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Welcome, welcome, welcome everyone to civic media mid mornings here on the civic media radio network.
My name is Greg Bach.
I'm your host, your buddy, your pal, your co-conspirator and all things helping you be awesome because you are awesome.
Thank you so much for sharing your time with us.
This wonderful blustery still very cold.
Today the civic media mid mornings weather balloon is up in the air and right now it is a whopping two.
Two degrees keep it locked here on civic media on all our shows whether you're listening to talk or music We've always got the weather updates for you coming up, but it's gonna be cold throughout the week We're gonna hit some double digits into the 20s possibly this weekend, but please Please please stay prepared stay informed and stay warm.
We want you to be safe in these very very last
cold weeks of winter as we go through.
If you want to be part of the conversation, eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two, eight, five, five, seven, five civic.
You can leave a comment on the live stream.
We are live streaming as always on Facebook, YouTube and the platform that we still call Twitter.
We have a very packed, very exciting show ahead for you today.
including after the 930 news, we are going to be speaking to Judge Chris Taylor.
She is running for Wisconsin State Supreme Court.
She is currently a judge in the Court of Appeals for the 4th District of Madison, but she is running for Wisconsin State Supreme Court.
That election will be in April.
Those are our spring elections.
I'm going to talk to her about
her work on the bench, her history, why she's running and why she believes that keeping our courts balanced is important to keep Wisconsin balanced and to keep Wisconsin moving as we like to say as our motto forward.
So we'll be talking to Chris Taylor after the nine 30 news.
And then in the second hour, uh, kicking it off, we're going to be talking to Jim Santelli is the host of amicus, a law review right here on civic media.
That is every Saturday from nine AM to 11 AM.
It's like a mini.
class law school week by week with Jim.
He talks about all of the interesting and important news coming out of the world of law.
He'll be here discussing the news out of Minneapolis regarding some untruths from the vice president being told some reports on Kristi Noem, not being the best help to Minnesota as well as attorney general Josh calls support.
of Minnesota's attorney general, Keith Ellison, in their pursuit to protect the sovereignty of Minnesota.
So that'll all be in the second hour, starting at 1006.
At 1035, we've got Audiosaur Bay.
And I just want to know, how is this cold affecting you?
Is it keeping you from doing things?
Is it keeping you from doing projects?
Is it harming business for you?
Are you just, I mean, kind of hunkered down?
talk more about it for myself, even had a thought this morning when I was thinking about just when it's this cold out, what can and absolutely cannot be done.
So we'll talk about that in the audience survey.
We'll be sharing with each other.
We'll be doing then a handy tip from Greg to close out the show today.
And this is a tip from me to me, but I feel like it can all apply, especially when it comes to the topic of the cold weather.
So closing the show out, a handy tip from Greg.
But it's gonna be great want to hear from you love having you around and we've been talking a lot about Minneapolis talk about a lot about what happened this past weekend about the protest about the tragic death of Mr. Alex Pretty But I want to bring it back this morning to Wisconsin for a good story And that's coming out of Dork County.
This is on WPR Wisconsin Public Radio Kareen Hess has the byline how a rural school in Wisconsin
closed learning gaps for low-income students.
So in Door County, there is a school district, the Sevastopol school district, and it is very small.
There's only a few hundred students, and the teachers and the administrative staff found out that even though their school would do well every year, it would score
good marks every year in state testing, it would routinely earn the top 10% ranking in Wisconsin by U.S.
News and World Report as well, and quote, significantly exceeds expectations on the Department of Public Instruction's state report cards.
All of that is great.
That's a great school.
We love, great school district.
We love that.
The problem is, is they found that their economically disadvantaged students
were not receiving the same education as their non-economically disadvantaged students.
So the teachers, the principal, other administrators all got together and decided that they were going to change the way they did it.
How were they going to look at the academic achievements of all their peers for their students?
And for the last eight years, they've been working on changing its culture.
They have done everything from providing free meals to the students.
to putting staff through an intensive poverty simulation so they can go from sympathetic to empathetic and apparently according to the story.
And by the way, I wanna work on, you know, we're gonna talk about this morning and I'm gonna do my fair job at discussing it.
But what I would really like to do and we are going to take care of this is having folks from the school here on the show,
to talk about this journey for them, because it's not easy.
