Candidate Francesca
Hong with us tonight
Thank you, thank you for coming
You want me to stand up here, or can
I walk away? Okay, great.
Well then, can we give it up for Deb
Dassel, please?
Thank you.
For it a little bit but we
truly do love and appreciate
everything that you've done and I
have to say I like the new
digs and the big democrat
sign right at the side of the
building. The building.
Good evening, everyone.
I'm State Representative Francesca
Hong, and it's an absolute honor to
be running to be your next governor.
I'm a very proud daughter of
immigrants.
My parents came here from South
Korea in the late 80s, and they came
here in pursuit of education.
My dad still works as a sociologist
and researcher at UW-Madison
today. And my mom was
a public school music teacher for
over 16 years.
Broke her heart when I stopped
taking piano lessons to play
competitive soccer and actually came
out to Port Washington and
I went and played in Menominee Falls
and we played against Brookfield and
I learned a lot about our
towns in the Milwaukee
County and Ozaukee County area.
You know, I think right now,
we are truly in a movement
moment.
And movements powered by
ordinary, everyday working
class folks are the ones
that will be lasting,
that we need to be lasting.
I'm proud to be a single mom and
a renter.
I've worked in the state legislature
now for the last six
years.
And in my time in the legislature,
while sometimes I felt like an
outsider coming in being elected
in 2020.
But coming from the restaurant
industry.
I've learned that it's truly the
work that happens on
the ground in the communities where
relational organizing and people
taking care of one another and
fighting for one another is
important to the work that's
happening inside of those marble
walls.
And you all have been doing that in
deep red counties for
many of you for a while.
And I just wanted to honor and
recognize that.
I think.
When folks ask why I ran for office
and I ran for the assembly in 2020,
I tell folks that it
was a time of chaos
and crisis.
And in times of chaos in crisis,
there's an opportunity for change.
And in a time where we saw
Republican leadership once again
fail communities, put them
in danger during a
public health emergency.
I think a lot of working class
people in the communities that I
represented in the service industry
were ready for a new type of
leadership.
Maybe someone who was swearing at
Robin Boss on Twitter, but also
the person who responded by leaning
into community, co-founding
a Cook It Forward meal
delivery program, making
sure that folks who
were some of the most vulnerable,
people who couldn't be safer at
home, people who worked in the
services industry, folks who
weren't able to get the unemployment
benefits or transitional social
insurance programs that they needed.
These were the people that I wanted
to make sure had a larger voice
in government.
I served in the state legislature
as a champion
of public education.
I've been the ranking Democrat now
for the last
year and a half.
And what I found and what I've
learned that the public schools that
I came through in Madison aren't the
same schools that my son is going
to.
Georgia school right now,
the building doesn't have air
conditioning.
And his teachers are having to
pay for a lot of their own school
supplies and bringing their own
snacks.
This is reality for too many of our
communities across the state.
And if we are to have a strong
democracy, we must invest in
public education.
And the reason why the radical right
and I think so many extremists have
been hell-bent
on privatizing public education is
because it is one of the last
remaining cornerstones of our
democracy.
We're fighting right now for fair,
cheaper health care for everyone.
And while I'm
the representative from Madison.
When I got elected, one of the first
things I did was get the hell out of
Dade County.
And I started campaigning with
other state assembly candidates who
were running in blue districts,
purple districts, red districts.
I wanted not only for them to know
that they had a partner in Madison
and someone who wanted them to
join in the legislature, but that
I was
realizing our communities,
regardless of zip code, we share so
many of the same Wisconsin values.
Of hard work, of looking out for our
neighbors, of valuing our
kids, and...
We've been forced to be
divided by a state legislature where
Republicans help end up making
government dysfunctional as opposed
to a force of good.
I've made it so more and more
communities are made
to be divide,
distracted, and we aren't focusing
on the policies that will actually
solve the very big problems
we face today, rooted in
a system that is deeply rigged
against us.
Government as a force of good is
what is a driving factor of our
campaign. But our campaign is
one that is building a movement,
where now over 6,000 people have
signed up to volunteer.
