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This is Up North News Radio.
Now, live from our Lake Minnesota studio, here's the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Brightlow.
Good morning.
It's a Thursday morning, April 3rd, 2025.
This is Up North News Radio, unabashedly Wisconsin and brought to you by Courier Newsroom.
Carried by our friends here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Nice to have you along.
Coming up in just a bit, Hanny Atkinson from Planned Parenthood Advocates will talk about the results of this week's Supreme Court election and the future of defending and expanding women's health care choices across Wisconsin.
State Senator Mark Spreitzer will join us at the bottom of the hour for our regular Thursday report from Under the Dome.
and we'll have the Handsome and Capable Luke Mathers joining us as well as the Handsome and Capable Brittany Merleau.
But first it's time for our Handsome and Capable break into spring statewide text to win contest.
You know the drill by now because we do this for two more days today and tomorrow.
So if you want to get in for this hour's prize and be entered into the grand prize drawing for a new mattress set
use that Civic Media app and text us this hour's keyword.
Again, it's done four times a day, 7 a.m., 11 a.m., 1 p.m., 4 p.m.
and you have until the end of the hour to text in the keyword to be part of that hour's prize and the grand prize drawing.
So this hour, the prize is $100 cash and the word is team, T-E-A-M, team.
Again, that's $100 cash for a team.
Send that in and use that text, use that Civic Media App to text us is what he's trying to say.
All right, let's bring in meteorologist Brittany Merleau who's also part of a winning team here.
Not nearly to the extent that Greg Bach is because, I mean, who can dance to the Tic Tac Do theme?
in so many different ways every different day.
And
the energy he has every morning is outstanding too, you know
what I mean?
Oh, trust me, I'll crash around one.
We also had to do, Brittany, we had to make an executive decision last hour that today's bumper music was going to be all yacht rock.
Because we're trying to do anything to bring on like actual spring which includes playing our usual summertime music a few weeks early because
this
the stuff in the 20s and turn this kind of go pretty soon,
but
I know
but Pat I have a song here really quick that just needs to be played really just Okay.
Oh shoot the the other music still play there.
Oh, no.
Oh my god.
Look what I found
Is
it this is supposed to hasten in
Absolutely.
Working in the summer.
Yes.
It's your summer job as I am.
She didn't join.
And it's
Brittany Merlot.
Oh, hey, we're working on new lyrics.
Giving us the weather from to our under fro.
I don't
know that means.
All right, it worked.
It rhymed.
It's all we got.
So yeah, we're really trying to hasten in some warmer weather here.
Now that that storm system is out of the way, you know, we've cleared the decks.
We can bring that spring weather in any old time, Brittany, any time.
Any time
he said with a question mark,
hurry, please.
Yeah.
Oh, goodness.
Well, we had the wild, wild weather yesterday.
I mean, there were actually two tornado warnings that went out near Madison and there was actually a funnel cloud in Evansville yesterday.
And now the storm has passed.
We're waking up to those mostly cloudy skies.
A few flurries are still lingering up north, and that stays the case for the next hour or two.
Then that winds down, but the winds don't.
They're still whipping out there right now, gusting up to 30 to 45 miles per hour.
The strongest is off to the east by Lake Michigan right now this morning, and it'll stay that way throughout the day too.
So another breezy one, highs today in the mid 30s north to mid 40s.
40s south.
So we are looking at still some cooler temperatures.
We do bump things up just a little bit tomorrow.
We're looking at some upper 30s north and some upper 40s to a few 50s south.
Winds will be much calmer.
We are looking at more sunshine by tomorrow except the southern parts of the state.
You're still looking at some light rain moving in tomorrow afternoon and throughout the evening and some of that warmth will start to sneak in for Saturday.
We are looking at some mid fifties by Saturday and mostly sunny skies and then forties widespread, a little bit warmer west on Sunday, but a nice dry weekend for a majority of the state besides that little rain that's moving through on Friday night south.
All right.
Well, I mean, fifties gets us gets us closer.
We're getting there.
I'll take it.
Yeah.
Yes, yes, exactly.
Let's see.
I've lost Rob's report.
There it is.
Good morning from Tigerton.
It is cloudy, windy and 37 degrees.