It's in public school education life, I mean, I've talked to teachers, I've talked to principals, vice principals, I've talked to students, and you are up against a lot of walls when it's coming to the goal of improving the environment and the culture of your school or your school district, and that is what Sylvester Pol, and if I'm mispronouncing, I'm pretty sure it's Sylvester Pol.
school district has done for the last eight years it has worked their test scores on the state's forward exams show their economically disadvantaged students scored uh 22.8% 22.8 points lower in English and 21.7 points lower in math than their peers that was in 2018 by 2025 economically disadvantaged students scores on the same exams
Equal those of their non-economically disadvantaged students.
There's a lot of difficult words to put together there, but I'm going to do it with you.
But I think that's very important.
And it's not, and in this story, it's talking about not just hitting the books harder or making sure the kids got the lesson.
It's about changing the culture overall, as we said.
The school there is a very small schools district.
It's rural.
It's one building K through 12 district with 600 students more than one third of students 35% qualify for free or reduced lunch a student that is from a family for with an income about 40 40.5 thousand dollars per year qualifies for school meals And what they did was they decided to get rid of the Qualifications essentially
they decided that they were going to give free meals to all the kids, that they were going to put them into basically service projects.
So here it says, every grade now does a service project.
The third graders work with the elderly.
The fifth graders do environmental projects.
There's a school-wide fundraiser for the VFW.
These are all things that they do to change the culture of their school district.
I want to hear from you.
These are the things we talk about all the time when it comes to schools.
I understand it's one school district and they were already working from a level of they had good teachers, good education, but this opens up the discussion to a wider conversation of we have to change more than what they are learning in the classroom.
It's about
how they are operating, how the teachers, how the administrators are operating in the school, how they're operating outside the school, what are they doing when they're home to be engaged.
The free meal program is always very, very important because kids, it is shown.
Kids who eat, learn easier.
Kids who go to school, hungry, have a harder time.
It's more difficult for them.
I think that this opens up the wider conversation on how we look at all of our schools here in Wisconsin.
It's a very dicey topic.
And I think if one school district can do this, and granted, it's rural, it's small, but that doesn't mean that the model can't be studied here in the state and new versions for larger school districts could possibly be replicated.
I'm not an expert.
I'm just saying the conversation is open.
This district started offering free breakfast for all students.
There is now a clothing closet for children who need something extra and every student receives a Syvestipal shirt for free.
That's building morale.
That's building family.
That's building a team.
That is what you need to do to get kids and teachers to have buy-in.
For teachers, for adults to understand who don't come from
a background of poverty to put them through simulations where they understand what these kids may or may not be going through is important because I think it says in the story there, building empathy, not just sympathy, because when you build empathy, that means you can put yourself in their shoes and you can identify better and then help them.
They said, rather than trying to come up with a wholesale list, we tried to keep the mission focused and add things that we could see that which helped.
That is Principal Aaron Hiltz,
who told a packed room at the Barrett Center because that group, that school district was in Milwaukee last week during the Wisconsin State Education Convention to talk about their successes.
He goes on to say, quote, it's kind of like a plant where you prune some things that don't work and you let the rest of the plant grow and add to it.
And I just, I think that's wonderful.
And unfortunately, what I'm about to do now is I'm going to spoil the party for a moment and I'm going to
Let's talk about this really quick here.
Now, Sevastopol is a small school district, 600 students, so their budget isn't huge.
We've talked about on this show many, many, many, many times about the privatization impacts on our school districts here in Wisconsin.
And I have to imagine if the principal was here, if the teachers were here, or other administrators were here, they would probably tell you that financial
Problems, financial bumps in the road are going to be some of the biggest problems in trying to improve your school district, your school, your classroom, your kids experience.
And the problem overall is that we see a siphoning of tax dollars from school districts, money that you and I pay, sent to voucher programs, voucher schools here in the state.
We've talked about school districts like Racine that send millions of dollars to Milwaukee, tens of millions of dollars.
Sevastopol, they send 53,679.
That is of the 2024, 2025 report from the Wisconsin Public Education Network.
That will be in the show notes to show you.
You can look up.
It's from 2024 to 2025.
