Is that one good?
Yeah try giving your...
No I'm sorry is the other camera
rolling? Oh yeah. Okay do you need a
clap or are you good?
Well yeah we probably shouldn't
clap.
Yeah, okay.
Remember, you too are in.
Good.
Well, Representative, thanks for
meeting with us.
What's it like to be back in
the state capitol?
Well, it's exciting on one
hand.
You know, I still tell people when
they ask me that question, I still
get those good
fuzzy feelings driving
down East Washington Street.
You come into the Capitol, and
the Capitol comes into view as
you're driving.
And there's still an electric
feeling.
And then I know, at that point, I
kind of went, you know, did
the right thing by coming back,
because it's still exciting to walk
into this building. It's a beautiful
building. And, uh...
You know that you're
representing almost 60,000 people.
And so from that standpoint, it's
exciting.
The state of politics has made
it a lot different than what
it was when I left.
And the divide has gotten
bigger and that's
been a challenge.
Your political history, especially
at the Capitol, is it
three or four generations of
politics or how much has that shift
taken place? Because we're
talking long periods of time but
also different eras of politics
in this building.
Yeah, when you think about it, I
started, I was elected in 1990,
took office January of
1991 and
here we are today.
This clearly, it wasn't in the road,
you know, the road map.
It wasn't the plan.
But we're back here and
excited to be here and looking
forward to, you know, doing the best
job I can for the next two years for
the citizens of the 53rd.
But things were sure a lot
different, you back in the days in
the 90s.
The climate was different.
The people were different.
There was much more
congeniality.
There was more, I
can go on and on, but working
together.
It wasn't as,
I think, tense between
the two parties.
So that's the biggest thing.
And I knew that was
a possibility.
I left here in 2014.
So, yeah.
You know, a good run of 24
years here, and
I'm fortunate for that.
But when I left, part of the reason
I left was because I could see the
growing divide.
I could
The right was going more to the
right, the left was going more to
left.
And some Republicans were being
taken out in primaries, some
Democrats were being taking out in
primaries because they weren't
far enough left or right.
And I'm a conservative.
I'm fiscal conservative.
I was a chair of the Joint Finance
Committee. I think back then we did
a pretty darn good job with what we
had. Those were lean years.
And we did budgets.
I served in the minority.
I served the majority, back
into the minority, and then back
into majority.
So I've seen a lot over my years.
But I could see the divide
just becoming more and more and more
and I'm a local government
guy. I started in city council.
I owned businesses back in Nina.
I'm in Nina Menasha guy.
And I said, you know what, I want to
go back. I want get out of this
political environment.
And so I decided to run for mayor,
was successful doing that,
spent eight years, best eight years
of my life because you know what,
there was no Republican, there There
was no Democrat.
It was just doing what you felt was
the best thing for the citizens of
the city of Neena.
So, you know, didn't even join the
party those years because I thought
it was important that the mayor be
non-political, and I thoroughly
enjoyed it.
So then, retired,
never expected to come back,
quite frankly, but
here we are today, and
it has gotten worse
than when I left.
You mentioned you were the co-chair
of Joint Finance.
Compare and contrast how the budget
was done back in the 2000s,
Governor Doyle, Democrat,
versus today, Governor Evers, a
Democrat with Republican
legislative majorities.
Yeah, that's a great question,
especially in this environment
that we're in.
And we were able
to do things together.
Even back then, when Jim Doyle was
governor, the Republicans had
the legislature, and I was the chair
of joint finance.
There was a lot more communication
between the governor's office
and between the finance
committee and the legislative
leaders.
You know, I respect Governor
Evers.
And I met with them after I came
back here, because Governor Revers
knows that I was one
of the more moderate members of
the Republican caucus.
And you gotta be, when the district
that I represent is 45%
Republican, 55%
Democrat.
And so I represent the district.
And that communication just
doesn't seem to be there.
And I told the governor, I said,
Governor, you gotta reach out, you
gotta extend that out of range.
You're the governor.
You've got to put
the big boy pants on and say, you
know what? We're going to try and do
this together.
And I didn't see any of that.
I mean, the governor does it in
secret, does it all by himself.
When Jim Doyle was here, there was a
little bit more reaching out during
the process, which I think
took care of some of the sharp
edges when he put
it out there.
And they're all political documents,
each and every one of them, no
matter who's governor, Republican or
Democrat.