We melted a lot of snow overnight.
I woke up to seeing all of the snow melt.
He said he got to his doctor's appointment in Shawnaud and had lunch at the Shawnaud Cafe.
by highways 22 and 29.
It is an excellent place to eat.
Since Wausau had their first 70 degree day, they've had 17 inches of snow now.
Last time that happened was in 1996.
And he concludes by saying, you all are an awesome team.
Thank you, Rob.
Thank you,
Rob.
We appreciate that very much.
You're
an awesome Rob.
I know it with with again, the ongoing list of suggestions of where we've got to take this road trip on a lunch tour.
Now
it's the Shawnee Cafe.
He knows them all.
It's a food tour.
So the lunch tour colon above Highway 29 edition.
We'll do that in separate pieces.
The whole Tigerton edition.
The Tigerton papers.
Brady, thank you very much.
Have a wonderful day.
You too.
Brewers were winners yesterday in extras.
They had to go to 11 innings and Bryce Durang, if you haven't seen the highlight.
There's there's a there's some right way and a wrong way to drop a bunt.
Bryce Drang dropped a perfect bunt down the first baseline to score Oliver Dunn from third in the 11th inning.
The Brewers beat the Kansas City Royals yesterday three to two and so they took two out of three in that series.
So they're getting back on track.
The Brewers now stay at home and they welcome in the Cincinnati Reds for a four game series.
That begins this evening.
Coverage starts at 6.05 on several civic media stations.
Head over to the Civic Media app to find out more.
You can find out what we're doing over at Up North News by signing up for our daily newsletter.
Head to upnorthnewswi.com.
Click subscribe in the banner on the top of the homepage.
Follow us on social media as well.
There is a lot to be said about this week's election results and a lot to be said about goings on in the nation's capital as well.
Congressman Mark Polkhan will be joining us tomorrow morning at 7.30.
But we've got some comments from him on social media right now from a CNN interview and others talking about the impact of the Trump tariffs that the president announced yesterday and how that's going to hurt folks in
Wisconsin.
As always, you're welcome to join the conversation here either by phone or by text or in the comment sections of the Facebook or YouTube pages.
We don't mind disagreements.
We don't even mind, you know, the occasional personal insult hurled at us.
But I say all that to say that, again, when we have folks in the comment section who've either insulted the guests or gotten into profanity, it gets them bumped.
So any angry person in the last five minutes who wonders, why can't they get on board?
Watch your language.
and try to behave like a normal adult.
All right, let's get to this hour's guest.
For this half hour, it's Tanya Atkinson from Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin, talking about the Supreme Court election and beyond.
Tanya, good morning.
How are you?
Good.
Good morning, Pat.
Thank you so much for having me on.
Please do not tell me you have to sing.
Nope.
Nope.
We
would always warn you ahead of time.
It's only meteorologists that we will
spring that on
occasionally just to make sure she's on her toes.
Tanya, the overall, I can guess the overall reaction to Susan Crawford's win for the state's Supreme Court.
So I'm just, I'm going to go ahead and jump ahead and you can, you can express positive feelings about the election results, but I have a feeling the work to defend and even expand women's health care rights doesn't end this week.
No, absolutely not.
The next chapter begins.
I love that the word of the day is team because Wisconsin showed up as a team and understood the assignment.
So yeah, so now we get to start the next chapter.
A lot of incredible work has been done and it's really clear time and again that the people of Wisconsin value reproductive freedom and they show up and they vote for candidates like Justice like Crawford.
who who are clear to share their values.
There are so many there were so many layers to this election and the perhaps the last layer was that it was a almost a referendum on Elon Musk and his money and it was a referendum on President Trump.
But long before that this race was already being framed you know from the standpoint of women's health care rights.
So my question to you is whatever the
degree of Trump and Musk involvement.
Do you feel like the focus on women's health care rights helped contribute to the success of Tuesday's result?
Yeah, this election was defined by reproductive freedom, access to abortion in the state of Wisconsin.
The people of Wisconsin very unfortunately have lived through what it means to not have access for a period of time.
That was the fundamental issue.
That was the salient issue from the beginning of this election right up until the last voter voted.
