saved for that. So if it feels like some of these questions kind of come out of
nowhere. Sure, no problem. It's anticipating the need for that. Yeah. All right. Well if
we have 30 minutes I'm not even gonna bother keeping time. We should be good on
this then. All right. Do you guys need a clapper? Is that already taking care of us?
I don't need one. I need to just go ahead. We can wake up. Okay. All right. Well thank you very
much for joining us. Looking back at 2024, what stands out at you is some of the
more significant moments of the year. So for over a decade we have been working
to get fair maps in Wisconsin and that happened at the beginning of 2024. We
were really pleased to be able to run last cycle on competitive maps that had a
whole lot of districts that were of course very close. It's really good for
our democracy and it's good for the voters to have more choice and we saw
that those maps had a significant impact on the election cycle. We were
able to pick up 10 seats as the Assembly Democrats and the Senate picked up
several as well on the Democratic side. So we're really pleased to see the
numbers get a lot closer in both chambers. We of course are always working towards
the majority but we got pretty far in one cycle and we are going to use that new
power to have real wins for our constituents in the coming legislative
cycle. When speaking just for legislative Democrats is it fair to say the
redistricting was probably the most significant moment of the decade? I think
it's certainly up there. Yeah. Can it be overstated what this changes in the
building? No I don't think it can. I mean in terms of the elections as you and I'm
sure many of your viewers know was near impossible for Democrats in the
Assembly and Senate to get a majority under the old maps despite often getting
about 50% of the vote right sometimes over sometimes a little under. And so now
when we get 50% of the vote right that should yield close to 50% of the seats
and that's a very good thing. We really did not have a functioning democracy here
when it came to the state legislature. And so now we've got a number of members
who are going to be serving in this body in the upcoming year who are on the red
side and the blue side who are in very close seats and they're going to be
looking over both shoulders right and they're going to know that they've got
an election in two years and voters are going to expect them to deliver. They're
going to expect them to work hard on their behalf and not pay play partisan
games right which often dominated in this building in the last decade. And I
think that's going to be a really good thing. I'm hopeful that we're going to
see a really productive bipartisan session. How does how long does it take
for that culture to shift because in way back before the first set of gerry
manager maps in 2010 you know older members taught new members how to work
in the capital. But the most of the existing members have only lived under
that strict gerrymandered partisan divide. So what will it take for new
members to understand and work with new people about how does compromise
legislation look like? Yeah, it's a really good question. I guess the first
thing I'll say is we have 23 new assembly Democrats this year. That's
actually a majority of our caucus that's going to be new legislators. Many of
them of course coming from local government or other backgrounds where
they were interacting with the legislature so they know a little bit
about it. But I think it's a really good thing that we have so many new
people coming in because I think that is going to help with this culture
shift in really a new era for the legislature. We only have one member
who served in the majority. That's Chris and Nikki. And so she I'm sure is
going to be helping our caucus understand what it was like to really
be in a different position. But I will say that last session things already
started to change right with new maps coming in we saw much more negotiation
we saw bipartisan legislation on housing and the brewers and shared
revenue. And I think we're going to see that only increase. But we did get
some practice last session in those negotiations working with our colleagues
and trying to get some big things done. Looking back at the election in
November quickly with Trump's win in the national environment. There are a lot
of people talking about landslide and how great it was for Republicans. What's
your counter argument to that considering how well Democrats did in
Wisconsin? Yeah, so Wisconsin is a bit of an outlier, right? I think nationally
the country moved about six points towards Republicans and swing states
an average of three and in Wisconsin an average of one and a half. So we feel
really good about the work that we were able to do. Clearly the strong
candidates right having a resonant message and really running strong
campaigns mattered here in Wisconsin. We knocked a ton of doors right our
candidates were out directly connecting with voters across the state in the
97 districts or we had candidates running and we really do think that was
a big piece of this. We also of course have worked really hard to make sure
that voters understand what Democrats stand for in Wisconsin what we have
been fighting for and our vision for the future. And so relative to the rest of
the country we feel pretty good about where we made out. So we have a budget
coming next year. Historically we have seen Governor Evers budget
proposals set aside and Republicans write their own budget. How does that
change with a narrower majority? We've seen in the past Speaker Voss
specifically has let some of his more vulnerable members vote no against
some of those Republican proposals. He doesn't have the same latitude now.