But there just seemed to be a lot
more reaching out back then,
a lot more trying to
maybe take some of the
sharpness out of it.
And then maybe even making a
few changes during the
process.
And so I'm glad to see that this
past week, as I understand, and I've
been asking our leadership,
reach out.
Just keep asking for
meetings, because we're not going to
get this done.
You know, the old fashioned way like
we did it previously,
but you know someone's gotta
give
and it's gotta happen somehow.
And so they reached out,
I guess they had a few meetings this
week that were productive on both
sides,
but it's sure a lot different now
because you know we
always worked off the governor's
budget, we worked base budget,
sometimes we go back to base, but
now as you know.
We just kind of throw the whole
thing out, and we start over.
And I don't think that that's
particularly healthy.
How much has changed in the building
within the parties themselves?
And not left or right, but the
power of leadership.
Because we've seen changes over the
last decade that allow more of the
funding to come through the party
and flow down to the members.
And I'm sure when you ran for office
for the first time, you did a lot of
that on your own. You weren't asking
for party leaders to support
you on your way up.
That's the biggest difference.
My entire years in the
legislature, we were
responsible for our own fundraising.
It was all local.
It was our friends, family,
it was all constituents.
It was pretty much local.
And then you'd have the groups,
organizations who,
you know, like-minded individuals
who would send you some conduit
dollars, send you pack dollars.
It has just been totally thrown out
the window.
The biggest thing that I've
seen, you know, the most we spent
was $39,000, I think, was
the highest that I ever spent in my
campaign.
And you know now it's
millions of dollars.
The Democrats and their friends
spent $3.8 million against
me.
Our side I think spent $1.3
million.
Job pays $57,000 a year.
It is crazy.
And so, what's happened
is, more of
the power...
Goes to leadership on both sides.
This is both sides of the aisle.
Because they're the ones who have to
raise you the money.
The party has to raise the money,
the caucus has to rise you the money
because I'm not going to raise those
kind of funds.
And then there's that reliance
on leadership and I think
then what happens is,
you know, when it comes time for
legislation, you know
the lobbyists and the
governmental relations people all go
to the leadership.
And convince them of
voting aye or nay against a bill.
And there's no discussion
about it, but I think there's
a little bit of a nod that,
hey, this group helped you or this
group didn't help you because of the
immense dollars that are spent.
And in my particular race,
every state in the union financed
my opponent.
And what the heck do they care about
this seat? Is 53rd
Assembly District seat Nina Menasha.
So money, money in
itself is one of the biggest factors
that I've seen that has changed
this place.
And I don't know if it's Citizens
United, I don't know what the
reasoning is, but the
cost of these elections.
And you gotta have it, because if
you don't, what's gonna happen is
the other side is just gonna pour
dollars in, or their friends are
gonna pour in dollars in and you're
not gonna stand a chance.
So you gotta compete in the money
wars and that's part of
the job that I hate here.
So, towards the end of your first
time here in office,
Act 10 was the largest piece of
legislation.
You were one of only a handful of
Republicans to vote against it.
Give us a sense of your appraisal
of that bill more than 10 years on.
Yeah, you know, I was here,
these were stressful times, you
know. I mean, this was
a big deal back then, if you recall.
There was hundreds of thousands of
people here, breaking windows,
you know, coming into our offices.
It was tense times.
We were ushered out by police and
things like that.
And it was a highly volatile issue.
You know, and I was one of those
more moderate Republicans coming
from the 19th Senate District
with a senator, Senator Ellis.
And this was kind of popped out
of nowhere because he didn't give
you Scott didn't even give us much
warning on this And so while the
merits of the bill I understood and
I fully supported the
concept of this I didn't
like how it was rolled out I didn't
particularly like the idea of
exempting police and fire because
as a local government guy, I
Was worried that having two
classifications of local employees
police and fire.
My dad was a cop, so I loved cops,
I loved firefighters.
But having two, you know,
treating them differently than the
garbage men and the guys who do the
street sanitation, I thought would
cause problems in the end.
So I just didn't like the
concept of that.
And there were some other things,
and then being a 50-50 district
seat.
And so at the time, I struggled
for a long time, and at the end of
the day I voted no.
I told the
governor, I said...
You know, my district just doesn't
want me to support this.
I see a lot of merit in it,
Governor. I think if we take our
time a little bit and we work out
the kinks, we might get
this right. But clearly, with the
volatile environment, it was
important to get this thing done.
