And it can just, I mean, you
know what it's like, someone carries
a grudge for a few decades and
all of a sudden it's like, you're
the new people come in and like, why
do we not like them?
Can someone explain?
And they're like, we don't know either.
But it's just always been that way,
and it doesn't.
Yeah, I mean we've done a lot to try
and work together more, especially
in election years.
I think the controversy way back
when was like fundraising.
They considered Milwaukee their
territory and I'm sure
someone from us went and raised some
money in Milwaukee and they were
like, Well, that's our backyard and
it's always going to come down to
money at some point.
At some point. It's funny, Zach,
because that's the one thing I've
learned in this job is everything
revolves around one single thing in
this money, right?
People can say it's something else, but
it's not.
I'm ready if you're ready.
OK. Cool.
Speaker Voss, thanks for your time
again. Thanks for having me on,
Zach.
So walk me through, what do you
think were the biggest accomplishments
of the Assembly Republicans this
year?
Well, first of all, we all know that
the biggest thing that people are
talking about as we go through the
holidays, but really for the whole
year, has been affordability.
To me, it's really five different
areas, but the ones we've been
focusing most on,
health care, utility
costs, the cost of
property taxes and how do you stay
in your home, and then ultimately
making sure that we have more money
in your pocket to pay all your
bills. So when I think about what
we've done, number one, we had a
good bipartisan budget.
It seems like forever ago, but.
Really, we addressed a lot of those
things. More money for healthcare,
more money for schools, more money
to try to make sure that we keep it
in your pocket by having that
exemption for seniors to be able to
have the first $48,000 tax-free
and also making sure we have no
sales tax and electricity and
ultimately a small tax cut.
So I think overall pretty good.
One of the things you mentioned
there.
Talked about property taxes Governor
Evers 400 year veto first hit
the property tax bills now some
of this seems like it's gonna be a
messaging war of who takes the blame
for for this because Democrats are
saying well Republicans could have
funded it in the budget and
obviously Governor Ebers fought for
other priorities in the budgets so
do you think tax
taxpayers know where this comes
from? Well, number one, we had a
bipartisan budget where we all got
what we wanted, right?
Governor Evers and the advocates who
came to testify at our joint finance
hearings said, put more money in
special ed. So we had the largest
increase in funding for special ed
in literally 30 years.
So exactly what they wanted.
But Governor Ebers also used his
creative veto to make sure we had
this 400 year guaranteed property
tax increase. Well, he got his wish.
My own property tax is 24% higher.
And I think if you ask most
Wisconsinites, that is not
sustainable or affordable.
But under Governor Evers' plan,
that's the foreseeable future.
So if we want to care about making
sure people can stay in their homes
and afford to live in Wisconsin,
we've got to have better controls on
property taxes than we currently do.
So one of our ideas is to come back
this spring, we'll have a
constitutional amendment to address
the four-year veto so you cannot
have a governor increasing spending
like that forever without at least
the willing discussion and debate in
the legislature.
One of the more recent headlines out
of the assembly had to do with
expanding health care for women
through Medicaid.
That's got a lot of support in the
Senate. There are Republican
co-sponsors.
Walk me through your process for
your caucus of when there are
Republicans that support it, but it
doesn't come to the floor.
Sure.
So we have a rule that by and
large, things get to the floor as
long as they have 50 Republican
votes. We work really hard to get
there. The vast majority of things
do. Sometimes it takes a little
longer to find out what changes have
to be made or how do we address the
issues that people have concerns
with. One of the concerns that I
have is putting more people onto
welfare is not something that is
sustainable for taxpayers in the
long run. We have done a very good
job over the course of the past
decade as other states have seen
increases in their welfare spending.
We've kept ours flat.
We found other ways to address
health care challenges.
Remember, in the budget we had a
bipartisan agreement on a hospital
assessment that actually brings in
almost a billion dollars into
Wisconsin to help lower health care
costs. I would much rather focus on
lowering health care cost for
everyone, as opposed to putting a
few more people into welfare that
all of us are going to pay for.
Democrats saying well it's you
personally, it was Speaker Voss
alone that stopped this from
happening.
Is there truth to that? Is it simply
you opposed it so you convinced
others not to support it or is it
really there wasn't enough support
in the cause?
Well, I have opposed it because I've
always said we're not going to
expand welfare as long as
Republicans have a seat at the table
because we already have one of the
most robust social safety net
programs in the country.
If someone decides to have a child,
right now about half of the births
in Wisconsin are unwed mothers and
they're on Medicaid.
We're already taking care of them
and their babies for the entire nine
months of the pregnancy and now up
to three months afterward.
Some people want to go a year
afterward. It just seems like at
some point the taxpayers have to
say, it's your responsibility
to care for the child that you
decided to have.
We've already done our part.