Because our neighbors, the people
we are meeting in communities across
the state, whether they be a Trump
voter that I talk to in Montello,
or The folks
in Wisconsin Rapids who are fighting
against data centers, to people
in Marinette and River Falls,
young folks who are concerned about
job opportunities and a
future where is there going to be a
healthy planet ever in their
lifetime.
Public education, fair, cheaper
health care, ensuring that we
are lowering costs for utilities
and building on paid leave and
free child care.
These are economic policies that are
wildly popular across different
communities across the state.
And when we
say we are building a movement, it
is that our campaign is one
that is
engaging people who have not
engaged in politics
before.
Folks who haven't knocked a door
before.
Because we're facing the
disillusionment and apathy to
and our challenges in building a
stronger democracy.
There are a lot of folks who want
nothing to do with politics and
certainly don't want anything to do
politicians.
And I don't blame them.
But When
we are willing
when we are bold and unapologetic
in our stances, whether it
be in ensuring that we
fight for a moratorium and data
centers, or we
are fighting private equity that are
shutting down our nursing homes and
buying up homes and making it
unaffordable to live in so many
communities across the state.
We have to be willing to take on
and hold accountable a
lot of the mega corporations and
the hospitals too.
That are using their corporate
profits to harm our
communities and our way of life.
I think that in a
movement moment, it's imperative
that we have
that we are fighting for the
policies that will actually be
radically welcoming of all working
class people.
Because folks across the state are
feeling deeply left behind.
And I think we have a responsibility
as Democrats to continue
to
not shame those who
may be thinking differently or
identifying differently than us,
but actually showing folks now that
this is not so much about the left
and the right, but it is about top
down. It's about Income
disparities and wealth inequalities
that are making it harder and harder
for everyday working-class
Wisconsinites To be
able to live a good life and
we can have a government that
actually makes lives easier But
we have to push for the universal
policy that actually meet the scale
and scope of the struggles in which
working- class people's
Lives are getting harder
I may not be the most polished
candidate.
I know that there are questions
about executive experience
and leadership.
And I can tell you right now that,
as someone who
has come into every
arena of work
with putting
community first.
In knowing that we need more public
servants and not just politicians,
that we people who are going to be
able to go to a community,
talk to folks, and come back
with the thing that's,
I would say, one of the most
powerful messages that I carry with
me in knowing maybe this is time for
a leader like me is.
When I have folks telling me that
they're going to their Republican
families, maybe their friends,
and that when they see a single mom,
a renter, someone who was fighting
for working class people and an
organizer, with deep legislative
experience in passing a bipartisan
bill, that.
I'm still somebody that is like
them. And that's what they're
telling.
That's what their telling their
communities too.
Leadership in this moment looks like
building the diverse coalition and
out organizing the opposition,
and making sure that we have
representation in government that's
willing to make sure that we don't
come back to these moments by
fighting for the policies that
actually are the
universal ones that we all deserve.
I know that together we can make
better possible and I'm
running for governor because I know
that we can have a Wisconsin that
actually belongs to everyone and
Wisconsin that is
affordable for everyone.
So I want to thank you all again for
taking time to
be with me today and
I am happy to take questions.
Before we take questions,
I just wanted to say one thing that
Representative Honk came to help
out Dan Larson in an election
here in 2022,
and as
she was saying, we're
a little handing out some help to a
brand new candidate.
That was very appreciated.
So we will take three
questions.
Melissa, Esther.
Was that a time thing?
Hi Fran,
if you win the Democratic primary
what is your plan to
beat Tom Tiffany and if you lose,
do you plan on encouraging all of
your supporters to
help the winner of that election
defeat Tom Tiffany?
I will wholeheartedly
and put, I will out-hustle
the
rest of the field in supporting
whoever is the Democratic nominee.
And I will be bringing with us an
infrastructure and organizing
apparatus.
Thousands of new folks who are
new to engaging in politics are
ready to make sure that we defeat
Tom Tiffany in November.
I think the person who wins the
most votes is the most electable.
And our plan to defeat Tom
Tiffani is
to do what we are doing now but on
a much greater scale with more
resources which we are building.
It's to make sure that we
are organizing.