But I have to think that if we weren't taking nearly $54,000 from Sevastopol,
and putting it towards private schools to essentially create two school districts in that area that even more could be done to help these kids, to help these teachers, to help these administrators.
$54,000 for one district, for a small one building district for 600 kids, that can make a difference.
It's not nothing, it's not tiny.
You wanna talk to a group of individuals who can make a buck last.
and make a buck stretch, talk to teachers because they're doing it all the time if they're not reaching into their own pockets to spend their own bucks on their school supplies.
But $54,000 from 2024 to 2025 in the Syvestipool School District was spent on privatization, voucher programs, voucher schools, and that money is better spent in those public schools.
We're gonna talk more about this on the other side.
I wanna hear from you.
I wanna hear your thoughts on this.
Talk to me about
The privatization factor, do you have a school district in your area that is working?
Do you have a school district that is trying?
I want to hear and know about what's happening in your neck of the woods here in Wisconsin.
Or if you're outside the state, you can always text or call 855-752-4842-855-757.
Leave a comment on the live stream or
Get in touch with us via the Civic Media mobile app.
You can text, call, or leave a voice message there.
But let me know your thoughts on your school district and what they're doing that's amazing you and how can they get some more help right here on Civic Media mid mornings.
My name is Greg Bach.
Stay tuned, stay informed, stay close.
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Welcome, welcome back to Civic Media, mid mornings.
My name is Greg Bach.
I'm your host, your buddy, your pal, your teammate.
I'm here for you.
I'm happy you're here spending your time with us today spending your time.
In a world of very limited time, you are here if you want to be part of the conversation, 855-752-4842-855-755.
Civic, leave a comment on that live stream.
We are currently streaming on Facebook, YouTube, and the platform that we still call Twitter.
Do not forget, still ahead after the 930 news, we are talking to Judge Chris Taylor.
She is a candidate for Wisconsin State Supreme Court.
That election will be happening in April.
If you want to find out more about that, go to myvote.wi.gov to find out your polling place, to find out your registration status, and to find out what's on the ballot.
I don't know if they're on yet, but once the ballots are released, you can go to myvote.wi.gov and find, in fact, I'm going to look right here.
You can go there.
You can look at your ballot.
You can look at what's on my ballot.
You put in your information.
I'm doing that right now.
It's very easy.
We're doing this together.
There's a sample ballot right now.
for me to look at on my vote.wi.gov.
You put in your address, it will pop it up.
If it's available, I can see who I can vote for in my primary election coming up in February in just a few weeks, but we'll talk more about that in a little bit.
But Chris Taylor, after the 930 news, talking to Judge Taylor and then Jim Santel.
in the top of the 10 o'clock hour, a lot of going on in Minneapolis, lots happening, lots happening there.
He's got a whole bevy of things he'd like to discuss.
So there'll be no shortage of conversation.
Then audio sorbet is a chilly one.
What is the cold weather keeping you from doing?
Is it keeping you from working?
Is it keeping you from living?
Is it just keeping you hunkered down saying, I'll do it later?
Because it's right now, it's one outside.
It's literally a degree.
So let us know.
And then a handy tip from Greg.
A tip from Greg to Greg for all.
You can all be a part of this, but don't go anywhere.
It's a great, great show for you this morning.
Happy you are here.
We are talking right now about a story out of Wisconsin Public Radio.
Kareen Hess has the byline, this is titled, how a rural school, I'm sorry, how a rural Wisconsin school district closed learning gaps for low income students.
Talking about a school that on the face has good, great educators, great students, the ability to achieve via state and national report cards, but they saw a disparity amongst kids who were economically challenged.
So instead of,
You know, I don't work in the school world.
So I don't know what the, I don't know what the quote wrong way would be to look at it, but they saw it as a wholesale change.
The principal, Aaron Hiltz says it was a quote growth mindset, establishing a different culture raises everybody up.
One of the things that we like to talk about at Sevastopol is that it's not my students, it's our students, and it makes things more effective across the board.
You're looking at it as a team, a family.
These kids are with you for years of their life.
You are invested in them and they are invested in you.
And I think that is also another important point, that word, investment.
These teachers, these administrators,
They are investing their time, their money, their heart, their love, their nervous system, their tears into these kids.
They have a stake in this.
These kids are investing their time and their trust in these adults to teach them about the things at the desk and beyond.
