>> The Wisconsin Senate wraps up its regular
business for 2026. What passed, what didn't, and
what can we learn from the way this Senate voted? This
is inside Wisconsin politics on WPR Capital
Bureau Chief Shawn Johnson here with WPR capital
reporter Anya van Wagtendonk WPR, political
reporter Rich Kramer and PBS Wisconsin senior
political reporter Zac Schultz. Hey, everyone.
>> Hey, Shawn. So we were all
set to talk about how this session of the Wisconsin
Senate was different than previous sessions. And the
Senate gave us lots to talk about, including as we're
getting ready to record news that the Senate
Majority leader, Devin LeMahiue, is not going to
seek reelection, which in the world of the state
Capitol, as you all know, that is a pretty big deal.
Zack, what can we take from that, given the way that
the Senate has been acting this week? And how big a
deal is it in the Capitol? >> Well, it certainly felt
like a week of voting where people weren't worried
about the next election or the next term. There were
questions of whether that signaled LeMahiue knew that
his majority position was at stake. As Republicans
are worried about having the Dems flip the Senate.
But I think the bigger picture to look here is
we're going to have a new majority leader in the
Senate, a new speaker in the Assembly and a new
governor. And the last time that happened was 2011 with
Scott Walker and the Fitz's running the show. Big
changes that time. We might see big changes next
session, too. >> A wave election. And
there's people, of course, every every election is
nationalized right now. And there have already been
people talking about whether this would be a
nationalized democratic election. Anya, you know,
you know, that Capitol building and you know how
much sway leaders carry, how big of a deal is it to
you that Devin LeMahiue, the leader that you've
covered in that Senate since you've been here is
stepping down? >> Yeah. I mean, as Zack
said, the session, the voting session only a few
days ago was that two days ago. I've lost track of
time this week. There were a few bills that came
forward where there was a real question of whether
Devin would let them get to the floor, because he did
not have Republican votes. And so there were kind of
threats being floated about what that would mean for
his leadership position. necessary Democratic votes
in order to pass. And so then him stepping down, it
really is this kind of signal that he whatever
kind of consequences might have come in the caucus, he
doesn't have to worry about them anymore.
>> And Rich, you were covering the session this
week, and that question of whether or not to get
Democratic votes is something that everyone was
talking about. And, you know, the Senate Senator
LeMahiue even had some kind of not so veiled threats
thrown out from a member of his own caucus. Don't do
that. Basically, how unusual was this session
week in terms of bipartisanship? Frankly.
>> It was pretty unusual. I mean, to me, someone who's
pretty new at covering state politics, it feels a
little strange when getting Democratic votes on a
Republican bill or Republican votes on a
Democratic bill is a big deal. It seems like that
would be normal. But that's not the case. And that was
more of a sign of what you all have been talking about,
that things are changing there. It feels like things
are changing in the Senate. They used to have a
supermajority not that long ago. Then we got new maps
after the Wisconsin Supreme Court's Liberal majority
struck down, ones that were drawn by Republicans back
in 2011. And then we had an election under those maps.
So that supermajority went down to 18 Republican
senators. And that threat goes to this thing called
the rule of 17. It's an informal rule, but the idea
is that if you're in the majority, you pass bills
with majority support. You don't even really consider
them if you don't have those 17 votes. But we saw
examples where Devin LeMahiue went ahead and
passed them anyway with Democratic support.
>> And that's a that's a very informal rule as far
as the workings of the Capitol go. I mean, it's
not in the Senate rules. It's certainly not in law,
but it is an internal Republican caucus thing.
>> Shawn bring us back to Fitz. When Fitzgerald ran
the Senate, his philosophy, I'm sure you recall, was
you don't go to the floor unless you have the votes.
So clearly, LeMahiue knew what he was doing when
he came to the floor with those bills.