So at the time, I didn't vote for
it. I had mixed emotions.
But at the end of the day, the
Governor still supported me in the
next election.
But what was truly disheartening
was that the groups like
the unions, they didn't
support me, you know, and Act 10
was the biggest bill that the unions
had ever come up in the history of
Wisconsin, and I was only one of
four Republicans.
But I will also say this, when
I became mayor, then it
became evidently clear to me how
important this bill was to local
government, because as
a chief executive officer of the
city of Neena, I couldn't
have made it without
Act 10, because
the costs were exponentially.
Wages and cost of materials,
and now it's even, I think, got
worse.
So as mayor, it
showed me that without Act 10,
the communities that provide the
services at the ground level
would have had a heck of a time
without the passage of Act 10.
So I'm glad we did it, and
we'll see what happens where we go
from here.
What are the questions you get
from the members who
weren't here when that passed, or
maybe not even politically aware
when that past?
Do they ask you about those days,
or do they come to you for your
wisdom passing down on high?
Yeah, it's been interesting.
I don't want to be the
guy who is
the elder statesman, but
I guess I've been here a long time,
more than anybody.
And the caucuses has relied
on that institutional
memory.
I've told them many times that
I've seen about everything here.
And it could be a really great
place, and we could really get great
things done.
But we got to work together.
We got to find a way to
figure out this problem
we have that money
is important.
But it's a different place.
We used to have dinner together
at night, Republicans and Democrats.
We used have a softball game,
Christmas party.
You got to know each other.
You got find
out about their families,
Republicans, Democrats.
We'd go to the Avenue Bar and Grill.
We'd push tables together.
Seven Republicans one night,
10 Democrats.
The next night it'd be six Democrats
and four Repubs.
But you get to know each other a
little bit.
And we worked to
change and make the bill better.
That doesn't happen now.
The Republicans put out a bill or
the Democrats put out bill.
It goes to committee.
Everyone's reluctant to put an
amendment on it.
Heck, back in the 90s, we did
hand amendments on the
floor. Scott Jensen, Mark Duff.
You know, we would be listening
to the speeches, the testimony,
and we'd say, hey, okay, in order to
make this bill better, let's do this
amendment.
And then we'd get some Democrats to
sign onto it or whatever,
and they'd pledge to then vote for
it. And you don't see that anymore.
And it just, I don't know why,
but the reluctance of
the two sides to even
sit down and do an
amendment that will make the bill
better. And just say, well, we'll
hash it out at the rulemaking
process or anything.
I think that that's sad.
You were here when the maps were
redrawn in the 2010s,
and then obviously you came back
in after the maps for drawn once
again and changed the outlook of
your seat.
What is the impact of redistricting
on the type of
politician that represents
a certain area?
Well, I don't know how we
fix it, but if everyone
says the iOS system and all that.
But yes, I was here.
The maps, there's
no doubt in my mind that the maps
were created in such a way to
help the party in charge,
which at that time was the
Republicans.
I was also here when the
Democrats did it.
So similar results.
Uh, DOW!
A bunch of years later,
these maps came out.
As I understand it, it went through
the courts and everything.
And Governor Evener finally involved
himself.
And at the end of the day,
the tie beat and everything, so the
Republicans just kind of said, yeah,
we'll take that.
That's the best map we're going to
get. But there's no doubt in my
mind that these
maps have kind of, you
know, you could say the word
gerrymandering back When we
did it, then you could say the word
gerrymandering.
This past year with the governor,
these maps.
There's no doubt in my mind that
technology has gotten so
much better that it's almost
Star Wars stuff where they can take
neighborhoods and they can identify
Republicans, Democrats, blah,
blah. They can
narrow this down to the voters
and they know which
neighborhoods to put in, which
neighborhoods leave out to
make it a stronger. And there's no
doubt in my mind that this...
District that I represent,
I'm not supposed to be here.
The Democrats were pretty gleeful
when the maps came out because they
had the 53rd
check box in their party.
And then I decided to run.
And my years of service,
my years as mayor, people know I'm
a pretty reasonable guy and I was
able to win.
But there's no doubt in my mind
that, you know, who's ever in
charge, they get to
do the maps. And it has a...
Long-lasting impact on
whichever party's in charge.
So, I mean, people have told me that
they're more fair maps now,
but clearly, you know,
they were done in such a way
to help.
