefits. And I'm not so sure that everybody appreciates the possible far-reaching effects of the two sentences that are making up this amendment. I wish that they would have simply stopped at the gay marriage thing. It's not a planer. Yes, but now the proponents are saying, well, we didn't mean it that way. Well, and they said, well, that'll be clarified. Well, how is it going to be clarified? It's going to be clarified in the same things they're criticizing. Judicial judges, you don't have to make a determination. What contract, what situation is really unconstitutional? And so we're opening up a whole can of worms of maybe denying some people some benefits they now have. That's what I'm, and it might be intended, the intended consequences there might be more far-reaching than some people are saying. You're absolutely right. This amendment bars not only any potential in Wisconsin for a gay marriage. It bans civil unions of all shape, manner, and form. And then the question then becomes what happens if two people are in some sort of a committed relationship and one chooses, one wants to know about medical information or the hippolos, all those types of issues. And I don't believe for a second that the drafters is the amendment. I mean, they hire lawyers, and lawyers are supposed to be fairly good. They knew what they were doing. They knew exactly what they were doing. They just decided to go for the whole loaf of bread rather than maybe three fourths of the loaf. And the fault of the other good conservatives who may not be that far out on the limb was that they went along. And that's one thing I sometimes fault the conservatives today when some people say jump, they say, oh, hi. They don't question saying, well, I may agree with half the loaf here. And let's see if we can work out something that's fair and maybe a better question. But so much of the stuff that's coming down the pike now is just, it is from the original authors and it's extreme. And everybody else just sort of went along either they're afraid to or whatever the motivation is, but they're not questioning it. Well, it'll be interesting to see if any kind of grassroots movement does come out to at least try to explain the ramifications, the long term effects of what might in fact happen. And it will be interesting. I agree. We need to not be cowardly. We need to kind of get out and talk about these issues and not be afraid of them. But it is interesting. It's kind of like at this point, it's the third track. And I mean, you used to say social security was the, what do they call it? The election. Third rail, thank you. The third rail of American politics. And this kind of seems to have become a new third rail. And so it's interesting to see how that's going to play out. But likely we'll get more voters out. Yeah, and I think we benefit by that. You can get more voters out. Let's talk about who they're going to vote for. Tom, the Republicans have not yet come up with an opponent for Senator Cole. Will you consider it? Right here and now. Right here and now. Well, thank you for the trust. I consider running against him, but that's a whole other matter. That's a whole other matter. I have 13 university campuses. I got little sites all over. So you've got your campaign network all set up to go. And you've got your public end zone across the state of Wisconsin. I mean, Cole is the classic Teflon senator, fine gold by design is the classic Velcro senator. Everything sticks to fine gold. And that's the way he wants it. I mean, Cole is as smooth as they come. Well, I'm not going to be the candidate. I have no clue. I haven't heard either. It's the best kept secret. I keep thinking, who's going to be the candidate? Who's going to be the candidate? They hint maybe Thompson, but I don't know. Although I did read a poll that said that if Tommy came back and ran against Cole, he'd win. I can't believe that's true. But it's until that means nothing. It means absolutely nothing. Until you get into a campaign. And I mean, the same thing with Doyle is that if Tommy came back and decided to run against Doyle, I don't think you can ever go home again. I agree with that. At least as far as the governorship goes. Well, that happened once with the president. Who was it they got elected twice with a four-year term in between? Grover Cleveland. Grover Cleveland. Grover Cleveland. Very good. I want to give her a chance to answer first. So he went home again. And then he came back. So it could happen. It could happen. But I think it will be interesting. And I think Tim Michael. Michael, don't. Right. It'll cause you. Tim Michael tried to make a good run against Russ Feingold last time. And it was a credible run. But I think Feingold has really established himself as a most interesting person and won all but 11 counties. So 61 out of 72 counties. And just was doing the math in my head. So when is the Republican Convention? I don't even know that. Is that coming up? June. Is it in June? So we still have some time to wait? Yeah. And typically the Democrats are in June as well. Isn't that right? Yeah. Especially one week after you know that. Locally, an interesting race potentially developing between Joe Libham, Senator Libham, who won by 47 votes, beating Jim Baumgart last time, being challenged by a young man out of Manitowoc whose name is Alik, Jamie Alik, Iraq Army veteran, young man. And I've gotten a campaign letter from him. And I have to say it was fairly sophisticated for somebody who is obviously brand new at this kind of work. And I personally consider that Joe Libham is pretty much unbeatable. I mean, I think he's extremely good at constituent politics. I'd agree with that. His PR, it's always out there. Cal, I don't know, just as a veteran of the legislature, does somebody like Jamie Alik have a chance against Libham? And if he does, what would do it? Well, you have to become known, first of all. One of his liabilities, I guess, will be where he's coming from. He's coming from the third, as we see it, the third assembly district in the Senate district. Two of the districts are Sheboygan. And usually, the strength has always