>> He's on it a few times, too. Senator LeMahiue has I
mean, they did it with the big local government
funding bill a couple of years ago. They needed
Democrat support to get that through. There was the
budget this last time, this very bipartisan deal
between Speaker Vos and, you know, Governor Evers
and that needed Democratic votes. So I don't I haven't
seen Devin LeMahiue adhere to that rule that in the
way that Scott Fitzgerald did when Scott Fitzgerald,
you know, was leader for a long time, he was more like
Scott Fitzgerald was more of like a a Robin Vos kind
of leader. Been there forever. Kind of ruled with
an iron fist in the Senate, didn't get pushed around on
too much when he did go to Democrats for votes, it was
sparingly. >> Well, and that rule is a
lot easier to maintain if you have a lot of wiggle
room. So if you have a supermajority, as Rich
mentioned, you can lose some of your members and
it's not a big deal. But as the margins have gotten
smaller and smaller, and now Democrats are talking
about trying to flip the Senate, and I think they
stand a pretty good chance of doing so. Maybe they're
also kind of seeing the writing on the wall, that
being a leader would be a whole lot harder if you
have just a very slim majority or no majority of
all at all. >> So let's unpack a couple
of the bills where this did end up being a factor. This
week you had online sports betting bill that would
legalize online sports betting in Wisconsin. If
the servers for that betting are located on
tribal lands. Rich, what were the arguments on that
one in the Senate this week? >> Well, so generally, the
Republican opposition argument was that we
shouldn't be we shouldn't be expanding legalized
gambling in Wisconsin. It causes addiction. It hurts
people. ET cetera. That was the bulk of the GOP
argument. Democrats were saying, well, it's already
here. You know, sports betting online is happening
on the margins, on the outside, on the edges. And
this way, the state can have some regulations in
place. And Democrats like that, the the tribes get to
play a role in this and that the money is going to
tribes and also the state rather than major companies
like DraftKings or FanDuel that are out of state.
>> And the the details on this one are pretty
significant, I think. I mean, if you've watched
sporting events, you see ads for FanDuel or
DraftKings just everywhere now, which you did not used
to see in the very recent past. Those companies don't
like this bill, though, because it would an
industry group said that they would have to share
60% of their revenue with the tribes and their, you
know, these companies are saying, we just won't do
business here in Wisconsin if you do it that way. That
is not an argument that I heard opponents making
against this, though. We heard very strong arguments
against Ana from social conservatives when it comes
to gambling. >> Yeah. So there's the
argument that, again, there's kind of a social
problem with gambling, but then also there's a real
kind of messy legal situation here where it's a
mix of state, federal and tribal law, all of which is
at play, and then some of which has not been tested.
And so one of the pushbacks from, for example, the
Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, the
conservative law firm, is that this creates an
unconstitutional kind of ethnic monopoly, right?
Giving the tribes the monopoly, even though the
compacts with the tribe says that they are in
charge of gambling in the state. And so those
arguments are kind of at play. And so I think we're
going to see quite a bit of legal push pull over how to
implement this. >> Well, it's still not
even clear if Governor Evers is going to sign this
bill. That's right. His statements just yesterday
tribes on board and that so far that is not the case.
There are some tribes that are out ahead of the rest
of them when it comes to casino profits and revenues.
And there are some some of the ones in northern
Wisconsin where they have casinos, but they're not
that profitable and not nearly to the scale that
the rest of them are. So it may take the tribes working
together to actually get Governor Evers to sign off
on this. So all of this may go for a bill that gets
vetoed, saying we need to work on it for next year.
>> And, you know, we're focused on the Senate here
and how they were acting different with this, you
know, 2026 election on the horizon. Toni Evers is
absolutely acting different now because he knows he's
not going to run again. So he can basically look at
every bill and say, is this really what I want? If not,
let it go. Veto, move on. You know, keeping on that
sports theme, we had another big bill this week
with name, image and likeness or nil. Tell us
about that. You're a huge sports fan. I know.
>> I do that one. I care so deeply about college sports.
I care deeply about political policy as it
affects college sports. And so I got to learn all about
this. So Nil deals, this comes out of a 2021 sort of
change in how college athletes are treated.