It was very clear through all indications that reproductive freedom, reproductive rights really was a driving issue in this.
election?
Where does, where do the legal cases stand now?
There's been so much focus on the Supreme Court election that we have to come back to the courts themselves.
The, the arcane language and the 1849 statute, there, there are challenges to that in some way shape or form.
There's an appeal going on.
Can you sum up where, where those legal cases are at the moment?
Yeah, I can I could do my best to sum them up.
I'm not a lawyer and nor do I play one on TV Which everybody should be grateful for but the but the upshot is yes attorney general call
put forth a case saying that the 1849 law does not apply.
A judge in Dane County said that the 1849 law does not apply to voluntary abortions.
And it's making its way and it is ready to be, and it's been heard by the Supreme Court.
And Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin filed a case.
asking the constitutional question and the constitutional question is essentially does the Wisconsin Constitution
protect Wisconsinites ability to make these very personal health care decisions, including both accessing an abortion and providing abortion.
And Planned Parenthood Wisconsin does believe that the Constitution does protect Wisconsinites ability essentially to act with their own bodily autonomy.
So that case has not been argued yet.
It's been accepted and waiting for the arguments to be scheduled.
All right, appreciate that.
Tanya Atkinson from Planned Parenthood Advocates is our guest.
We'll take a pause here and then we'll continue our conversation.
First, a reminder that in our break into spring text to win contest, this hour's keyword is team.
So text that in before the end of this hour to be eligible for this hour's prize, $100 cash and the grand prize of a mattress set from Verlo.
Wherever you're listening across Wisconsin on this Thursday morning, when you're here, you're up north.
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Again, like we said earlier, we're bringing the rock in a little bit early.
just to try to hasten summer's arrival.
Even if it's mentally and musically, we're gonna do that.
Brewers are in action against Cincinnati.
Four game series starts this evening.
6 0 5.
Coverage begins on Civic Media stations in Richland Center.
Oshkosh.
We're seeing Kenosha.
Park Falls and in Hayward.
Head over to the Civic Media website to learn more.
This hour's keyword again for the Break into Spring Contest team.
So use the Civic Media app and text that to us by the end of the hour to be eligible for this hour's prize of $100 cash.
State Senator Mark Spreitzer will be joining us in less than 15 minutes.
Luke Mathers to follow, but let's continue our conversation now with Tanya Atkinson from Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin before the break.
We talked about how there's not only.
the legal challenge to the 1849 law, but also a case where a court should say that the Wisconsin Constitution protects health care rights as well.
But even with, like I said, the the Supreme Court win on Tuesday, you still have a legislature that is dominated
by lawmakers who would restrict access.
There is a Democratic governor right now, but there's a gubernatorial election next year.
And so, Tanya, there is absolutely no sense of complacency that would be allowed when it comes to public policy and health care rights.
Absolutely not.
In Wisconsin, as you said, we have a legislature that
time and again, continues the conservative leadership in the legislature time and again, continues to introduce egregiously restrictive reproductive health care bills, not just abortion, family planning, you know, resources for STI testing and treatment.
And we know we've got some really, you know, high rates in communities across the state of Wisconsin.
So it's really critical that
You know, in Wisconsin, we continue to both work toward electing even more incredible policymakers who will enact public policy.
And look, here's what it boils down to.
We need to take the politics out of sexual and reproductive health altogether and make it an expected public health investment.
This is public health care.
This is health care.
And this is health care that is used by just about everybody at some point in their lives.
At some point, 98% of women at some point use contraception.
So this is necessary health care.
And I think about, I grew up on a farm in Southwest Wisconsin, shout out to the Drift...
And I grew up in a farm and health care is hard on a farm, right?
And there's times that maybe you don't have insurance and you need those moments and you need that support to bridge you until you get back to that place again, right?
And I think about, it's really critical that that's what we invest in.
We invest in people's health.
We invest in the reality that sometimes we're in a place where we need that extra support.
and we need access to reproductive healthcare, birth control, STI testing and treatment, whatever those services are.
And so that's absolutely critical that we continue to work to put people in office who understand that you, as a Wisconsinite, need access to this care.
Let's move from what's happening in Madison to what's happening in Washington, DC, where we have an unprecedented assault on spending, on programs, on essential services.