I hear rumor now that they
might try to change the
congressional maps.
They're not doing that for fun.
They're doing that to give them a
competitive advantage, and that's
what the redistricting does,
and I don't know how to fix it, but.
It would be great if someone came up
with a more fairer way to do it than
it's being done now.
Is it fair, though, to say that you
wouldn't be here today if the maps
hadn't been redrawn to make it a
district where Republicans needed
you to run in order to win it?
Yeah, I mean, this wasn't in
my wife and my plan to do
this.
I was happy being semi-retired,
running a business, and watching
my grandkids play baseball and
hockey.
But yeah, I
came back because...
Well, how did you did you get
recruited out of that?
I think some people talk to me
some people people
talk
Well, you know how to read a book.
Some of the leaders talked to me
and asked if I'd have any interest.
Numerous people said to me, Dean,
there's only one guy who can win the
seat.
And it just got me thinking.
And it is important who's in
charge here.
You know, the majority party has
a lot more power.
And the second best job I
had being mayor was being chair of
finance committee because that
taught me all about government.
And I love government.
I hate politics.
But government is important,
and government is something that,
you know, I learned at a very young
age, and I had people like Mike
Ellis, who had a blackboard on the
wall, who'd teach me about the
finances.
But you know and
you know we knew, I knew that
the Republicans were not going to do
well this election, but I didn't
want them to see them lose the
majority either, so that brought me
back, and said you know what, I can
win that seat.
But $3.8
million against you every
day, getting your head pounded in.
Every day, both parties,
Republicans and Democrats, because I
watched ads from both parties all
over the state,
lies, fabrications,
it's just not good.
And there's nothing you can do about
it. I mean, at night, I'm
not afraid to say, my wife and I
would go, what the hell did we do
this for? Because you'd come home at
night after watching the TV,
You know, heaven, you know.
10 ads during a TV show
that were just blatant
lies.
And there's nothing you can do about
it. It's no fun.
It's not fun for you.
It's so fun for your family.
And then the hardest part is
when you get here,
and then people say, are you going
to be bipartisan?
Can we work together?
Well, you just spent three months,
four months, telling people in my
district what a bad person I was.
And really, people, even the
Democrats know.
Dean Carver's not a bad person to
work with. And I'm one of the
Republicans who can work with the
other side. I'm of the other
Republicans who understand, you
know, we got a lot of
things done when we had a split
legislature years ago.
And we're still doing good things.
But the problem is, you know they're
all coming from one side.
So I wish all that would change.
But I don't know.
We'll see what happens.
So you are the chair of corrections.
Is that something you requested?
Is there, do you have a mission in
your second wind here?
Yeah, I thought
about that.
It was funny because people
said, did you have any demands?
And I said, yeah. I wanted my
seniority back, because I wanted a
nice office, which I got.
I wanted a good parking spot.
But I was just happy to be here.
But I could have done a lot
of things here.
But at the end of the day, I said
you know what?
There's going to be some, I think,
from what I heard, there's going be
some big changes, corrections.
I was here in my early 90s.
When we had sent prisoners
out of state, I was on the Public
Safety and Corrections Committee.
I was one of eight legislators
who went to the other states to
view the conditions that our inmates
were under, because we didn't have
enough space here.
And came back. We built Stanley,
a private prison.
And that didn't work out very
well. So it's now a Wisconsin
prison. But I said,
you know what?
Corrections is going to have some
pretty heavy stuff this time.
So I requested it.
And now, as it turns out, the
governor's in his budget.
You know, it's a very complex
problem, and
he has a solution that's gonna
cost a lot of money.
But, you know, at the end of the
day, closing Green Bay, I'm
touring it on Thursday morning.
I toured Wapond last week,
and Green Bay needs to
come down. So we need to figure out,
here's another issue that
Republicans and Democrats,
this shouldn't be political, but we
should be able to figure it out a
way. How to make sure our inmates
are safe and our correctional
officers are safe.
So I'm dedicated to doing that.
Is it fun to have a purpose
where you can see something that may
be a little easier to get consensus
on?
Yeah, and that's what
I'm best at, you know, I mean,
is getting people together.
I mean years and years ago,
I still remember Mike Ellis.
He'd say, he'd tell the governor,
whether it be Tommy Thompson, Scott
Walker, get three Republicans, three
Democrats, and two people from the
governor's staff, go in that room
and don't come out till you got it
figured out.