They're no longer amateurs. They can get paid for their
work and they can kind of wrangle these deals
according to how popular their sport is and how good
they are at their sports. And so what that has led to
is athletes being able to transfer schools in search
of more lucrative deals in a way that, as I understand
it, as someone who does not follow the Badgers terribly
closely, has not been great for Badgers football in
particular, and I might be getting some knowing
glances from the actual football fans among us. But
so what this bill would do is put $14.5 million
towards UW-Madison for athletic facilities fees in
order for the school to have a pot of money to make
these deals with players. So the idea is that they'd
be able to bring in top football and basketball
talent in particular. This passed out of the Assembly
almost unanimously, and then it became this big
open question at the Senate because it was a LeMahiue
bill. But then he was losing a ton of support
within his caucus. And so the question up until it
basically the day of the floor vote was, will he
spike his own bill in order to maintain the rule of 17,
or will he go to Democrats for support? And there was
some pretty dramatic stuff on the floor that happened.
It passed very narrowly, but it passed because of
Democrats. >> Rich. That was a very
close one in the Senate, as I recall, like just a one
vote margin. So you talk about needing Democratic
votes in every sense of the word. You know, Devin
LeMahiue needed that. What was that one like?
>> It it was a voice vote, essentially, or I should
say it wasn't a voice vote. It was a roll call vote.
But there wasn't a lot of debate or any that I
remember in the Senate, but just kind of looking,
pulling back a little bit, I wanted to say that it's
interesting to see Republicans, any
Republicans send more money to UW-Madison, just
basically overall, they have been pretty
distrustful of the university on all kinds of
fronts. So to see as many, you know, send them more
money as there were, was something.
>> Well, what's interesting about this bill and the way
that it works is that it allows for that money to be
transferred into the university, sold it as we
already getting money for basketball and football
players. But freeing up this money allows us to
share it with our Olympian sports. So the swimmers,
the rowers, volleyball, very successful women's
hockey program saying we may have to shutter some of
those if we don't have this flexibility for a little
more money. But what it does is it solidifies the
lack of transparency for all of these contracts. I
interviewed UW athletic director Chris McIntosh a
couple months ago, and I asked him about, you know,
why don't we see more of what these people are
getting paid? Because they are now professionals. They
are contracts that are signed between the
university and their agents. And he said, well, we can't,
because if our competitors know what we're paying our
potential quarterback or our point guard, then they
can come in and offer them more and steal them away
from us. The question becomes, there were some
Dems who raised this during the debate is, what happens
if this lack of transparency for the open
records gets applied to coaches contracts? What
happens if there's other deals for outside support
that all of a sudden get hidden under this idea of,
well, we anti-competitive. We can't let anyone know
how much we're paying anyone. And there's a lot
of concerns out there. And we saw, I think, Senator
Hesselbein, the leader of the minority leader of the
Dems, say if the Dems have power next year, they would
definitely come back and revisit that particular
angle. So it's definitely something to watch for how
it's applied. I think most people are supportive of
athletes getting paid for the work that they're doing,
but there's a question of where's this money coming
from and what does the public know about this,
since it is public support? And full disclosure, we're
also UW employees, right. >> And and our salaries are
public. And that is an open record.
>> I'm waiting for mine. >> Yeah. Me too.
>> So the the Senate adjourned this week. The
Assembly has been done like forever now a month ago,
which feels a long time in legislative politics. They
like to do this under Speaker Vos or Speaker Vos
likes to do this. Get done first, set the agenda, you
know, make everybody kind of go on your timeline. And
so then everything that they pass is either going
to get passed in the Senate in that form, or it's dead.
And one of the bills that did die was this Republican
data center bill would regulate data centers.