To what degree has women health already been hampered by what President Trump need on Musk are doing and what are other threats are looming out there?
Yeah.
Yeah, that's a great question.
And that is something that could potentially come home to Wisconsin.
So the Trump Musk administration just very recently in the last few days announced that some Planned Parenthoods across the country would not be receiving what's called Title 10.
It's a federal family planning program.
In Wisconsin, Planned Parenthood does not have the Title 10 grant.
they will not stop at Planned Parenthood.
So they're making the argument regarding the DEI programming and not being able to receive federal dollars.
They will not stop at Planned Parenthood.
And states across the country, including Wisconsin, do have Title 10 grants.
And I'm not going to speak for any of the Title 10 grantees, but.
But there are partners across the state in all parts of the state, again, that are relying on Title X to be able to provide this really vital.
this really vital health care.
And this is all preventive health care.
This is not abortion.
And these are programs that our tax dollars have already funded.
So these are already our programs and these are already decisions have already been made that investing in reproductive health care, family planning, STI testing and treatment, cancer screenings, all of those things are good for public health.
So these are already, you know, this money tax taxpayers have already paid for this program.
And so they're not going to stop at Planned Parent.
they're going to continue to try to cut access to family planning through Title X and through many other ways.
We see that there's a Supreme Court case that was just argued yesterday about whether or not people could use their Medicaid insurance at Planned Parenthoods and in Wisconsin, the vast majority of...
patients at a Planned Parenthood Wisconsin has Medicaid or Badger care as their form of insurance.
So so you can see how this what's happening at the federal level absolutely could come home to Wisconsin and we need to stay vigilant.
And that's where you really come back to the issue of what does Planned Parenthood do?
And it's providing all of this preventative care that's out there so that it's accessible and it's affordable.
And that that's work that you every day you're still introducing more people to that you
have this viable healthcare option at the sites in Wisconsin.
What if people wanted to learn more about that?
Yeah, they could go to for services they could an education they could go to www.ppwi.org so ppwi.org and I'm glad that you mentioned that because Planned Parenthood Wisconsin continues to expand services and like I said I grew up in a really rural part of Wisconsin We are expanding our telehealth Center across the state of Wisconsin so we can provide an exceptional amount of our of ppwi services via telehealth and including
being able to deliver right to somebody's door, almost all methods of contraception, except for IUDs and implants.
And so to make it accessible so people don't have to travel as far, maybe there's some travel limitations.
So Planned Parenthood Wisconsin continues to expand access to its care.
People can find out all about that at PPWI.org.
All right.
And we put that up on screen.
We'll put it in the notes as well.
Tanya Atkinson, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin.
Thank you so much for the legal update, but also
helping people to, again, access quality health care at different parts of the state, whatever their income and wherever they live.
Tanya, it was great to catch up with you.
Thank you so much.
Have a wonderful day.
Great.
Thank you all so much.
Thanks, Pat.
No, Pat.
When we come back, we will be talking to State Senator Mark Spreitzer every Thursday.
We talk to legislators from around the state, find out what's happening in the Capitol.
That update is next.
You're up north.
State Senator Mark Spreitzer is standing by.
We'll have him on in just a couple of moments after a couple of quick updates here.
Again the break into spring text to win keyword for this hour is team TEAM.
You should be listening to Civic Media radio stations pretty much 24-7.
I would just get a welder's torch and not, you know, put it right to your dial so you can't ever switch it.
But if you did, I'm going to be appearing on WCPT radio in Chicago later this afternoon on the Joan Esposito show.
As you know, Joan joins our Friday weekend review panel every so often from Chicago.
And so if you'd like to listen in and for once hear me answering questions about Wisconsin politics instead of asking them, you can catch Joan's show at three o'clock today.
Go to HeartlandSignal.com.
That's HeartlandSignal.com.
State Secretary of State, Sarah Godlowski will be joining that segment for a time as well this afternoon.
Congressman Derek Van Orden told WKBT in La Crosse that he is going to be running for a third term.
He and others have expressed what
what they would call concern that with the state supreme court staying in progressive hands that there would be some kind of an assault on the congressional district maps and they use the term gerrymandering.
