So, whenever you're in, is that one good?
Yeah, I tried giving your.
No, I'm sorry, is the other camera rolling?
Oh, yeah.
Do you need a clap, or are you good?
Well, yeah, we probably should clap.
OK.
This is the solution to it, yeah.
OK.
Whenever you two are in.
OK.
Well, representative, thanks for meeting with us.
What's it like to be back in the state capital?
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 capital, and the capital 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,
I did the right thing by coming back,
because it's still exciting to walk into this building.
It's a beautiful building.
And 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.
You're political history, especially at the capital.
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,
it was elected in 1990, took office January of 1991.
And here we are today.
This clearly, it wasn't in the road map.
It wasn't in the plan.
But we're back here and excited to be here
and looking forward to doing the best job I can
for the next two years, for the citizens of the 53rd.
But things were sure a lot different.
Back in the days in the 90s, the climate was different.
The people were different.
There was much more congeniality.
There was much 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 it was a possibility.
I left here in 2014.
So a good run of 24 years here, and fortunate for that.
But when I left, part of the reason I left
was because I could see the growing divide.
I could see that the right was going more to the right.
The left was going more to the left.
And some Republicans were being taken out in primaries.
Some Democrats were being taken out in primaries
because they weren't far enough left or right.
And I'm a conservative.
I'm a 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.
And I served in the majority.
I served in the majority.
Back into the minority.
And then back into the 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 a city council.
Business is back in Nina.
I'm a Nina Manashe guy.
And I said, you know what?
I want to go back.
I want to 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 was no Democrat.
It was just doing what you felt was the best thing
for the citizens of the city of Nina.
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 what 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 you know, 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 him after I came back here.
Because Governor Evers knows that I was one of the more
moderate members of the Republican caucus.
And you got to be.
When the district that I represent is 45%, you know,
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 got to reach out, you got to extend the average.
You're the governor.
You got to, you know, you 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 reach
you know, 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, you know, maybe take some of the
sharpness out of it.
And then maybe even making a few, you know,
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,
you know, 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 previously.
But, you know, someone's got to give.
And it's got to 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 budgets, 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 to 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.
Yeah, that's the biggest difference.
My entire years in the legislature,
we were responsible for our own fundraising.
It was all local.
It was all friends, family.
It was all constituents.
It was pretty much local.
And then you'd have the groups or organizations
who, you know, like-minded individuals
who would send you some conduit dollars
and you some packed 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 bucks,
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 you the money.
The caucus has to raise 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 I or NIA against a bill.
And, you know, there's no discussion about it.
But I think there's a little bit of a nod that,
hey, this group helped you, this group didn't help you.
Because of the immense dollars that are spent.
And, you know, my particular race,
every state in the union financed my opponent.
And what the heck do they care about this seat?
It's 53rd Assembly District seat in Nina Manasseh.
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 set as a United.
I don't know what the reasoning is,
but the cost of these elections.
And you've got to have it.
Because if you don't, what's going to happen
is the other side is just going to pour dollars in,
or their friends are going to pour dollars in,
and you're not going to stand a chance.
So you've got to 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's hundreds of thousands of people here
breaking windows, you know, coming into our offices.
It was tensed times.
We were ushered out by police and things like that.
And it was a highly volatile issue.
And I was one of those more moderate Republicans
coming from a 19th Senate district
with a Senator, Senator Ellis.
And this was kind of popped out of nowhere
because he didn't give, he just got,
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 streets
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 be in 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 kings,
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's truly disheartening was that
the groups like the unions, they did support me.
You know, 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 Nina,
I couldn't have probably made it without Act 10
because of the costs were rising exponentially
in 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 some of your members
who weren't here in that past?
Or maybe not even politically aware when that passed.
Do they ask you about those days?
Do they come to you for your wisdom
passing down on high?
Yeah, it's been interesting.
I don't wanna 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 gotta work together.
We gotta 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 to have a softball game, Christmas party.
You got to know each other.
You got to find out about their families,
Republicans, Democrats.
We go to the Avenue Barn and Grill,
we'd push tables together.
Seven Republicans, one night, 10 Democrats.
The next night it'd be six Democrats and four Republicans.
But you get to know each other a little bit.
And we worked to change and make the bill better.
That doesn't happen though.
The Republicans put out a bill
or the Democrats put out a 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.
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 if we get some Democrats to sign on to 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.
It'd 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 were 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 there's, everyone says the iOS system and all that,
but yes, I was here.
And 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.
Now, a bunch of years later, these maps came out.
As I understand, it went through the courts
and everything and Governor Evener finally involved himself.