Our plan right now is to hit over
500,000 doors before the
primary and we are going to be on
route to get there.
We know that a
candidate that is an election
denier, a pedophile protector,
one that is willing to sell
out Wisconsinites, rip health
care for millions of Americans,
and vote to take food chair away
from our children is highly
unqualified to even run for office.
So I don't know if it's a matter of
if, I don't know, how, but.
But we are going to need the ground
game in bringing people who may have
sat out in 2024 and
expanding the electorate and making
sure that the issues that
have broad bipartisan support
are the ones that we are
highlighting. But again, this is an
opportunity to bring working class
people together when a lot
of folks who have been felt left
behind are ready for
somebody who's going to fight for
policies that put working class
people first.
Turns out taxing the billionaires
and holding corporations
accountable.
Free child care and free health
care, people feeling and knowing
that these are things that they
deserve.
The internal polling show, but I
think the receipts online
show even more that this is
what people, when people are
waking up to realizing what they
deserve and what they want
government to look like, I
think we have to be the campaign and
we will be the ones that
are helping them know,
helping them get what they wanted.
This isn't about labels, this is
about solutions.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I want to say thank
you so much for taking the time out
of I know a busy campaign scheduled
to be with us. I also want to
compliment you on a very impressive
campaign so far.
I think the energy I've seen from
your campaign really stands out
among the field.
I've worked on the other side of the
aisle before, so I'm going to kind
of give you a question that you can
probably expect in the candidate
debate coming up.
You know, your platform, free
childcare, and other social programs
are very popular, but I think the
question many people in the state
will have, especially people that
are maybe more undecided, is how
do you plan to raise the necessary
revenue for the state in order to
support these programs, especially
considering that there'll be
reoccurring costs.
We have to build in new
revenue streams, look at
existing funds,
and then the existing budget to what
we do a comb over of corporate fast.
There's also oftentimes
Republicans have put in very
narrow budget items
or funding for things that
are not comprehensive.
I think with any budget season,
you do have to make some cuts.
And I believe deleting some
corporate subsidies or tax
exemptions would help build an
additional revenue now.
Existing data centers, there are
sales tax exemptions that were
passed for them in 2023.
That totaled over $2 billion.
New revenue, cutting corporate fat,
and building in.
Building in and seeing
the investments that come with
making sure that we're able to
sustainably fund our
public schools.
Looking at increasing
shared revenue, I think
the short-term and long-term
funding goals.
When we're looking at projected
surplus.
And the investments, every budget
has to come with new revenue
streams, and a lot of that is going
to come from having additional
tax brackets into our current
tax system,
raising in,
raising at least the millionth
bracket, million dollar bracket,
by another 17%, and
that's at the million and one
dollar.
We have to,
right now some of our lowest income
earners are paying the highest tax
rates. Making those
income tax brackets more equitable
will help us build in revenue
now.
And I think when you have social
insurance programs that attract
more people to our state, you're
increasing your tax base
as well to help continue to
fund these investments.
Thank you. Thank you
Thank you.
I guess I'm reading it.
So first, this is from Ray Silke
online.
Representative, thank you for
joining us today.
How would you like your supporters
to respond to Tom Tiffany's claim
that it's your intent to abolish the
police, abolish prisons, abolish
borders, and raise taxes
to pay for government-run grocery
stores?
Fox News and Tom Tiffany like to
give me a lot of free advertising.
Thank you.
I'm serious about public safety and
I'm not here to govern by slogan.
Public safety requires
us to be tough on causes
in order to be
tough on crimes.
The investment when it comes to
public education,
our out of school programs and
making sure that the system we
have now lets an Epstein
class roam free.
I think reform is responsible
and Public
safety is of utmost importance.
And if we're gonna be serious about
public safety so that all
communities feel safe, we
need to be doing things differently.
Excuse me.
Okay.
Hi my name is Mary Curley and
I'm wondering if you
become governor will
you be able to coalesce
a staff that
will be strong enough to
resist all the shenanigans that
Trump will throw at you
like ICE and like
trying to get voter
data information and
do you feel like you can get an
experienced or a strong enough staff
that can help resist all
of those issues that are going to be
thrown at you.