Let's make something clear.
The current congressional map is the one that is gerrymandered first written by republicans in 2011 and specifically derrick van orden's district the third district it's a joke
And I'm partially responsible for that.
Back in 2011, when Republicans first took control of the legislature, they redrew those legislative districts, which were finally fixed in this last cycle.
But they also changed the congressional districts so that even though Wisconsin is a 50-50 state, Democrats only have 25% of the House seats.
Part of that was because of my announcement that I would be running against Sean Duffy in 2012.
And so they changed the lines in a way that put part of the third district.
There's this little finger that goes up away from Western Wisconsin into Central Wisconsin to take a Democratic part of the state away from the seventh district where I was running.
So they took away this Democratic area and put in St.
Croix County.
and some other areas and they chopped up the Chippewa Valley.
So I have known for going on 15 years now just how gerrymandered the congressional maps are and how they are well overdue to be fixed, whether Derek Van Orden wins another term next year or not.
So the legislative maps have been fixed and that's where I'm going to start with State Senator Mark Spreitzer who joins us now.
Senator, how are you?
Good.
I'm doing well.
How are you,
Pat?
Very good.
Can you, let's start with that because, yes, Republicans are still in the majority in the Assembly and Senate, but do you sense that having the fair maps this last cycle has already started to make some kind of a difference in, you know, how legislation is going to get done and that, you know, Democrats may be a bit more inclusive in the process?
It certainly made a huge difference in terms of the number of Democrats in the legislature.
We're not quite representative yet, and part of that is because only half of the state Senate seats have actually been up for election on the new maps.
The other half were up in 2026.
But we no longer have to worry that if a single legislator is sick or has a family emergency that Governor Evers-Vito might get overturned.
That was the fear all of last session.
We didn't have the numbers to sustain the veto in the Senate and Greta Neubauer in the Assembly.
had to make sure every single one of her members was there every single day to sustain the veto.
Now we've got plenty of cushion on those numbers so we can actually focus on what we need to get done.
And the flip side is that when you look at the state budget in the state senate
Republicans have 18 senators.
It takes 17 votes to pass anything.
And they've got a couple of people who don't even vote for Republican budgets most of the time.
So we hope they will work with us.
We don't know that yet.
They certainly haven't come over to start negotiating yet.
But we are hoping as the budget process moves forward that they will realize that it makes far more sense if you want Governor Evers to sign a budget anyway to work with Democrats along the way and put forward a common sense budget.
that most legislators of both parties can vote for rather than trying to get one that can get exactly 17 Republican votes.
Yeah, and the legislature is in the process of that now.
It writes a new state budget every two years.
The joint finance committee has started its tour around the state to take public, take in public input.
And so.
as people either show up at at one of these functions in, I think it was Kakana yesterday, West Alice, tomorrow is it?
And then later in the month, it'll be up in Hayward and I
think,
but then there's also a way online that people can contribute their comments or just, you know, talk to their own state assembly rep and state senator.
What are the things that you're hoping constituents will convey to their lawmakers about what should be a priority in the next state budget?
Yeah, and please do contact not just your own legislators, but the Joint Finance Committee.
This is the opportunity where you get to do that the easiest way is to email budget.comments
at legis.wisconsin.gov.
Again, that's budget.comments at legis.wisconsin.gov.
That'll go to the entire Joint Finance Committee.
But things that I'm interested in, first of all, funding for kids and education at all ages.
We've got a child care crisis looming.
We need more funding for K-12 public schools, especially for special education reimbursement.
Right now, the vast majority of special education
fall on our local school districts rather than being funded by the state.
Governor Evers is proposing a major investment there so that our districts don't have to keep going to referendum.
And then funding for higher ed, our UW system has been falling behind for well over a decade now.
And we are getting close to the very bottom nationally in terms of public funding for our public universities.
So looking from childcare, from birth all the way up to college, Governor Evers is proposing major, major investments to make sure
that our young people are prepared for the world, prepared for careers, and that parents can afford to work and raise their kids at the same time without having the cost of childcare be a burden, because right now it's in some cases higher than the cost of tuition at one of our four-year campuses.