And we see that in the service projects they are engaging themselves in.
But when we talk about investments,
I'm gonna be the no fun guy right here.
When we talk about investments, it's also up to our school board leaders.
It's also up to our state leaders, our elected officials, representatives, state senators, our governor, to have a plan to invest in our school districts, in our schools, to say it is more important to take monies and place it into school districts.
to allow them to have the tools to grow and become great and to create wonderful contributors to their community, to our statewide community.
Instead of doing what we are currently doing, which is not funding our K through 12 again, there's there's other educational funding.
That's not I'm not I'm not denying that.
But our K through 12 continues to be under or nonfunded.
And when you don't invest, you get what you pay for.
And from an economic standpoint, that's all from the main standpoint, my opinion.
You want to invest in kids because you want kids to be happy and you want them to learn, you want them to grow and you want them to become good adults.
But from an economic standpoint, you want them to have the ability to get a great education, whether it's a tech school, a traditional four-year school, community college, whatever that may be, find their career and passion, and then come back.
If they leave to college, come back and say, I want to come back to Dwork County.
I want to come back to Kenosha.
I want to come back to Butternut.
I want to come back to Ashland, Milwaukee, wherever.
And I want to get a job there.
And I want to put roots down.
And if I have a family, I want my family to be there.
The investment that we make financially as taxpayers, and we have done that by voting to raise our property taxes,
But the investment that our leaders can make in Madison, in our students, in our kids, there are kids, have knock-on effects economically, not just humanitarily.
And that is seen in states that put money into investments for their school programs.
Not siphoning it off for privatization, not putting it into voucher programs, but making sure that their public schools are beacons of light for kids to get a great education.
And that pays off in dividends when they want to come back here and say, I love this town.
I love this village.
I love this city.
I love this state.
And let's make it amazing.
Let's move forward together.
That's the way we do it.
And we have an election coming up this year.
And I ask you to look for the candidates, to look for the folks who either want to keep the jobs or want to get the jobs.
And that includes investing in our kids and in our futures, not just theirs, but our futures, because their success means good things for all of us.
Again,
Investing in our kids economically and humanitarily are great things.
No one can ever deny that.
After the 9.30 news, I will be speaking to Judge Chris Taylor about her work, her history, the reason why she's running the campaign on the trail, how she's staying warm in the cold, but don't go anywhere.
We're going to be here on Civic Media, mid-morning.
My name is Greg Bach.
Don't go anywhere.
Stay tuned, stay informed, and stay close.
Welcome, welcome back to mid mornings on civic media.
My name is Greg Bach.
I'm your host, your buddy, your pal, your co-conspirator and all things you being awesome and staying ungodly warm because it's so cold.
I think currently the weather balloon above says it is still a degree outside.
So please keep it locked here on civic media for our weather updates too.
So you can stay prepared and stay warm.
Still have a few more days of this super, super cold.
And then we hit hopefully double digits into the twenties.
That'll feel like summer.
But we got lots of great show ahead for you today.
Don't forget after the 10 o'clock news, we're talking to Jim Santel, who is a former U.S.
attorney, current practicing attorney, current amazing human being, discussing all things from the, the world of law, because he is the host of Amicus, a law review, which is on every Saturday from 9 a.m.
to 11 a.m.
here on Civic Media, discussing mainly
the news coming out of Minneapolis, how it pertains to Wisconsin, specifically the news from the attorney general's office, Josh Call, with his joining in his, his, his, his support with their attorney general on retaining and maintaining and preserving state sovereignty and democracy on hold.
But that'll be more after the 10 o'clock news.
And then of course, audio Sorbet at 1035.
where we're going to be talking about how the cold is keeping you from doing the things you want to do.
And then a handy tip from Greg, from Greg to Greg, but you can be a part of it as well.
So don't go anywhere.
If you ever want to be part of the conversation, 855-752-4842-8557, 75 Civic is the number.
You can leave a comment on the live stream.
We are currently streaming on Facebook, YouTube and the platform.
We still call Twitter, but now let us move to our very first guest for today.
I'm very excited to have
them on the show.
She is a judge for the Court of Appeals of District 4 in Madison and a candidate for Wisconsin State Supreme Court.
Judge Chris Taylor is here today.
