like the joke was it's like everything's gonna be decided by three people in
Ohio. Three people. Ohio is so far out of it that no one even thinks of Ohio.
No, it's Wisconsin. Yeah. Sure. Okay, we're good. All right. So you can just talk to me.
Yep. We'll edit if something catastrophic happens. Yeah, no worries.
Yeah. I'm a conversation. All right. Sarah Rodriguez, thanks for joining us.
Thank you so much for having me. So for voters who don't know who you are that
well, tell us who you are and why you're running for governor. So I am the current
lieutenant governor here in Wisconsin. But I have spent most of my career in
health care. I'm actually a nurse by background and I've worked in so many
different roles within health care, whether it's night shifts in the ER, all
the way to being an executive within a health care system. And one of my roles
as lieutenant governor is that I get to go to all 72 counties. And I have done
that every single year that I have been lieutenant governor. And when I talk
to people there, they're telling me the same thing that they are doing
everything right, but they're feeling squeezed. And whether that's accessible
affordable health care, cost of housing, cost of childcare, we keep raising our
taxes to pay for our public schools. I mean, these are the things that people
are talking to me about. And these are the things that I would like to be able to
address as governor. Is there a single issue that drives you as a candidate or
perhaps a lane within the Democratic Party that may define you? I think that I
have so much experience within health care, which is a complicated space. And
we've seen what's happening now in Washington where they're taking away the
subsidies for the Affordable Care Act. So people who are going to get their
insurance on the exchange. These are small business owners. These are farmers.
These are people who are trying to make a living. And their premiums are going to
double maybe even triple in Wisconsin. And so having somebody who has that
expertise in health care to be able to do that here in Wisconsin and actually
make a demonstrable difference in people's lives. That's something that I'm really
excited about. How much money do you think you're going to need to raise in
order to be successful in this primary? So I, you know, we, you know, I've been
talking about this with so many different people. And it is going to be
millions of dollars to be able to be successful in the primary. But I've got
support all over the state. I've got endorsements in all 72 counties. I got
the first statewide union endorsement. It's AFSCME. It's the public workers,
municipality workers. And it was just really proud and honored to be able to
get that endorsement and excited about all the support that I'm seeing all
across the state. When it comes to a competitive primary, how do you
personally define the difference between negative campaigning versus
defining differences between candidates? Well, we're all going to have to make
our arguments to the voters. We're all going to have to say what we're
bringing to the table and my type of experiences we have that are going to
make us good governors. And I would say for myself, I'm one of the only
candidates, I am the only candidate in the race who's actually been able to
flip a district from red to blue. I did that when I was in the assembly. I'm
also somebody who has extensive private industry experience, but also has been
in elected office. That's a good balance between those two things. I know what
it's like to work shift work. I know what it's like to be an executive
within a large company. And I know what it's like to be an elected official.
You're going to need all those skills to make sure that you have a governor
who's going to be ready on day one. When voters are looking at all these
candidates should be thinking more in terms of which candidate maybe has an
issue they most closely aligned to or is it about electability? I think it's
both. I think you can look at the issues for all the different candidates and see
if they align with your values. But then we also have to look to the general to
see who's going to be able to get across the finish line in November. Most of the
candidates in this race have connections to either Madison or Milwaukee. What are
you doing to reach the rest of the state rural areas, exurban areas? Yeah, and I
actually live in Waukesha County. And so that is not that is a very different
than Milwaukee County. But what I am doing in the primary is I am again going to
all 72 counties. We are doing listening sessions all across the state because I
firmly believe you can't lead unless you listen. And so that's how I'm doing my
outreach. I'm going to continue to do that tour all across the state hearing
what people want in their governor hearing what's going on in their
communities because all politics is local and we need to be able to listen to
our constituents. What impact do you think Donald Trump will have on this
election? You know, we see the chaos in Washington right now. And I think when
we're looking at who could possibly be the Republican governor candidate, that's
Tom Tiffany, there is very little daylight between him and Trump. And so
if that chaos in Washington could absolutely trickle down into into Wisconsin,
if somebody is going to be electing Tom Tiffany as governor. When you look at
the diverse feel that the Democrats have put out there, you still hear
rumblings of other candidates. Why does it seem like people in the party still
want a white guy to get in this race? I don't know that that's true. I think we've
got some really, really exceptional candidates on the Democratic side. We've
got some folks that have a wide variety of experiences. And looking at all of the
different candidates, you know, that's what people are going to have to do.
They're going to have to look at their websites, look at their policy positions
and see who's going to be able to get across the finish line in November.
If elected, it's possible you have a Democratic legislature behind you. What's
your AB one? What's the first bill you want to sign into law? So the things that I
want to make sure that I'm signing into law are things that are going to reduce
costs for Wisconsinites. And that's going to be health care costs primarily, but
also looking at childcare. We've got other states that we can look at, for
examples, where they've been able to subsidize childcare for folks. Treating
that as infrastructure is going to be something that's going to be a priority
for me. It's also possible that there's a Republican legislature. What's
your history of working across the aisle? So coming from a rhetoric community,
I'm used to having those types of conversations with Republicans. I
represented a purple district. And so my strategy would be to look at things that
have wild, you know, the most popular.