So that's...
absolutely where I'm focused for starters but then there are plenty of other issues including funding for local government in a delivery of basic services like fire and EMS fixing our roads and then healthcare you know is always a big one we continue to want to expand Medicaid but of course we're
paying close attention to the fact that Congress is talking about cutting Medicaid, which would have a huge devastating impact on our state budget and people's access to health care if that were to happen.
So what the federal government may or may not do in terms of budget cuts and some of the things they've already done, certainly play a role here in what we need to do at the state.
And then finally, you know, tax cuts.
We know that the cost of living is high.
We know that things are more expensive at the grocery store.
And with the tariffs that are coming in, they're going to get more expensive.
Donald Trump is raising prices at the grocery store.
We're trying to put money back into people's pockets to help pay for that.
And part of that is significant property tax relief through both incentivizing local governments to not raise property tax and then increasing some tax credits that people can claim.
to offset their property tax when they file their income tax return.
Both of those things will help people stay in their homes, especially seniors on fixed incomes.
And that's really critical that we do that right now with costs increasing.
It does sound like it would be targeted toward the middle class, which is something the governor and Democrats have been trying to do before.
Again, is it your expectation that once the Republicans on the Joint Finance Committee get done writing their version of the budget, that tax relief will be geared largely toward the highest tax brackets?
Or do you feel like after having that proposal vetoed three different times by the governor in the last session, they might be ready and willing to embrace something
that's a bit more targeted toward the middle class.
I certainly hope they will.
We have not seen a Republican tax proposal yet.
It's kind of interesting because coming into this session, Robin Voss was saying that he wanted to pass tax cuts before the budget to make sure Governor Evers would sign them, and he was sort of threatening not to do a budget if that didn't happen.
Governor Evers has made clear he's not going to consider tax cuts ahead of the budget.
It's got to be one thing together.
But what's interesting is Governor Evers' tax cut proposal has been out now for well over a month, and we haven't seen
Republican tax plan.
But we do know what it's looked like in the past, talking about a flat tax, talking about basically more tax giveaways to the wealthy rather than targeting at the middle class.
So I hope that they're willing to work with us.
Last session, we were able to do one thing on a bipartisan basis, which was increasing child dependent tax credits, you know, that's aimed at middle class parents and families.
So we can find common ground when Republicans are willing to meet us there.
But if it's another
tax cut for the wealthy that just drains our money so that we can't spend it on public schools, that's a non-starter.
On the text line from Jim in Brookfield.
Thank you for this, Jim.
He says, please clarify the email address for joint finance one more time.
And we're going to do that in part because while we would encourage people to go to these joint finance committee hearings, I mean, sometimes there can be an hours long wait to testify, whereas, you know, you can bang out an email right now.
So do you want to share that email address again?
Absolutely.
Budget.comments at
Legis, which is legis.wisconsin.gov.
There you go, budget.comments at Legis for Legislature.
Legis.wisconsin.gov is where you can go to put in your two cents.
From a school referendum standpoint, now this week, the latest numbers that I saw, it appeared that 51
school referendums passed 51 out of the 89 so that would be a passage rate of 57 percent which is nice but hardly stellar and somewhere real squeakers like in Hudson the school referendum they're passed by only seven votes
What expectation should we have that in this state budget, there might be some kind of reform of education spending so that we don't continue to have a culture or revolving door of endless referendums?
Well, we desperately need that state funding and I represent a couple of school districts that unfortunately had referendums that did not pass.
Beloit and Parkview, they have each had multiple failed referendums now in a row.
And so what we're seeing is as the districts around them pass referendums and they fail to, you're starting to see disparities where kids just aren't going to get a good education if they're in a district that can't pass the referendum.
We are talking about millions of dollars of
budget cuts in the school district of Deloitte just in one year.
We are going to see staff laid off.
It is going to affect education in the classroom.
And so.
we need the state budget to come in and help with that.
The entire reason we have to go to referendum is that the state hasn't kept up.
And a lot of the focus right now is on special education because those costs can be incredibly high, but those programs are incredibly important and those services are legally mandated.
So right now, you know, you don't know if a kid walks in and needs some extra help, that could be a few thousand dollars, that could be a hundred thousand dollars.