Good morning, Judge Taylor.
How are you?
And more importantly, how are you staying warm in these dumb, dumb cold weather times?
Oh my gosh, I'm great, Greg.
Thanks so much for having me.
Well, I'll tell you, I'm keeping warm because people
in the state of wisconsin who i'm spending a lot
of time
with are fired up
yeah
about so it's cold outside but here in the campaign and i think people are starting to really key in that we have another state supreme court race coming up april 7th not far away
yeah
so i'm pretty excited about the energy and um i'm hoping we're gonna have a great big turnout
yeah wisconsin we're always in a in a state of
perpetual election, it feels like.
There's always an election happening.
Could be a small one, could be a big one, but we're always there.
Now, Judge Taylor, please talk to me about your story.
I want to know about you, about where you come from and what brought you to basically this point today that said to yourself, I want to run for this office.
I want to put my name and to be on the bench.
But let's talk about your story.
Judge Taylor.
I think you froze up.
If you can hear me, judge Taylor, I want you to call the phone number we talked about.
So 855752.
Oh, there we go.
I think you're on the line right now.
So yeah, basically we, there
we go.
There we go.
Judge Taylor.
Okay, we're working on some technical difficulties right now.
I believe she's on the phone.
Judge Taylor, can you hear me?
Yes.
Okay, great.
All right.
On the phone, we have Judge Chris Taylor, candidate for Wisconsin State Supreme Court.
I'll restate the question.
Tell us your story.
Tell us about, you know, your background, your history, and tell us about what brought you to decide to run for this office.
Sure.
Well, I learned.
from a very young age that the law can be a tool to actually help people improve their lives.
And I learned that from my grandma.
My grandma was a single mom to my mom for most of my mother's life and really struggled to make ends meet until she got a union job.
And that union job that my grandma got enabled her to support her three kids.
and help send them each to college.
They each became a public school teacher.
My mom taught elementary school and I really learned from my family's own experience that the law can be a tool to help people, not just survive, but to thrive.
And I decided I'd go to law school.
There could be no more exciting things than helping people live their dreams and be treated fairly and have the law actually work for them.
And here I am, 30 years later, I've had a really diverse legal career, but it's all been centered on helping people through the law, protecting their rights, protecting their freedoms, making sure that people have opportunities and are not treated unfairly, and holding those who violate the law or act unconstitutionally accountable, regardless of how powerful they are or how much money they have.
So those have really been the principles of my life.
And I've been really lucky to be a practicing attorney.
I was in the legislature for nine years.
I was the law and policy director for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, where I worked every day to improve access to affordable health care.
I've been really lucky that I've had this really rich legal career.
And I'm so grateful that I've gotten to use it.
in ways that I can tell people.
Now, right now you currently serve as a judge on the court of appeals for district four in Madison.
Talk to me a little bit about that because we hear Supreme Court, we hear state Supreme Court.
There are so many different kinds of judges in this country, but maybe not knowing the everyday works of what you do in the office.
What do you do as an appeals court judge?
I
do two
things.
I review what happens in the circuit courts or trial courts to make sure that there was not an error in either the application of the law or the process to ensure that people were treated fairly.
The law was applied appropriately and the process was.
consistent and appropriate.
So I'm really looking at errors that were made by the circuit court.
Now, I also was a circuit court judge, so I understand very well what circuit courts go through, their time constraints, their very busy dockets, and a lot of cases.
But at the Court of Appeals, we really dig down into the legal issues that were presented to make sure that the trial courts did not commit an error that entitles
a party to
a new proceeding.
And I'm looking at your page here on the Wisconsin courts, and you went through all of this experience and why you decided to pursue law as a career.
What brought you then to this decision to run for Wisconsin State Supreme Court, which has changed a lot over the past few years.
We've seen a lot of
attention to our races, but what made you say this is the job I want to put my hat in for?
Well, I was always very interested in the judiciary, right?
When I
was in law school, I clerked.
I was a law clerk for one of the first female circuit court judges in Dane County.
And so I had always looked at these iconic
female judges, you know, Shirley Abraham and most Bradley with a lot of admiration, but not always knowing, well, how do you get there?
You have to run for office.
And that was very scary.
But once I had run for office in the legislature, I really realized that I could do it.
