Governor Evers, thanks very much for joining us.
Great to be here, Frederica.
So describe for us what you count as your biggest accomplishments of the past year.
Oh, there's a couple that come to mind.
First of all, shared revenue was a huge bipartisan win for the state of Wisconsin.
I spent a lot of time when I was running for office talking about it every single day, all day long.
And, you know, it's kind of a thing that most people shared revenue, what is it, that sort of thing.
But at the end of the day, most of the heavy lifting from government happens at the local level, not the state or federal level.
And so we worked on that and, you know, compromised and got some things through which it was a huge win.
Huge win for the people of Wisconsin, whether it's fire, EMT, public libraries you need.
Another one that doesn't get much attention, but we had the largest amount of money for affordable housing ever in the state of Wisconsin.
Everybody talks about it, whether you're a town of 50 or a town of 50 million.
The issue of affordable housing is critical, and we've got not enough money to solve it, but it was a real breakthrough operation.
So those two things end, frankly, our state government is healthy.
You know, we have lots of money in our rainy day funds, and the economy in Wisconsin is good.
High low unemployment, high employment rate, and so I feel good about where we are.
I mean, clearly we've got a long way to go.
So what is the state surplus right now? Is it 7 billion?
7 billion with a B. That's right, and that's why we should be utilizing some of these monies to do things like bolster our childcare situation in Wisconsin.
It's a national thing, but we can take care of some of that here.
That in and of itself is going to have a huge impact on our economy and the state if people have to leave the workforce in order to take care of their children.
That's a thing, and it's a big thing.
So yes, we have the resources to do some really extraordinarily important things.
Since we last spoke, the state Supreme Court has thrown out the existing voting district maps.
What is your expectation that new maps will be in place for this year's elections?
We can get it done.
I mean, the last time we went through this, where we ended up with the maps we have now, we had the same kind of shortage of timeline.
We had to get things done, we had to get things into the courts.
It was the same thing.
The legislature had their maps, I had mine, nobody could agree.
We had to go to the Supreme Court back then.
And all that happened in the same timeline. We can get this done.
Well, we have to get it done.
And so I'm looking forward to having maps that are reflective of the purple type of state that we are.
And frankly, we can have more competitive races.
It's good for voters, and it's going to be good for our state.
The Republicans want to take it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
What about that?
I think that's a stretch.
I mean, you hear that on a regular basis that something's going to go to the Supreme Court, whether it's this or something else.
The last time we were there, the Supreme Court had some concerns about the Voting Rights Act.
And that caused our maps to be thrown out.
So we are very cognizant of the Voting Rights Act.
We're not going to be violating it.
And we can get this done.
If it goes to the Supreme Court, last time they said, we did our work, you do your work back in the state level.
State is the place where this has to be resolved.
So I can't imagine the Supreme Court has changed that much in just a handful of years that they're going to say,
well, we changed our mind about that.
So I'm guessing some people will try to take it to the Supreme Court.
They'll either not take it or send it back.
And so you feel confident that there will be new maps that will be better for Democrats in the year?
Better for democracy.
But I won this landslide race a few years ago with 3% of the population difference in voting population.
So I feel confident that we are a bona fide purple state.
The legislature clearly doesn't reflect that.
So having more competitive races is good for democracy and good for the people of Wisconsin.
The Wisconsin High Court is also expected to have to consider the state abortion law after a lower court ruling coming into this election year.
In your mind, how resonant does the issue of abortion remain with voters?
A lot of uncertainty, especially with our opponent or with the Republican Party talking about,
well, maybe it should be a six week or 12 week or whatever.
Right now, we're back to where we were before a row was thrown up by the federal government, federal school district.
So we are where we were at then.
They want to take away people's rights.
Six to 12 weeks is taking away women's ability to reproductive health.
And that is just not acceptable.
I think people are going to be concerned about that and it's going to be a big part of this next election.
You were administration filed a lawsuit over Republican legislators refusing to approve the pay raises
before eventually kind of extracting restrictions on diversity, equity and inclusion at the universities of Wisconsin.
They got their salary increases after that.
But now that the UW Board of Regents bent to these demands, is that lawsuit moot or are there other arguments?
It is absolutely not moot.
There's all sorts of situations like that where decisions are made that are either not state law or our state law.
But that was a perfect example.
We had a budget.
We passed the budget.
The budget was set.
We had four percent or whatever the percent increase was.
That should have been done instead of how can you negotiate against what's in state law and that's exactly what they did.
In the same vein, the Republicans in the budget had issues on DEI to cramp down on that.
I vetoed that.
They couldn't override that veto.
Again, the idea that somehow they can bypass executive branch on that is just unacceptable.
I anticipate winning that race or winning that case in court and bring some sanity to what's going on between the executive
branch and the legislative branch.
Speaking of which, in a recent interview that we conducted with Speaker Robin Voss, he said of you, quote,
he is an absentee governor who's very uninvolved in the process, saying that you don't meet with them
and you simply sign things that they have worked on noting shared revenue and the brewer's funding stadium package.
What's your response to that?
Typical.
He understands, I believe, and if he doesn't, not all of the executive branch, and certainly not my job,
is to just hang out in the Capitol waiting for him to come up with something that we can all talk about and be happy about.
My job is to be visible to people all across the state of Wisconsin and listen to what their needs are.
I'm not a legislature.
I'm part of the executive branch.
So, you know, it is what it is.
He can believe what he believes.
I believe what I believe.
My job is to make sure that, yes, I'm into Capitol and I need to be into Capitol, but other than that,
I'm going to be on the road listening to people, talking to small business owners, talking to people in public schools,
doing the good work of what the governor does.
And if he doesn't like it, frankly, I don't care.
I talked about shared revenue being a thing a long time before he did.
And by God, we got it done.
People in the local governments know where it started from, and it started with me talking about it, not Robin Voss.
In fact, I can't remember the last time he did talk about it.
He is what he is.
I'm who I am, and that's the way it goes.
Are you willing to compromise with Republican lawmakers over PFAS mitigation by way of limiting the DNR's authority,
which they seek?
Yeah, that's a problem.
I mean, we have money in the budget.
That was a bipartisan effort to get that into the budget.
Now we have to figure out how to distribute that money.
I am concerned that the President Bill, which we haven't seen yet,
and so I'm reluctant to talk about it because who knows what it's going to look like before it gets to my desk.
But it does not give the authority to the Department of Natural Resources to get the work done.
And that's a problem.
I think that the DNR plays a role in this.
That's their job.
And that's why we've actually asked the Joint Finance Committee to release the money and let the DNR do their work.
This is important work.
And the more we mess around with it, the more problem we're going to have.
So I'm concerned that they're using this as an opportunity to essentially not have any accountability for who's accountable for this.
And that's why we're going to be back in the days when other things happen in the state of Wisconsin, we help people accountable.
There's no interest in doing that.
We have to have the Department of Natural Resources in the position to make sure that people are held accountable.
Because what do you want people of Wisconsin who are suffering with PFAS contamination to know about whether or not the legislature and the executive branch can come together to disperse this money to help?
If I was living on French Island, you know, outside all across, I would be wondering the same thing.
I am more than willing to compromise on this, but we have to have people held accountable.
And one of those ways, frankly, is with the Department of Natural Resources.
This should be an easy, easy thing to do.
And hopefully we'll get there.
Governor Tony Evers, thanks very much.
Good to see you again.
Thanks.
All good.