Right. Yeah, so we're all going to be figuring this out together, right? It is
a new era. It's been over a decade since we've had fair maps and a lot of
members who are in these competitive districts need to be taking their
constituents perspectives into consideration here. You know, we're
already in conversation with our colleagues in the Senate and the governor
about our top priorities for the budget and how we are going to collectively
leverage our power to get real wins for the people of Wisconsin. We know that
anything that is signed into law has to go through the governor. And so he has
leveraged there and we expect that in the Senate and the Assembly it's it's
possible if not likely that they will need Democratic votes on some important
policies that they're trying to get done in the next year and a half. What
would you like to see from Governor Evers in his budget proposal because we've
seen him kind of introduce a budget that really does not reflect the reality of
their GOP control majorities. Do you think he should be a little more reflective of
what the majorities look like this time or should it still be a vision
document? Yeah, so I think the governor has done a great job of listening to the
people of Wisconsin and reflecting the people's priorities in his budgets. That's
what I hope and expect he will do again. He's put forward visionary policy like
paid family and medical leave in Wisconsin investing in childcare in our schools
protecting our environment investing in safety and criminal justice reform, right?
I think those are good things those should be in the budget and I'm hopeful
that with the new dynamics we are going to see more of the governor's budget in
the final document. Once again we're coming into a budget season with a large
surplus in the state. Republicans have already talked about that has to be a
tax cut. What kind of a tax cut could you expect Democrats to actually vote for?
Yeah, so in the last legislative session we put forward alongside the governor,
right? A middle-class working families tax cut. We are very happy to have
conversations about doing something like that again. We do have a significant
surplus and we also know that many people are struggling to make ends meet in
Wisconsin due to recent inflation and so we're going to engage in those
conversations in good faith. I would say that the challenge is that Republicans
keep coming forward with policy proposals on tax cuts that are really
about benefiting the richest people in Wisconsin and corporations and that's
just not something that we're interested in doing. We want a tax cut that is
going to put money in the pockets of people who really need it and we are
looking forward to those conversations. The last four years we've had a Biden
administration that sent a lot of funds into the state of Wisconsin. What are
you expecting from a Trump administration especially since they've talked about
cutting federal agencies or some of the money that flows into the states? Yeah, I
think we need to be prepared to take care of ourselves in many ways. I expect that
some federal funds will have strings attached that we don't want and we are
going to need to do everything we can to support our local governments and our
schools and our higher education institutions to continue to function and
to provide great services to you know their students and the people who live
in Wisconsin and that's going to be a big discussion in the state budget, right?
I think we're going to really need to think about how we're going to invest in
our schools and how we're going to make sure that we are starting giving each
kid in Wisconsin the opportunity to start life on a strong footing. The
legislature has not done its part in the past and I don't think that our schools
are going to get bailed out by the federal government so I'm hoping we can
have a really robust conversation and see significantly increased investment in
our schools in the coming budget. I mean contrary to you know the federal
investment in education we've heard Trump administration talk about eliminating
the Department of Education what would it mean to return that to the states you
know whatever that concept may be what could that look like or what would that
mean for the discussion in Wisconsin? Yeah I mean I think we're all still trying to
figure that out but what we do know is that it's good to have people at the
federal level who are thinking about how to have strong schools at every state.