And that burden mostly falls on the local school district to pay for when we should be paying for it mostly at the state level.
I've supported increasing that to 90%.
in terms of what the state would cover.
But right now, the compromise that's essentially out there is let's at least get to 60%.
That's what Governor Evers has put in his budget.
And I really hope our Republican colleagues can at least meet us halfway and do 60% because that would mean that a lot of these districts wouldn't have to go to referendum.
And for districts like the White and Park View that I represent, it would mean that a lot of the budget cuts they're about to have to make would not have to happen.
I've got a minute left.
So I just got to squeeze this one in from the standpoint of the legislative LGBTQ caucus, while again, probably encouraged by the Supreme Court election outcome, much like I talked with Tony Atkins, Tony Atkinson in the last half hour, the ongoing assault against whether it's health care rights or the trans community or other bullying, essentially state sanctioned bullying, that's going to continue.
Governor Evers, you know, has that veto pen, but should anybody take for granted, you know, the notion that, you know, their right
won't continue to be under assault.
Unfortunately, I think we're going to continue to see the trans community and trans kids getting used as political pawns and getting attacked by Republicans to score political points.
We've seen that from Trump on down, but it didn't work.
You know, there were anti-trans ads run against Susan Crawford.
They didn't work.
She won by 10 points.
We saw the same thing in some of our tight legislative races last fall.
They didn't work.
So my message to our Republican colleagues is stop beating up on trans kids and let's focus on things like the cost of living and childcare and health care and all of the other things.
things that are in this state budget that affect people's everyday lives and let's stop beating up on trans kids.
State Senator Mark Spreitzer, thank you so much for the update from the Capitol.
Appreciate it very much.
Good to talk to you.
Good to talk to you.
Thank you.
All right, have a great day.
When we come back, we'll have Luke Mathers come in and we'll answer a question about the budget hearings from the Joint Finance Committee and where you can catch them if you want to watch them on a live stream.
That's right after this on Upner News Radio live from Chippewa Falls on the Civic Media Radio Network.
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.
Tony is asking a question in the comment section on YouTube.
Are the Joint Finance Committee budget sessions around the state going to be live streamed anywhere?
Yes, Tony, indeed.
Head over to Wisconsin Eye.
That's kind of a Wisconsin Legislature's version of C-SPAN.
WIS-I is their site, wis-i-w-i-s-e-y-e, wis-i-dot-org.
And you'll be able to see there to click and get a live stream of the budget sessions as they take place.
And tomorrow it will be in West Alice and will be a televised live.
And again, catch my appearance on Joe Nesposito's show today, three o'clock Heartland signal dot com for more about what we're talking about on Chicago radio about Wisconsin politics.
Now we turn to one Luke Mathers as we do every Thursday, whether he likes it or not matters.
Every single Thursday.
And we saved Steely Dan for you.
We figure if we're going to do Yacht Rock, if we're going to bring it back a little early, you know, save the best for last.
That's a good
one.
I'm doing well, Pat.
How are you?
I'm doing really well.
You know, I've got my fancy new bookshelf back.
Yeah, that's looking great.
I'm not
grousing anymore.
I already had, I don't know if you saw yesterday, the state of Wisconsin thing like fell off the wall right in the middle of the show.
Oh, I found
something else to hang up there instead and continuing to throw various knickknacks back here.
You don't you don't realize how how many knickknacks you have and then how few of them you want to show on the radio until you have to build a bookshelf.
Yeah.
Yeah,
that's
that's
in there.
Whereas you I mean look at that behind you there is I mean that is the prototypical.
That is what a home studio should
look like.
I was going to say I live in this studio.
I still have an unpacked fully from.
We got we got clothes and
clothing over here.
No, it's it's over
here.
They're they're the packing cubes.
They're they're the you can like compress things in them.
So I always travel fairly lightly.
I don't
pay for luggage ever, really?
Unless I absolutely have
to?
I take it as like a challenge.
It's like, uh, you want to charge me how much for a check bag?
No, no, no, no, no, no.
Personal item it is, and I'm going to take an entire week's worth of clothes in that personal item.
That's
why you have to fly fountains.
So we've got
packing cubes.
Southwest because they don't, oh, never.
Oh, wait.