It wasn't so scary.
And that I was probably
Better my skill set and what I brought to the court I thought was gonna be more helpful than what I was able to do in the legislature I also saw firsthand being in the legislature, you know, I was there in a very Unfortunately still it's a very partisan environment, but I was elected in 2011.
Yeah.
Oh boy.
Oh boy remember
in the state in 2011.
And I saw laws that were being passed that I really questioned their constitutionality.
But we had no check on the legislature.
Our state Supreme Court was dominated by right wing justices that really made no effort to conceal their purpose.
And I thought this is just really wrong not to have a court
that checks the power of the legislature.
That is so very important.
And that's one of the reasons that motivates me now to run.
It has never been more important to have a strong state supreme court that can stand up for people's rights, that holds the other branches of government accountable and checks the overreach of the federal government.
Our state is independent.
We have our own constitution and our own laws.
And that which is not delegated to the federal government under the U.S.
Constitution remains with the state.
And so it's extraordinarily important that we stand up and our court stands up for the people of the state and the state itself.
And so if you're just joining us, by the way, on civic media mid mornings, we are speaking to Judge Chris Taylor, who is a candidate for Wisconsin State Supreme Court.
That election is going to be in April.
She's currently serving as a judge in the Court of Appeals for the 4th District of Madison.
And that...
Running experience that campaigning experience all this experience you have leads you to the campaign trail right now Which I know for a fact because I've worked on campaigns and I worked on a campaign for a judge It is a hard wire to walk because this is a nonpartisan election.
This is an election for a judgeship.
This is not for a State representative or state senator you have to both keep a center road of you know nonpartisan
air, but also tell people what you stand for while saying, but I'm not this and I'm this is what I believe.
These are my values and morals and this is what I will bring to what I will see in the world.
As long as I have the evidence and information in front of me, I will make a proper decision.
It's I mean, I can't imagine the balancing act you have to do running for this job.
find it to be difficult.
I really don't.
I mean, I'm not that running in a campaign is not hard.
Of course it is.
But I find it really kind of a wonderful experience to share with people where I come from, what my values are, what I've worked on, what is my passion, because I hear from them as well what's important to them.
And I love that sharing of information.
But I believe so strongly in the
important role of our state Supreme Court in really putting the people at the center, not at the periphery.
Our laws are about people.
And so it's really easy for me to talk about why I'm so passionate about the judiciary, why I believe so strongly that I'm the best candidate for the people of this state because I have such a commitment to justice, to the rule of law,
to making sure people are treated fairly and get a fair chance, but also not prioritizing the most powerful special interests, not prioritizing, you know, the billionaires that my opponent will prioritize.
I will prioritize the people of the state of Wisconsin and protecting their rights and protecting our state.
And there's nothing more important at this critical juncture in our history.
And I think that, you know, one of the things we're about to go to a break right now, but when we come back, I'm going to continue this conversation with Judge Chris Taylor, who is.
candidate for the Wisconsin State Supreme Court.
That election is in April.
We'll talk more about how you can find out what's on your ballot.
On the other side, when we grab some water and some snacks, it's always important to stay hydrated, but stay warm.
I want to talk about what you're hearing from the people, how those messages show how they unite us and do not divide us, but that's going to be coming up after we come back from the commercials.
We are speaking to Judge Chris Taylor here on Civic Media, mid mornings on the Civic Media.
network.
My goodness, words are tough today.
If you want to be part of the conversation, 855-752-484-2855-757.
Leave a comment on the live stream.
My name is Greg Bach.
Thank you so much for being here today.
We'll be back in a moment.
Stay tuned.
Stay close.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
Welcome, welcome back to civic media mid mornings.
My name is Greg Bach.
I am your host, your buddy, your pal, your co-conspirator in all things democracy and justice.
And you are here on the civic media radio network.
We are happy to sharing time with us today.
You can always be part of the conversation.
The number is 855-752-4842-855-75 civic.
Leave a comment on the live stream.
We are currently streaming on Facebook, YouTube and the platform.
We still call Twitter still ahead.
He is a former U.S.
attorney, current practicing attorney, host of Amicus, a law review on Saturdays every day, every Saturday, sorry, 9 a.m.
to 11 a.m.