I feel very confident.
I think a sign of a good
leader is in the people that
they surround themselves with.
But taking on a
fascist regime like the Trump regime
is going to require more than just
the statewide knowledge
and experience and people.
It's important that democratic
governors come together in a
coalition, discuss strategies,
see what has worked and what hasn't
worked, and work.
In alignment with
other states that we know are
more vulnerable to threats because
they are blue states with blue
governors or purple states with
a strong blue governor too.
So it's both, yes,
staffing and bringing in experts,
not just in policy making spaces,
but I think it's important to see
that with Metro Surge in
Minneapolis.
The response from the community, the
very sophisticated community
safety systems that the people
actually were able to build.
Because oftentimes when systems
fails, communities have to show up.
I want us to validate and make space
for those who are
organizing and have our immigrant
justice organizations, people
who have built in these communities.
Built in community safety
infrastructure to have a voice at
the table as well because they are
the ones that have the trusted
relationships with some of our most
vulnerable communities.
I hope we all will
take legal observer trainings
and know your rights, but ultimately
it's the families,
when you are scared to go to
work or send your kids to schools,
making yourself, exposing yourself,
potentially risking your safety
even more.
I think it's important to recognize
some of the...
It's important to recognize that
these community relationships are
ones that
the state has to honor and not
try to insert itself into.
I think it's important for people
to understand the power of mutual
aid and where some of these
community safety strategies,
how much they've done to really
protect a lot of people and help
them feel safe.
Hi, I'm Sherry.
Hi Sherry! Nice to meet you.
I was gonna go on Zoom and I just
got in my car.
We're glad you're here.
I'm happy to be here.
I think for me, the elephant
in the room is the word socialism.
And I have people in
the police force, I have many, many
people that I know that are
Republicans, and they'll
say to me, well, she's just a
socialist.
So. You know, really, how
do you talk to ordinary people
about what that actually is?
What's the difference between a
socialist and a democrat and a
republican?
Why is it good to be a socialist?
What is a socialist now?
I'm afraid they've
been calling the Republicans will
be lockstep and
they'll
They'll call us whatever, and
they'll lie about us.
And they'll probably call every,
most Democrats, some
sort of S-word, I think,
in this upcoming election.
Packers, potholes, public schools.
We have a publicly-owned NFL
team, our beloved Green Bay
Packers that we have deep pride in.
When there's more public,
when there is a public stake.
When we have more of the public
input and owning a public good,
turns out it's a lasting
good thing.
When I talk about socialism, it's
trash pickup.
It's who's going to come when you
have a fire on your bar,
and who's paying for
the fire services.
It's public good.
It's government that is for the
public good and investing in
public services.
As a democratic socialist, the
word democrat and social are in
it. This is about...
This is about people
with a fair, democratic
government that values human rights.
Our public schools are publicly
funded. They're available for
everyone, and everyone shares them.
I think the government that we have,
the system and the economy that we
have now, is it working
for you?
If we
have more public services,
the money that goes to fund pot
bowls and fill the pot bowls, those
are things that.
You know, as a democratic socialist,
I'm prioritizing, because I want to
fix the roads.
But we need people to pay their
taxes to do it.
We go straight to the different
economic policies every single time.
And if you look at where democratic
socialism is favored and
growing, a lot of it is with
the younger generation.
And we have a responsibility to
build a more multi-generational
coalition, right?
If we're going to bring folks in so
that we have people who are going to
keep fighting to vote for Democrats.
We have to listen to them, and they
know that right now, the system that
is making the wealthiest wealthier,
where we have a trillionaire, where
we have small businesses paying
higher tax rates than some of
our largest corporations, where
folks are working two, three jobs
and still having to put bills on
hold, where you've got utility
companies that are jacking up your
prices, and their CEOs are walking
away with more, and yet we're not
seeing any of our costs go down.
When you hit a point like this where
it feels very untenable and
affordability is something that
everyone is talking about,
I think it means that folks
are ready for a new systems.
And I'm not here to talk about
labels. I want to talk solutions
that make life easier.
Thank you.
Yeah, last question.
Yes. Last question.
Well, is that the end of all the
other questions?