been the person who comes out of the county where the two districts are as the advantage, I think. Goes back to Ernie Kepler. Even if you remember, Ernie Kepler had to Sheboygan assembly district. The rule of Sheboygan is district and Ozaki County, which was one assembly district. And even democratic attempts were very difficult to challenge successfully Ernie Kepler. I mean, he was the middle of the road, Republican and well-liked. But the fact of the matter is he did well in the city of Sheboygan, a democratic area, took the other two assembly districts, which were Republican, and did very well in the state Senate. Now with the reapportionment that has occurred since, well, the 1980, we've had the Manitowoc-Sheboygan Senate district, but the two seats in the assembly of the three are in Sheboygan County. So he comes to Manitowoc. So what I'm getting around to is he has to become known in two of those assembly districts. The name Olek is a known name in Manitowoc. It is a democratic district, Ziegelbauer assembly seat. And you do have the Van Ackwin seat in Sheboygan for as far as a democratic seat. So two of the three seats are held by democratic assembly people, but you do have to get known in this place where Lybem lives and Lybem lives in Sheboygan. So he has a lot of name recognition and what Lybem has now. I would say he's incredibly well known. Yeah, and he's got name recognition. And he's got the power now of the incumbency, which Baumgart had last time. And that was a challenger and an incumbent. And the 47 votes would not reflect the same situation this time. Oh, by no means, by no means. Because the Olek Baumgart comparison of being well known and having campaigned for years is just not there anymore. Oh, I know, I know. So he has a lot of work to do. And typically young candidates who come up against well-established and well-financed incumbents. Well, he will be well-financed. Almost never. It's hard for them to get any traction. But I was amazed by this letter that he sent out. It had a degree of sophistication to it and targeted some issues that I thought would be interesting issues. What was he focusing on? Because I didn't receive that letter. Working families. The focus is on working families. And it's one of those two-page fundraising letters that there must be somebody somewhere who says that it's a good idea to have two or three pages of text because all the ones we get always have that. And this one did. They send those to the lawyers who read them. Yeah, evidently teachers as well. Yeah, but I think obviously choosing the issue is how you win. He's well-educated. He's getting his master's degree this May from the Lafada Institute in UW-Madison in public policy, I believe. So let's strike two. So she was saying he was well-educated. And he's not known and he's well-educated. And his wife is a teacher. His wife is a striker. He may as well stay home. Sorry. All right, goodness. It was the room the other day where I was complimented for being well-educated and I was, there's some rare moment. I was so pleased to be in a room that valued somebody who's educated. Thank you. So cynical. Just so cynical. I'm just being realistic in these weird and twisted times. There you go. The, speaking of which, I found a poll on the attorney general's race. First of all, we do have to say that Attorney General Lautenschlager has returned contributions to the international profit associates. This is a group that the Department of Justice was investigating. She's calling on all election opponents to divest themselves of contributions from individuals associated with entities that the Justice Department has prosecuted. And given the political climate these days, that might be quite a few. Who's gonna be left to contribute? Mark Green had to give back $32,000, I think didn't have to, chose to return $32,000 from Tom DeLay. Let's just divert for just a little bit. My sense is that Walker dropping out of the governor's race, not challenging Mark Green, does make it easier for Green, obviously, and significantly more difficult for Doyle. I mean, is Green, I think Green's a fairly strong candidate. Well financed. Well financed. Everybody's well financed these days. Well, you didn't come, but the Congressperson who's had a number of years of developing a fund which has been able to transfer now to a governor's race. Yeah, and even with returning the $32,000, he's apparently not impoverished. So I think it's gonna be- Where is the governor? Yeah, well, just happened to have a poll here that was reported on April 12th in Madison newspapers. Two polls, and of course they tell us two different things. Doyle is leading in the St. Norbert poll, 43 to 35% while they are tied, Green and Doyle, in a strategic vision poll. So I thought that was, I like reading polls. Evidently. I think there's some criticism afoot here, I don't know. Well, just for that, let me tell you about the Launschlager Falk, Buker Van Hollen polls. Is the poll asking them if they know any of them? Well, besides the concomitant. They do break out those statistics, but if I start reciting those, then everybody at home is gonna fall asleep, yeah. And then I get fired in- They move on to your American Idol. Yeah, exactly. You're just a wonderful singer. The Launschlager and Falk are tied in this poll. However, both of them taken individually, schvets, as it were, or significantly outpolled their Republican opponents, which I thought was interesting. So- Well, they're both well known, I mean. Yeah, both, yeah. When you look at previous political statewide offices, none of the Republicans have really had the name recognition that Falk and Launschlager have had. That's true. Well, Buker's, I mean, he's prosecuted some fairly- Yeah, he lost the Chamorro case. That's gonna be a plus for him, isn't it? Jerry Boyle, you know, that guy kinda has a magic touch, and he handled E. Michael McCann. Did I read his first felony trial loss in 32 years? Yeah, I read that. I mean, that's astonishing. And Jerry Boyle's a very, very good lawyer, but I understand that E. Michael McCann is as well. So kind of going out like Brett