He is Jim Santel talking about all the big news coming out of the world of law and a lot of that is coming out of Minnesota.
And we're gonna talk a little bit more about that with our guest right in a little bit, but we are talking to Judge Chris Taylor, who is a candidate for the Wisconsin State Supreme Court.
And we were talking about
your campaign judge Taylor, and you talked about what you are hearing when you speak to the people.
And I always ask this of the candidates because I think it's important when you're going, you know, you can go to Milwaukee, you can go to Racine, you can go to Green Bay, Appleton, Madison, those are the cities.
And everyone knows that, but.
The messages and the concern you hear from people also in you know, Bosco Bell and Richland Center and all those areas They're not much different from the folks in the city And what are you hearing from people when you talk to them about your campaign and what they show concern in when it comes to our courts?
So I think that people really want government to work
for
them
They really want to have faith in our government.
And you know, here in Wisconsin, we have such a long tradition of the citizenry participating in government.
So they're concerned about that.
I think they're concerned that they haven't always been at the center.
And a lot of people feel like government is not listening to them.
So I think that's making these concerns.
Secondly, there's huge amounts of economic concern.
People struggling to get by.
people having a harder time financially to provide for their families.
So that's something I hear about a lot.
And I would say specific to the judiciary, there is a sense of worry looking at our neighboring state of Minnesota.
I think in the last week or so, that's probably the question that people raise.
How do we stop
this from coming to our state, how can we protect ourselves?
How do we protect our rights?
So I think there's an awful lot of worry right now when we look across state lines and see our neighbor in Minnesota and what's going on in the St.
Paul Minneapolis area.
There's a real concern.
Is that going to come to this constant?
And how do you feel that what you want to bring to the table here, if you were given the job, how does that differ from the opponent you are going to be facing in April on the ballot?
What do you see as the key points of the key differences, essentially?
Well, I have spent my life standing up for our democracy.
standing up for people's ability to speak, to peacefully protest, to make their own private decisions about their lives without the intrusion from the government.
I would say my opponent is the opposite.
She has spent a lot of her illegal career advocating for the removal of people's rights.
She has been very vocal about opposing access to reproductive health care.
She has called the overturning of Roe versus Wade very wise and stated she would have voted to implement an 1849 criminal ban of abortion in our state.
That was only struck down by one vote from the state Supreme Court.
So we cannot trust her to protect our rights.
In terms of our democracy, she acted as Governor Scott Walker's attorney defending some of
the most concerning aspects of his agenda, including what some called the most gerrymandering maps in the last 40 years of any state.
She defended those maps.
She has been supported in the past by the people who try to overturn our 2020 election.
They supported her in her court of appeals race, including Michael Gableman.
who is a former justice on the state Supreme Court now facing all kinds of issues, including retention of his long license.
And recently, she wrote a decision that was directly contrary to precedent, recent precedent.
And if she had had her way, voters' private...
information would have been released to the public.
Thankfully, the state Supreme Court overturned that decision.
So she is not someone who has demonstrated a commitment to people's rights, to protecting our elections, our right to vote, our personal private information.
And
she certainly has not been a guardian of people's right to make their own private decisions about their lives, which is so important.
Well, I invite all folks to we will we will put your campaign website into our show notes Please check out judge Taylor's campaign website and if she is coming to your area to talk to attend an event, please go out
and meet her.
This is your time to talk to the candidates.
And I'm going to pass along a message right now from Tiffany on the text line who's listening on WCFW right now.
She says, Judge Taylor, don't forget about us in Western Wisconsin.
Why aren't you heading to Hudson River Falls area?
So I think that's a request for you to stop by.
Come meet the people.
All right.
Excellent.
Well, I thank you so much for being here today, Judge Taylor.
I appreciate your time.
And again, folks, the election comes up in April.
There is no, there's no primary for this, but that's an April election.
We'll talk more about how to be part of that with getting your ballot, making sure you're registered.
But Judge Taylor, again, thank you for your time.
Have a wonderful day.
Stay warm.
Oh, you too.
Thanks so much.
Great.
Thank you very much, Judge Taylor.
When we come back, we'll be talking to Jim Santel, host of Amicus, a law review about all the big news coming out of the world of law.
We got the news coming up next, but stick around, stay close, stay informed.
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