Oh, wait.
Yeah, well for the longest time Southwest really wasn't a huge option because they don't fly out of Madison and if I was driving down to Chicago They didn't fly out of O'Hare either and
they do like
they do now I know but for the longest time it was like Southwest really wasn't an option because getting all the way to Midway or or
There's some flights out of Milwaukee that I would still obviously fly.
And usually when I was flying Southwest, it would be Milwaukee.
But now there's really no reason to fly Southwest because you don't even get the free bags.
You don't.
Yeah,
exactly.
Mary on YouTube says, I might have missed it.
Where in West Alice is the Joint Finance Committee hearing?
It's at State Fair Park at the Expo Center there.
And the parking is at gate four.
And it runs from 10 a.m.
until 5 p.m.
again over at State Fair Park.
Tony asks, what's that box in the corner over there at the end there?
What's in the
box?
I believe a set of the wickless candles.
So there's a lot of wickless candles in the house, and that's where all the scents are.
OK,
all
right.
That's that's clearly not
what we're just.
We're just clearly examining the background today.
Very in depth.
I'm glad that this is.
It's turned into like an eye spy wears Waldo thing.
I was thinking of putting like different things in the bookcase here, you know, on a daily or weekly basis.
And
there's books and stuff, too.
There's plants and a globe and many leather bound books, all of the good things.
I've
decided to introduce a new character to the show.
It is Lacey, the fake intern.
She works.
She's my intern.
So just for this joke here right now.
Hey, Lacey, mark this segment for WBA submission, please.
Thank you.
There you go.
And just title it Mathers Room Raiders.
And just Room Raiders, excuse me.
Yes, yes,
yes.
Yeah, we got this note from Mr. Mathers saying, we've really got to do a better job at the end of the year.
of saying these are the segments to enter into the Wisconsin Broadcast Association Awards.
Because
we have many, many fine segments.
Many fine segments.
And then there's the ones that Greg points out.
We tagged those for WBA.
And that might be sarcasm.
That's involved there.
There you go.
That's exactly what it is.
There
you go.
Oh, dear.
Hey, those Milwaukee Brewers finally in the W column and winning one in extras.
Come on.
Two in a row.
Break them
up.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We got to keep the streak going.
Hopefully now we're going to be playing that inter-divisional play with hosting the Reds this weekend, so that's going to be great.
Is that
like inter-league the cup for the Bucks?
No, no,
no.
Just the divisional
play.
I was not a fan of starting off with two...
two series against American League teams.
That was the Yankees and then the
Royals.
I'd rather just jump right into it.
But here we are.
Now the division play begins.
Yes.
And I think it'll be very interesting.
I'm hoping that the Brewers can kind of shake off some of that rust.
And I'm concerned for the Milwaukee Bucks.
We had some fun.
The wife and I went on Sunday night to Pfizer Forum only to watch them lose by.
more than 20 points.
So that was a little bit of a bummer, but I'm hoping the Bucks can get healthy at the right time because right now, even though they had a great win over Phoenix this week, they're not looking too, too hot.
No, they are raising those same alarms as in past years where, boy, they have some really great streaks in the regular season and they get down near the end and, you know, it's like they start to run out of gas here.
I'm hoping that that's not the case.
Did you see back to the Brewers?
Did you see Bryce Durang's Bunt
to
to win the game
yesterday?
It's amazing.
A walk off Bunt.
Like that is that's a fun way to get the second W. I'm hoping that's the the the best part about the crew is they're so young and exciting.
And I'm hoping we get more games like that than the first series against the Yankees.
Oh, yeah, it's it's only up from here after 20 runs, right?
Those damn torpedo bats.
Yeah, that's it.
It's the torpedo bats.
Luke Mathers, thank you so much.
Always a pleasure, Pat.
All right, have a great day.
Mr. Bach is back in two hours for Matt and Aaron air, which got there.
We got Andrew Watkins coming back to the show at 10 30 and Jim Santel at 11.
We're talking a lot of things as far as the Trump administration and all the things in the law news.
All
right, catch that on Matt and Aaron air.
And of course, our regular weekend review panel tomorrow.
Enjoy the rest of your Thursday.
We will see you Friday morning here up north.
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