Okay, we're standing by now.
Wisconsin voters go to the polls next Tuesday, April 2nd.
This spring election includes a presidential preference vote, which may give a sense of
which way our pivotal battleground state could tip.
Meanwhile, in policy and politics at the state level, Governor Tony Evers, with what he signed
into law and what he vetoed and why.
He joins us now, and Governor, thanks very much for doing so.
Thanks, Frederica.
How are you today?
Well, thank you.
So you have taken action on a raft of legislative bills in the past several days.
What for you are the most important bills that you've signed into law this session?
Oh, it's actually been a pretty good bipartisan session.
I know the, you know, when people kind of hear it from the outside and we're fighting
all the time, but the fact of the matter is we have fair maps.
That was a bipartisan win, shared revenues.
It was very, very important, the Brewer Stadium, portable housing, just to name a few.
And all of them were bipartisan and very, you know, very meaningful and important bills.
So I was really, really happy about that.
You know, we provide some more money for our schools, clearly we had decades worth of kind
of starving our schools.
So it wasn't enough, but it certainly was an important issue.
And lots of resources for mental health for kids, that's really critical.
So you spoke to the bipartisan nature of these bills now signed into law, but do you look
forward to a changing political landscape because of new maps?
Should it lead to even less feuding and more compromise?
It should.
And that's critically important.
Fair maps does not mean democratically gerrymandered maps.
I just mean the rationale here is that the Wisconsin is a purple state and races should
be close and hard fought and give people the chance to interact with candidates from both
parties.
I just think it's best for democracy.
And so I'm really happy about that.
I think there will be more Democrats in the legislature than before, but it's going to
be close.
And so I do think that bipartisanship will be amplified by that.
Absolutely.
Which do you believe were your most important vetoes?
Well, I would say the important vetoes, there's several.
But what I'm concerned about is all the ones that just never made it to me that worked.
We didn't have a chance of vetoing.
Essentially the postpartum piece where we could give, could have gave women a full year instead
of the 60 days, making sure that our people at the polls are doing, you know, can open
envelopes a day before so that they're not so scurrying around in election day.
There's a whole number of things that frankly didn't happen.
And the one thing that I'll continue to advocate for that frankly is critical is childcare
operations in the state are just barely hanging in there.
If we want to have a strong economy, we need a strong industry of childcare.
So those are things that, you know, I didn't veto, we just never got there.
So what are some lingering issues, the 15 million in health care kind of help for the
Chippewa Valley and PFAS come to mind?
Yeah, the, I can't, I have yet to understand why we can't release that money for folks
in the Northwest Wisconsin.
I heard directly from the folks up there that they wanted the legislation itself to
set years 15 million dollars for emergency room work.
That's important, but so, you know, we need to deliver babies, babies up there.
We have mental health issues in the Northwest Wisconsin.
So it was important that I did a partial veto on that and made it, you know, made it more
reasonable for the people out there to kind of get through until they have something permanent.
But the Joint Finance Committee just cannot see fit to send them the money.
It just, it's just very, very, very disappointing.
On schools, you spoke to school funding earlier, but voters will be asked on their ballots
on Tuesday's election whether to approve some one billion dollars in spending by way of
referendum to supplement funding in their schools.
What if voters feel they cannot vote yes on those?
Well, certainly, you know, it's difficult.
As I said before, we did a pretty good job of having a head start on the issue of funding,
but funding is different in every different, you know, it's a very complex situation.
Some schools, because they have revenue at home, in their own district, they get less state aid.
So it's a complicated thing.
Not everybody's in that position, but, you know, we had 10 years or more of essentially
starving our schools.
And what we were able to do was that finally got through is about 50% of what the original
budget was.
And so I'm not surprised that there's more schools going to referendum than they needed.
I hope that people will be supportive, but I also understand that
anytime you have a referendum, you're going to be increasing the local taxes.
But, you know, people at the local level make those decisions, but in the past,
and I'm assuming the same case here, is there'll be plenty of winners and a handful of losers,
and those, unfortunately, those losers will likely have to make some really difficult
decisions, especially as it relates to the number of teachers they have.
So voters will also see on their ballots a designation on the Presidential Preference
one for unrestricted.
There are moves to cast Joe Biden as unrestricted over Gaza.
What's your comment on that?
Well, you know, it's part of democracy.
I know there's lots of people out there that are concerned about the Gaza situation,
certainly I am.
You can't help but watch it every day on the TV and feel that we have to find a way to
solve that issue.
And, you know, so I'm guessing there will be some of those that are undesignated.
I will vote for Joe Biden.
He's done some really significant things from the state of Wisconsin,
especially in the infrastructure world, but in other areas too.
But, you know, people can send a message.
I know he's working on solving that issue, and hopefully that can be resolved in their
future to avoid further bloodshed.
What about the constitutional amendments that seek to prohibit outside grants and election
administration or outside experts stemming from 2020 concerns?
Why did you veto those when they were legislative bills?
Because they're unnecessary, and frankly, we're going to make it difficult to vote.
It's a core thing for me, and I think most Wisconsinites said we need to encourage people
to vote instead of discouraging them.
And so I felt both of those were headed in the wrong direction, and so I vetoed them.
Now, I find it amazing that because they can't override my veto somehow,
the legislature can put it on a ballot and make it part of the Constitution.
These things aren't constitutional issues, but so I will be voting against those
because I vetoed them to begin with.
I thought both of them would make it more difficult for people to vote,
and we should be making it a friendly opportunity.
We want people to vote.
We want more people to vote, as simple as that, and both of these are not headed in that direction.
All right, we leave it there, Governor Tony Evers.
Thank you very much.
Thanks for it, Rick.
I have a good day.
Thank you, sir.
The audio sounded just fine, I think, so.
Good.
Well, my voice is kind of scratchy, so there's nothing you can do about that.
No, it's all good.
Thank you, Frank.
We appreciate your time.
You bet.
Have a good weekend.
You too.
Bye-bye.