>> Coming off the election, state legislative leaders
prepare to roll up their sleeves for the next session and a
biennial budget. Senior political reporter Zach Schultz
sat down with Senate and Assembly leaders this week. The
Democrats, who won big in the redistricting fight and are now
looking to use their newfound seats to leverage policy
changes. First up, Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer,
looking back at 2024. >> What stands out at you as
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 ten 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, it can 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 as you and I'm sure many of your viewers know, it 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 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 gerrymandered maps
in 2010, you know, the older members taught new members how
to work in the Capitol. But the most of the existing members
have only lived under that strict, gerrymandered partizan
divide. So what will it take for new members to understand and
work with new people about? How does compromise legislation look
like? 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, and that's Chris
Sinicki. 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.
>> Once again, we're coming into a budget season with a large
surplus in the state. Republicans have already talked
about there has to be a tax cut. What kind of a tax cut could you
expect Democrats to actually vote for? Yeah.
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
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. 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 state? >> 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 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
coming budget. coming budget.