My strategy would be able to things that have, you know,
wild popular support in Wisconsin and be able to start with those types of
things. So whether that is fully funding our public schools, we know that that's
something that people want to do within Wisconsin. We want to make sure that
we're going to be able to get some relief for healthcare across the finish line.
I'm willing to work with anybody who's going to make life better for Wisconsin.
Right now the public service commission is looking at large utility rate hikes.
There's data centers that are popping up all over the state. What's your position on those issues?
So the data centers have to be a conversation with the community. And we want to make sure
that those data centers are in a community that wants them. But what we have to do on the front
end is to make sure, contractually, that the energy uses are not going to be born on the back
of taxpayers. That they are going to be investing, particularly in renewable energy,
and that they are going to be bearing those costs for those energies because we certainly
don't want it to be on the backs of taxpayers. When it comes to public education, is it simply
a matter of investing more money or does there need to be reform? Both. We need to make sure that
we are investing the money because what we see all across the state is that there are all of
these referendums and people are voting to increase their own taxes not to pay for a new science lab,
not to pay for a new middle school, but to pay for operational expenses, teachers' salaries.
And that is just unsustainable moving forward. So we have to put more dollars into the public
school system, but we also have to look at reform to make sure that kids are getting the education
they need to be able to succeed. What would you like to see happen with the voucher system?
I think we need to absolutely address the voucher system. We need to make sure that
the voucher system is what it was originally intended to do, which was for low-income families
to be able to have some choices. And right now we do not have an income limit on the voucher
system and we're going to be taking off the cap for the vouchers. That is going to be funneling
public money into private schools. We cannot afford to have two separate school systems within the
state of Wisconsin. So we're going to have to have some reform in that area as well.
What's your number one tax change that you'd like to see?
The number one tax change I'd like to see is that we look at tax relief for our lower income and
middle income families. Right now our tax system is absolutely skewed toward the most wealthy in
Wisconsin. And so we want to make sure that the most wealthy are paying their fair share
while we're able to have some tax relief for middle-class families.
Over the course of the last year we've seen the Supreme Court eliminate legislative oversight
of the rulemaking process in a lot of areas. Would you like to see a bipartisan compromise
to restore some oversight? I think the Supreme Court was right in terms of making sure we have
separate branches of government. We have the executive branch. We have the legislative branch.
Let's make sure everybody stays in their lane. As far as funding for local government,
does it need to be more investment or once again is the reform needed?
I think both as well. We do need more investment in local government. When I talk to municipalities
and cities all across the state, they are really struggling to be able to provide the services
that their constituents expect. Basic services. We're talking about making sure that their parks
stay open, their public libraries stay open, that there's a public pool that kids can go to
in the summer. So we're going to have to look at that formula of how we fund municipalities and
cities to make sure they can provide those services. Right now we've got active exploratory drilling
projects across the Northwoods looking at different mining projects down the road.
What would you like to see happen as far as permitting for those mines?
What I think we need to do is to make sure we have a really good environmental assessment
for permitting for those mines and to make sure that we are talking with the local communities.
If tribal nations are involved, we are having those open conversations with them
and making sure that we're not having the environmental impact that would be negative for
Wisconsin. Do you have any concerns about your personal safety in this political environment?
You know, I don't. I love Wisconsin and I believe in Wisconsinites and I believe that they want us
to have an open dialogue for politics and so I do not have any concerns about my personal safety.
What's your plan to address the affordable housing crisis?
So affordable housing across the state is something that I've been very, very interested in.
I'm actually the chair of the Interagency Council on Homelessness and we need to look at it as a
three-legged stool. There is the legislation that we have to make sure that we have laws that allow
us to build affordable housing. There are administrative rules and making sure like,
you know, how you can build what type of permits that you need and then there's funding.
And right now there is nobody who is looking at all three of those things to make sure that
they're aligned. So as governor, I would assign somebody to make sure that they are looking at
housing overall, having a statewide strategic plan to make sure that we have some of those
starter homes that we certainly don't have in Wisconsin anymore. If you look at somebody
who is on the average salary making $50,000 a year, they could possibly afford a home around
$100,000, $125,000. That simply doesn't exist in the marketplace today. So we need to get back to
making sure that we are building starter homes with a priority on home ownership, not just rentals.
Governor Evers has got an ambitious plan to overhaul the Department of Corrections and the
prison system. Would you carry that forward? Absolutely. We absolutely have to make sure that
we are doing what's best for people within our prison system and correction system and it needs
an overhaul. Would you like to see any changes to Wisconsin's abortion law? I would. What we need
to do is to make sure that we enshrine Roe within Wisconsin. That's what I've always been really
clear about. I'm again a nurse by background. We know that these type of health care decisions
are best made between a patient and their doctor and Roe has been something that has kept
women safe for decades and we need to make sure that we have legislation to keep women safe in
Wisconsin so that it does not go back and forth between if we have different leaders between
Republicans and Democrats. Sarah Rodriguez, thanks for your time. Thank you so much for having me.
All right. That was it. Okay. Thank you so much. Good. You are still tethered so don't run.
Oh yeah. I do like to run away with these things.