No, go ahead.
Questions?
Davis Garcia from Grafton.
On Reddit, Republicans want you
to win this primary because they
assume it would be an easy win for
Tom and Tiffany during the election.
What are your thoughts on this, and
why do you think they're believing
in that?
Republicans are threatened by
our campaign.
They seem to be giving us a lot of
air time. And I think it's because
they are not
only miscalculating
where the voters are at, but I think
They know that we are bringing what
no other campaign can, including
theirs.
And that's grassroots organizing
power. This is the year of
the many and not just the money,
where our last reporting
cycle, we had twice the
amount of the, we have more
individual donations than the next
two candidates combined.
Where if you look at the political
moment we are in.
People are sick and tired
of the status quo, of being
told when change is possible
and how much change they deserve.
I think the frustration here in
seeing that this economic system
is deeply rigged and people are
feeling like they're getting
screwed,
folks being ready for change in a
time of crisis and chaos is
brave.
Tom Tiffany is a coward, and he's
a coward who's unwilling to face me.
And I think it's because we're
building a movement.
Folks wouldn't think that someone
like me would be able to run for
governor, let alone be leading in a
field.
And so the Republicans
in say they can do what they
want.
But the numbers, whether it's
internally
or whether it is
poll numbers or not,
we're not only ready to defeat Tom
Tiffany, but we're ready to beat
him in
what Tony Evers calls a landslide.
Thank you.
Hi, my name is Dan Bogle.
I have a pet, kind
of a pet thing.
You speak highly of public
education, and it has gone down
for decades.
My pet thing is public
money going to anything to do with
Jesus.
And they are taking over our schools
and corrupt voters.
And I would like to know what you're
going to do to get that out of our
system.
We are not funding church.
I'm a democratic atheist, by the
way.
It is untenable for the state
to fund two school systems.
I believe that public dollars belong
in public schools.
And one of the most important
parts, one of the most
things we will have to do in
phasing out the voucher system
and sunsetting it completely,
first to put in measures of
accountability and transparency and
disrupt some of the programs
that are.
Well, I'll go back to a legislation
that my colleague, Representative
Andraka, introduced.
A really important bill where
property taxpayers would see on
their property tax bill how much
of their dollars for taxes are going
to the property court.
That needs to be statewide
legislation and we have to,
you know, there are that
accountability and transparency
piece and then looking at
phasing out the voucher program.
But we know that...
You know, vultures are
also a symptom of
many, many years of the state
failing a lot of black and brown
kids and underfunding their public
schools.
And so it has to
be a process that is equitable and
transparent, that's
the least amount of disruption to
the schools that are trying to act
in good faith.
But I agree that we shouldn't be
funding, you know,
significant amount of dollars to.
Private schools that have
teachers that don't have,
they may not be licensed teachers.
There are different auditing
requirements that they have
higher special education
reimbursements than public
schools do.
I think ending, phasing
out the voucher program, starting
with the state-wide, then receive,
then Milwaukee is the program,
the plans that we have,
but public dollars, we have to keep
them in public schools.
We are very,
actually you
said that was the last question.
I don't know what your agenda is,
I'm happy to take questions.
I'll let you decide.
We'll do one.
And I'm serious.
I mean it.
One last question.
My name
is Jean Wangman.
I have a specific question.
Governor Evers tried to
get this money, the surplus money
that would come
back
to the school districts, much of
that surplus pocket
or whatever.
Thank you.
Introduced, I think, one side of
the state, I don't know, the Senate
approved it, but not the assembly,
but it never, it got dropped.
Is that surplus still available?
Yes, those projected
surplus funds are still,
those were not spent, that bill did
not pass.
And those outside.
We're going to win that Democratic
trifecta and join in the Assembly
and the Senate.
And elect a
bold,
pro-public education.
Sometimes I drop the F-bomb governor
to make sure that we're putting that
money back into our schools.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for taking the time.
This was awesome.
Right into it.
You have your mics not working.
You have to go right into it .
Like this?
Like this.
Yes.
Thank you. Representative Hong.
Thank you all.
Thank you.
You're running a great campaign.
Thank you.
Thank you
So, my report...