And it can just, I mean, you notice,
like someone carries a grudge for a few decades in time.
And all of a sudden, it's like, the new people come in,
and I'm 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 that those people...
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 it 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, I mean, it's always gonna come down to money
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.
Yeah, right.
People can say it somewhere else, but it's not.
I'm ready to do it.
Okay, cool.
All right.
You good?
All right.
Well, 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 is 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 health care,
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 this
because Democrats are saying
well, Republicans could have funded it in the budget.
And obviously Governor Evers fought
for other priorities in the budget.
So do you think 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 the testify
at our joint finance hearing 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 Evers 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 taxes, 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 wanna care about making sure
people can stay in their homes
and afford to live in Wisconsin,
we've gotta 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 400 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 healthcare for women
through Medicaid.
There, that's got a lot of support in the Senate.
There are Republican cosponsors.
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 we 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 our flat.
We found other ways to address healthcare 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 healthcare costs.
I would much rather focus
on lowering healthcare costs for everyone
as opposed to putting a few more people
into welfare than all of us are going to pay for.
And the Democrats saying, well, it's you personally.
Speaker of also loan that stopped this from happening.
Is there truth to that?
Is it simply you opposed it
and so you convinced others not to support it?
Or is it really there wasn't enough support in the caucus?
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 person, 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.
Or remember we created a speakers task force
on the rulemaking process headed up by Brent Jacobson
from Wasa, 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 Courts,
under liberal governors and Republican governors.
It's really been a consensus to say
we want co-equal branches of government
only into 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 gonna be a Democrat legislature,
God forbid, but there will be,
and a Republican governor and you are gonna forget
how much power you gave away and you're gonna 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 bills.
Do you 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
to administer the program under the big beautiful bill.
There were some changes in how we administered it.
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 that in the 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 gonna 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 of competitive seats out there?
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 Wasa 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 want to see results.
So I think our candidates are going to talk
about affordability.
How do we make things better for the average family?
We're going to 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 going to 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 fire 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.
When it comes to next fall,
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 focused
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 about 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 bring up some issues
dealing with utility costs in the spring
which I know are a big hassle for people.
We're going to 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.
All right, there we go.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
No problem.
So is that Sunday for this weekend or is it a week?
That'll be a week.