Wisconsin's historically been a state that had really strong public education
that's faltered a little bit under GOP control because of the disinvestment but
I want people in Washington thinking about how schools in Wisconsin can be
great I also want people in Wisconsin doing the same and so I know that the
Department of Public Instruction is going to do everything they can to be
prepared for multiple possible scenarios and we're going to do the same in the
legislature. So I want to take you back to a year ago for this interview I asked
you to define success a year from now and I'm going to read you back a little
bit of what you had told you then. You said we want to get things done that
improve people's lives and build capacity for long-term success and
compete for the majority. Given that reassess that that vision that you
you aspire to a year ago how would you say you met that goal or achieved that
or where you have. Yeah I think every day our members assembly Democrats show
up and they try to get things done. That's been difficult under the deep
minority with the gerrymandered legislative maps but every opportunity we've
had we've taken it and so I feel really proud of that feel really proud of the
visionary policy that we put forward in the last legislative session to really
improve people's lives in Wisconsin and we of course are going to be meeting and
discussing with partners and our constituents and our caucus and everyone
in this building who's willing to meet with us to talk about what we can do this
cycle and so we're really excited about that work as I said we have a lot of new
members this year coming in and they are ready to do that work you know they
came here because they want to govern. On the campaign side of course we're
always going for the majority we didn't quite get there this year but again in
a tough year for Democrats we're really pleased with the gains that we did make
this cycle and we've got folks who are set up really well for two years from now
in many of these districts we didn't have competitive assembly races for over a
decade now we've got grassroots infrastructure we've got experienced
candidates we've got you know local folks who are mobilized and excited to
participate in those competitive elections and I think we've learned a lot
about how to run in this new environment. So let's talk about the number of
significant cases that are currently or could be for the Wisconsin Supreme Court
there's the abortion ruling there's JFC authority governor Evers education
funding vetoes Megan Wolf's appointment to the Wisconsin Elections Commission
they're likely to hear the appeal of the Act 10 law so all that how important is
the Supreme Court election coming up this April? Well people in Wisconsin have
heard this before but it is an existential election for us we have seen
how a conservative majority on the court damaged the state of Wisconsin over the
last decade taking away people's rights doing nothing when Roe v Wade fell right
doing nothing when Act 10 was passed in the legislature we have really
struggled under a conservative court in Wisconsin and we've now seen what can
happen when we have people elected who are fair and impartial our democracy
gained a lot when we got fair maps here in Wisconsin and that is thanks to a fair
and impartial court so we are going to be very engaged in this election we know
that it's essential for our constituents well-being for their rights and
freedoms particularly under a Trump administration given that the number of
these cases directly deal with the legislature or the budget does it do you
need to wait for the Supreme Court to rule on some of these specifically
governor Evers education vetoes or JFC authority or Act 10 I mean do you have
to wait to see what happens before you can act on some of these issues well and it
comes to things like Act 10 we are always going to be fighting to enshrine
the rights of working people into state law right that's been a goal for us for
many years that will continue to be a goal we know that that's best practice
it's good to have a court case but it's also good to take legislative action I
hope that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle particularly on the
Joint Finance Committee will recognize that they've overstepped their authority
and they've also done something the people of Wisconsin did not want them to
do which is hold back dollars for PFAS cleanup and for rural hospitals people are
desperate for those resources to reach their communities and I'm hopeful that
Joint Finance Committee Republicans will recognize that they cannot act as a
super legislature and they will release those funds and literacy and and move
forward in in doing the work of the people of Wisconsin outside of budget
related issues what are some of the top priorities legislatively for Democrats
yeah so our I would say two big priorities coming into the new year we
really want to see strong investment in our schools that might be part of the
budget process but I think for my district in the Racine area for many of
us across the state right we've had to go to referendum we've been raising our
own property taxes we shouldn't be doing that when there's a four billion dollar
surplus sitting here in Madison I'm hopeful that we're able to do right by
our kids in the coming legislative session we also really want to focus on
lowering costs for working families we know that many people are having a
difficult time and so we're looking particularly at the areas of housing
and childcare and prescription drugs there's more that we can do at the state
level and we're hoping that our Republican colleagues will join us in
that and finally I want to end the same way as last year what how will you
define success a year from now what are the things that for you to say this was
a successful year we need to accomplish yeah we want to invest in schools we want
to lower costs we want to take every opportunity to get bipartisan work done
that impacts our constituents positively people are disillusioned with government
right now and with politics and we need to prove that we can come to Madison that
we can work across the aisle and that we can act in their best interest and so
we're really pleased to have so many new folks and great returning members who
are going to work every single day to deliver for their constituents and to
restore faith in the process here in the state assembly all right representative
Newbar thanks for your time always great to speak with you thank you all right
that was great quick thank you so much appreciate it yeah appreciate it yeah
appreciate you all perfect yeah so what do you got next I hope you were hoping to
get sneak a spectrum I think yeah