Farve. Well, if those were tests, if I would tell the truth, it might be a different story. Let me, let me, let me, let me, the Falk, Launschlager, and Attorney General's, now they're gonna have a, the primary is September, so that'll, but the conventions occur before then. Do, will the Democrats come out and endorse one of the two? Or actually, at the Republican convention, will the Republicans come out and endorse one of the candidates? One would certainly think so. The Democrats do not endorse the primaries. Okay. Republicans have, but ever since the Lee Dreyfus era, there's been a reluctance to do so, and so there have been a number of occasions where they have not followed through because they get egg on their face, as they did with the Lee Dreyfus era. Okay, so they, you'll just get a little, maybe a big party for both. Could be. Launschlager clearly leads Falk among Democratic voters, according to this poll. This is a Wisconsin Public Radio, St. Norbert, and I think they do a good job. No, they've historically been pretty close. Yeah. Launschlager, 36% Falk, 26%, but they're tied among, virtually tied among independents. And then Buker is 10 points behind both of them and Van Hollen, again, well, well behind both. Van Hollen is clearly, I think, the least known among them, and so I think that's interesting, but one, I think we're gonna see a whole lot of TV ads that we're just not really interested in. And powerful ones, I think. Yeah. In the strong driving situation. Yep. Yeah. This is gonna get, they're gonna go ugly early. Yes. Yep. Yeah. And... Well, you don't have to. I mean, given the dynamics of this, how else would one even have a chance of winning? Yeah. I mean, an attorney general. Well, especially in the Republican column if those folks are that far behind, negative ads tend to be those used early on by people who are far behind because they get attention. And they're more effective. And to bring us back around, I got to think that, you know, there's somebody's gonna ask the question real soon once we get the campaign. Does that attorney general, you know, support the capital punishment referendum? Exactly. And then we can do the soft on crime shtick till we're all ready to go home and cry in our pillow. Well, there you go. There we go. Oh, I know. Yeah. Just moving off of politics. Not running for public office here. That's right. I think we fixed that here. Yeah, that's right. You can never do that. No, I can't do that. You burned that bridge. Burn the tapes, Scott. I continue to be fascinated. And I think my fascination is somewhat limited here with the Accenture contract that the State Elections Board is involved with. Under the Help Americans Vote Act, HAVA, HAVA Heart, we need to prepare a statewide voter registration list. Minnesota managed to do it for $5 million. We're spending $23 million for something. And still don't have a product. And still don't have a product. I mean, this is crazy. Yes. Why? Why can Minnesota do it and we can't? Yeah. And I like the people who they hired apparently don't do a very good job. That's what's happening. Why did they hire the people from Minnesota? We don't know what Minnesota did. Does anybody know? They used state workers. Did they do it in-house? Yeah. Did they do it in-house? They did it in-house. Yeah. And we... This must be a case for against privatization. Well, privatization efforts in the state of Wisconsin in recent years, at least as I've read, have certainly not been particularly successful or economical, but in any event, we are now, as I understand it, kind of left holding in the Accenture bag all by ourselves because even Wyoming, which was the last state with us that had hired Accenture that hadn't bailed out, even Wyoming has bailed out. So we're really kind of holding the bag here and... Oh, this company must have plenty of time on their hands now they should maybe forget it right now. Well, they couldn't get it for January 1st. So then there was a suggestion, well surely we'll have it for the April election. No, let's hold off and make sure we can really do it right. And we'll do it for the November election. And now according to the journal Sentinel... Which November election? There you go. It's like, we're gonna finish your house in December. We're just not gonna tell you what year. And I think that that is essentially what's going on, is going on around here. But I don't know what the status is of the bill, Senate bill one to merge the state elections board with the ethics commission and create essentially a new organization. Do you? Well, I am a member of Common Cause and so Mr. Heck sends me weekly emails. And I do, the last one I got is that Representative Guard and a couple of the leaders in the assembly were not planning on putting the bill up in the final week, that's just next week of the legislative session. And I guess Common Cause and others are trying to shake the bushes out there, saying call your legislator, tell them, demand that at least this bill, if we can't get the public financing bill, which is another bill, at least pass Senate bill one, which easily passed bipartisanship prevailed in the Senate, do so in the assembly. So public pressure on leadership in the assembly is what's going on right now to get it up. And what would the timeline be? Just a week, did you say? Well, they have a week, their session, they can extend it, but their previous calendar was next week was to take up anything that's pending from the last roughly a year and a quarter. Okay. Yeah, I mean, it's, the elections board has had a kind of a rough time in recent years and not just- It's been unaffected. Yeah, I mean it's- It's half Republican, half Democrat, the Democrats vote one way, the Republicans vote the other way. Nothing gets done, nobody gets prosecuted, nobody gets accused, it's a joke is what it is. It really is. And remember locally Curtis McKay was on the board and he said, you just get a sandwich, before we bring off just to say Matt Santos did win the election and I'm predicting that Arnie Vinnick is gonna be the new vice president just so that everybody knows. Thank you for joining us.