And if you came out
a little bit mad, and the Democrats
came out little bit bad, and the
governor office weren't happy.
You probably
had a good process.
But everyone had buy-in
then, and everyone didn't get what
they want.
And people around here need to
understand, sometimes taking three
quarters of a loaf is
still better than getting nothing.
And so both sides need to do that.
But there's so much at stake every
two years with an election always
around the corner that they
don't wanna work together.
That's frustrating for me.
But I do have a purpose here.
I have a a purpose to make sure
Needham and Ashen, parts of
Appleton, that I represent, get good
representation, that constituent
services, I got my old staff
back.
And so, you know, the lobby core
all knows who Dean Coffert is,
the government relations people.
And I feel good because
people are genuinely happy to see me
back and I can add something
to the mix here because I think
historical knowledge is
Fred Risser.
You know, perfect example, he was
here a long time.
He brought a lot to the table,
and I think I can do that too.
You're not going to be here as long
as Brenda is, are you? Well.
Well, Fred Risser was elected
the year I was born,
1957.
So this is a short-term gig for
me. And that's what's making
me feel at ease.
That's what makes me exciting,
because I know that I'm going to
only be here two or four years,
probably four.
I'm gonna try for four.
But I don't have an agenda.
I don't have to appease anybody.
I can do what Dean Crawford thinks
is right, whether it's
Republican or Democrat.
And I've been known to lead my
party.
But I will be with them 95%
of the time.
But I also will chastise them when I
think they're doing something wrong.
I will try to convince them to
massage it.
I've already had some successes
where I've said, in caucus,
I've say, you know, your bill's OK,
but this needs to change.
And they respect me enough to
make that change and say, hey,
we're OK with that.
It makes it better.
I do have a purpose for a couple
years or four years, and that's
to try to make this place better,
try to run this place better and
see if we can't change
the political climate.
I don't know if we're going to be
able to because there's too
darn much money involved in
politics, but I'm going to try.
Maybe that's a part of moderation
in politics that people don't see
from the outside is in the old
days You could vote against a bill
or you could have debate it and
people would hear your public
opinions now If you're working
in private caucus or closed caucus
behind closed doors to make a bill
better No one comes out afterwards
and say Dean had a great idea that
made this so much more palatable
It's a good point.
Sometimes closed caucuses aren't
closed, because sometimes that kind
of stuff does get out.
But it's funny you bring that up,
because in 1986,
Bob Zieglerbauer, who was a
Democrat, Dean Crawford, who is a
Republican, had a bill to abolish
closed caucus.
There were two people
signed on, just
the two authors.
Nobody else signed on.
So it is what it is.
But if you could do it more
in the public, it might be helpful.
But everything is closed caucus now
on both sides.
Both sides do it, you know, this is,
I'm not picking on Republicans, I'm
picking on the Democrats.
Republicans have been in power so
long people can't remember when
Democrats were in power.
Exactly, and it makes
me think, and I talk about this when
I speak at the Kiwanis Club and
things like that.
I mean, years ago you would
actually, during debate,
you would maybe go in the parlor
with a Democrat and
a couple of Republicans, and the
leaders would even say, hey, if you
guys could work something out, do
it. And we'd work it out,
and we'd ask to delay the bill maybe
for an hour.
And then we'd go in the back, work
it out, and we'd come out and we
would have a product. We'd have a
motion made up by legislative
council and we fix it.
We'd a pretty good project,
pretty good product that people
would, you know, maybe all vote for.
We'd become a voice vote.
So the process was a lot
different and I wish we
could go back to that and I'm trying
every day, I try,
but it's gotta be a two-way street
too. And you can't have the
Democrats always saying no.
And you get to have the Republicans
always saying, yes.
Everything seems to be black and
white around here.
And there's no gray.
And that's frustrating.
Representative Coffert, thanks for
your time.
Hey, I enjoyed it, I'm happy
I'm back and I'm excited.
You know, you look the same as you
did years ago.
Well, so do you. You don't really...
No one would guess that you came in
in the 90s.
Somebody said that to me, one of
the, you know, I've had so many
people come here and
say hi and, you know,
stop in with their issues.
They say you look the same and I'll
say, you know, well I'm not using
any coloring yet, so I'm
thoroughly excited to be
back.
You didn't learn hair treatment from
Michael?
Oh, don't put that
in.
All right, thank you.
Thank you. Every time I drive north,
I see...