And at the end of the day, the Thai beat and everything.
So the Republicans just kind of said,
yeah, we'll take that.
That's the best map we're gonna get.
But there's no doubt in my mind
that these maps have kind of,
you can say the word gerrymandering back when we did it.
And you can say the word gerrymandering this past year
when the Governor did 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, blah.
They could narrow this down to the voters
and they know which neighborhoods to put in,
which neighborhoods to 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 checkbox in their party
and then I decided to run.
And my years of service, my years as mayor,
people doing a pretty reasonable guy
that I was able to win.
But there's no doubt in my mind that,
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 fairer maps now.
But clearly, they were done in such a way to help.
I hear rumored oil 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 somebody retired,
only running a business,
and watching my grandkids play baseball and hockey.
But yeah, I came back because-
Well, how did you get recruited?
How did that process happen?
Some people talk to me.
Well, you know how to read a map.
Some of the leaders talk to me
and asked if I'd have any interest.
Numerous people said to me,
there's only one guy who could 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 I, you know, the second best job I had being mayor
was being the 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 gonna do well this election.
But I didn't want them to see them lose the majority either.
So that brought me back.
And I 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, you know,
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 mean, 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, having, you know,
10 ads during the TV show
that were just blatant lies.
And there's nothing you can do about it.
It's no fun.
It's no fun for you.
It's no fun for your family.
And then the hardest part is when you come,
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,
no, Dean Covers is not a bad person to work with.
And I'm one of the Republicans who can work with the other side.
I'm one of the Republicans who understand, you know,
we got a lot of things done
when we had a split legislature years ago.
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 didn't have, you know,
I thought about that.
It was funny because I, you know,
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, you know, I could have done a lot of things here.
But at the end of the day, I said, you know what?
There's gonna be some, I think,
from what I heard,
there's gonna 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 Incorrections 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, you know, that didn't work out very well,
so it's now a Wisconsin prison.
But I said, you know what?
Corrections is gonna 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 Wapon 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 shouldn't be able to figure 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'd 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 to figure it out.
And if you came out a little bit mad
and the Democrats came out a little bit mad,
and the governor's office weren't happy,
you probably had a good process.
But everyone had buy-in then,
and everyone didn't get what they would.
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 quarter
that they don't wanna work together.
That's frustrating for me.
But I do have a purpose here.
I have a purpose to make sure
Nina Manasseh and parts of Appleton
that I represent get good representation,
that constituent services,
I got my old staff back.
And so, you know, the lobby corps,
all those who need coffee as,
coffee as, the government relations people.
And I feel good because people are genuinely happy
to see me back and I could add something to the mix here.
Because I think historical knowledge is Fred Risser.
You know, perfect example was here a long time.
He brought a lot to the table
and I think I can do that too.
You're not gonna be here as long as Fred Risser.
Well, Fred Risser was elected the year I was born.
1857, no.
So this is a short-term gig for me.
And that's what's making me feel at ease.
That's what makes me, you know,
exciting because I know that I'm gonna only be here
two or four years, probably four.
I'm gonna try for four.
But I won't, 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, 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 said, you know, your bill's okay.
But this needs to change.
And they respect me enough to make that change
and say, hey, we're okay with that.
It makes it better.
And so I do have a purpose for a couple years or four years.
And that's to try to make this place better.
Try to make this place run better
and see if we can't change the political climate.
I don't know if we're gonna be able to
because there's too darn much money involved in politics.
But I'm gonna sure try.
And 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 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 caucus isn't closed
because sometimes that kind of stuff does get out.
But it's funny you bring that up
because in 1986 Bob Ziggelbauer,
who was a Democrat, Dean Crawford, who was 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.
And both sides do it.
This is, I'm not picking on the Republicans,
I'm not picking on the Democrats.
It's just Republicans are gonna power so long.
People can't remember when Democrats were empowered.
Exactly, and it just, 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 the debate, you would actually maybe go
in the parlor with two Democrats, a Democrat
and a couple 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'd have a product.
We'd have a motion made up by legislative council,
and we'd fix it.
We'd have a pretty good project,
pretty good product that people would,
maybe all vote for, it'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 say 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 Godford, thanks for your time.
Hey, I enjoyed it, I'm happy I'm back, and I'm excited.
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.
So, when somebody said that to me,
I've had so many people come here
and say hi and stop in with their issues,
they say you look the same, and I'll say,
well, I'm not using any coloring yet,
so I'm thoroughly excited to be back.
You didn't learn hair treatment from Michael.
Ooh, don't foot that in, all right, thank you.
Every time I drive north, I say,