Speaker Vos very helpfully had a forum on the last day
of Senate session where he had some opinions about the
Senate not taking up his data center bill. Ana what
did he have to say? >> Yeah, I mean, this was
basically the closest that the legislature came to
having any type of regulatory bill for data
centers, which of course, are kind of exploding
across the state. And the fact that it is that it did
not reach the floor of the Senate means that the
session has passed without basically any guardrails,
any new guardrails coming on. But this was a
Republican bill Vos championed it, and it
essentially put certain guardrails, especially
around energy use of data centers. So, for example,
they would have to recycle the water that they use if
they wanted to use renewable energy sources,
they would have to cite those on the properties of
the data centers. So you couldn't rely on community
solar panels or whatever. And the data centers would
have to be responsible for any upgrades to the energy
grid. So it was just this kind of intro attempt at
regulating this. It was primarily a Republican bill.
It had a few Democratic votes in the Assembly, but
most Democrats said this is rushed. We need to be more
thoughtful about how we are regulating data centers.
And then the Senate didn't even bring it to the floor.
But Vos talked about, you know, that really being as
he thought, an issue for Senate Republicans, that if
they don't kind of lead on this issue, that it might
cost them votes in November. >> Yeah. It's rare to hear
a speaker come out against a majority leader from his
own party the week that he's still in session with
that kind of criticism. I think sort of the secret
was sort of out on Tuesday. I mean, we didn't know know
that Devin LeMahiue was not going to seek reelection,
but there was talk about it. There was speculation about
it. People are looking at the Senate math and they're
thinking about it. >> Well, it changes a lot
when no one has to worry about reelection next year.
Evers, Soros and LeMahiue can all speak in ways that
we have not heard or we have not heard them speak
publicly. We've heard them off the record or heard
from their staffers. But I think this bill in
particular still has the next election cycle written
all over it, as Vos pointed out, because it's a major
issue in the gubernatorial campaign. There are
different Democrats running for governor. They've
talked about freezes and the PSC and rate
commissions and how data centers work. I asked all
the candidates about this when I interviewed them all
in December, and there were a lot of like, dainty
footsteps about how to approach this because they
knew it was a hot button issue, but they were still
trying to figure out how far could they go, where
would the public be ahead of them? And they're still
figuring this out because they right now, it doesn't
fall on a clear Republican Democratic divide, which is
why I think the Senate didn't really know what to
do with it. I think if LeMahiue had a strong point
of view, he would have brought up the floor and
let Democrats help pass it if he thought that was the
way to go. But there's not a clear advantage at this
time. And Tom Tiffany, as governor is clearly
campaigning on this issue as well. So this is
definitely one for the fall. >> Rich.
follow up on what Zac said. Recent Marquette University
polling shows, of course, people are very opposed to
data centers, but even pollster Charles Franklin
said it doesn't appear that the political parties have
picked their lane on it, really. So it's it's kind
of up in the air. >> Okay, so this was the
last regular session day. They adjourned pursuant to
s RFK, Jr. one. That's how you know it's real. But
they could, in theory, come back on a couple topics.
There's still talk about a property tax and education
special session. Talk about a gerrymandering session
real quick. Are these things going to happen? Zac,
you go first. >> The only reason there's
still a prayer that any of this could happen is
because everyone's leaving and it's legacy time for
all three of those people. >> Rich.
>> Ditto. >> Predict a future for us.
What do you think? Okay, Anya, how about you?
>> Well, there will be a special session on
gerrymandering, no matter what. The question is just
whether will they gavel in and gavel out in a few
seconds, or will they actually take up some kind
of a bill? >> Okay, I'm going to say
definitely gavel in, gavel out on gerrymandering.
That's my firm take on that one. And we can we can
replay this later. >> Absolutely. I have some
money on it. Maybe. >> I think, you know, it's
an unusual enough a bipartisan enough session
on the other stuff with property taxes and
education funding that they may have real incentives to
reach a deal and not have to be talking to voters
about why didn't you address these issues? So
maybe that's enough to get them all there. Thanks all
for for joining us on this, our first episode of Inside
Wisconsin Politics. Be sure to follow us on PBS
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podcasts.