Now it's up to you to go and get
your own insurance so that you can
make sure that that child is well
cared for and so are you as the
mother all the way until hopefully
they get out of the house.
Over the last year we've seen the
Wisconsin Supreme Court strip a lot
of legislative oversight of the
rulemaking process away.
There was talks of trying to find
some sort of compromise to reinstate
some oversight.
Any progress? Any hope that
something might happen next year?
Remember, we created a speaker's
task force on the rulemaking process
headed up by Brent Jacobson from
Wausau, a very bright and
talented freshman.
I know he is working with others to
see if there are ways we can bring
it back together, but it's really an
example of how the Supreme Court has
really gone rogue.
We have had 50 or more years
of the administrative rule processes
under liberal Supreme Courts,
under conservative Supreme Courths,
under liberal governors and
Republican governors.
It's really been a consensus to say
we want co-equal branches of
government. Only under this radical
liberal supreme court have they
taken away the ability for us to
just have a check on the executive
and as I said to my democratic
colleagues, someday there's going
to be a democrat legislature, God
forbid, but there will be, and a
republican governor and you are
going to forget how much
power you gave away and you're going
to regret it.
So hopefully we can find that
bipartisan consensus to say co-equal
should be good for everybody.
There has been some success over the
last few years of actually working
with Governor Evers to pass some
bigger. Yeah.
Think there's room for one more?
I'm always open to compromise and
finding an answer.
I mean we're working together on
this idea of SNAP benefits right
now.
We believe that you know kind of
like what's happened in almost a
dozen other states around the
country it's crazy to have taxpayers
paying for junk food when you're
on food stamps.
We think we should be able to
restrict those to healthier options.
He'd like to have more money going
into helping administer the program
under the big beautiful bill.
There were some changes in how we
administered it. Uh...
We like the work requirements in the
bill so if we can do that in a way
that reduces fraud hopefully that's
an area we can find consensus my
hope is we can do it this spring but
you're right there are other areas
that we are more than willing to sit
at the table and find that consensus
but we're not going to give up our
principles and i respect the fact he
doesn't want to either
So a lot of other people have
already shifted to looking at the
election next year.
What's the recruitment process look
like when you've got a lot
competitive seats out?
Yeah, I mean, it's really no
different than it's been for the
past 30 or 40 years.
We've always had a competitive map
in Wisconsin. We've been successful
because we recruit good candidates
who are locally based, and they
focus on the issues that matter to
Wisconsinites.
As I look at what's happening in the
governor's race, I watch the
Democrats go farther and farther to
the left.
Their entire campaign is focused on
one person, not the average mom
or dad in Wausau or
Rhinelander or Eau Claire,
but they're focused on Donald Trump.
And I think most people are sick and
tired of having an argument.
About one person, they wanna see
results.
So I think our candidates are gonna
talk about affordability, how do we
make things better for the average
family.
We're gonna bring up a bill this
spring that focuses on putting more
money back into the pockets of
Wisconsinites. We're going to focus
on property taxes because they're
way too high.
And ultimately, we're gonna try to
make sure we have good programs that
can build a social safety net, but
in a way that encourages people to
get off of it and doesn't become a
hammock. Do you plan on running
again? I haven't gone through that
process. My wife and I talked about
it already. So I'll make a decision
sometime like I normally do in
January, February.
Do you plan on getting involved in
the governor's primary at all on the
Republican side?
Now, we have two good candidates at
this point. There certainly could be
more that enter in.
I feel like either one of the two
candidates that we already have are
exceptionally good leaders.
They both have to focus on what
matters to Wisconsinites, and that
is affordability, cost of
housing, making sure that we have
reasonable taxes, and ultimately
deliver services that people need.
The Democrats are kind of running to
the far left. The candidates that
they have, a bunch of people who've
run before and lost, I don't know if
that's the most successful way
for them to win, but I guess only
time will tell.
Do you think that the average voter
will be focused more on what's
happening in Washington and the
federal impacts?
Or do you think they will be
focussed on what the state
legislature can do for them?
Well it's one of the rare times
where the only race on the ballot
are state races besides our
congressional seats which are up
every two years. A lot of times
you'll have a congressional race,
a senate race and a gubernatorial at
the same time so federal issues
really overwhelm us.
This time around we get to talk
about more of Wisconsin issues and I
think we have done a really good job
of addressing issues that people in
Wisconsin care about. We had a
bipartisan housing package.
We are going to be bringing up some
issues dealing with utility costs in
the spring which I know are a big
hassle for people.
We're gonna focus on property taxes.
We've dealt with crime in many ways.
So I think we've done a good job,
but there's always more work to do.
All right, Speaker Voss, thanks for
your time. Thanks, appreciate your
time, Zach.
Thank you appreciate it no problem
so is that Sunday
this weekend or is it a
week that'll be a week