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Live from Wisconsin across the Civic Media Radio Network, you are listening to Mornings with Pat Critello.
Now sitting in for Pat Critello, Matt Rothschild and Angelo Lang.
Thanks Greg Rock for the beautiful voice of yours and that nice introduction.
I am Matt Rothschild, happy to be with Angelo Lang here.
We've been here the last three mornings and this is our last morning together so I hope you'll enjoy the show over the next two hours.
You can join her text 855-752-4842.
That's 855-75 Civic.
And right now we're joined by a tremendous guest.
His name is Jeff Mandel.
He's the executive director of Law Forward, this public interest pro-democracy law firm here in Wisconsin, which has done so much over just its first couple of years in helping Wisconsin get fairer maps.
and flashing a spotlight on the false electors and putting the heat on the false electors, putting the heat on Michael Gabelman.
I mean, they've just done a tremendous amount of work with the small staff and just getting up and running.
It's really the amazing, it's an amazing record.
Jeff Mandel, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me.
It's great to see you.
Well, I wanted to start off just to get your reaction to
what's happened to Judge Dugan to her arrest and how you put that in perspective, what you make of that.
It's really interesting.
I think it's deeply unfortunate.
I don't know all of the facts.
I'm not sure any of us really does know exactly what happened in the courthouse that morning.
But what we do know is that this is really a remarkable example of federal overreach and an exertion of federal power that we don't see very often to arrest a judge and cuff them and march them out of a courthouse.
Right.
And the information that we've seen thus far from the government is very, very thin, and it is hard to see on those facts.
that this is worthy of the kind of departure from our norms and traditions that we see here.
So I think it's deeply concerning.
We might learn a little bit more this morning in court when Judge Dugan appears.
I was glad to see the paperwork yesterday that Judge Dugan's attorneys filed, pointing out how much this is a departure.
from the way that we usually understand federal government to work.
And I was really impressed with the way that they took a terrible decision last year by the U.S.
Supreme Court to grant then-former President Trump complete and total immunity for certain official actions.
And they tried to turn that around and make a purse out of a sows ear, as it were, and say, well,
If it's good for him, then it has to apply to other people, other officials as well.
And the court needs to take that into consideration.
So I'm interested to see what happens.
And they drew a good, careful, thoughtful judge in Judge Edelman.
And I think this is going to be fascinating and important.
And I'm glad that the national media has continued to focus on this, that this wasn't a flash in the pan that then went away, but that we're continuing to see sustained focus
on this issue because it's very, very important.
I had an MSNBC texting me that day and was like, I saw Cache Patel's tweet.
What is happening?
And it was like nine something in the morning.
I was like, this is what we know so far.
She's got a hearing at 1030.
She was picked up around 830.
And so I was giving him information all day and connecting him with other folks.
And I was too very pleased because I think right now, we talk about how they want to flood the zone.
If they overwhelm us, some of the big things
they're trying to bury, and I think this is one of them.
And I'm glad to see that press continue to follow this story.
I'm curious of what do you think the long term impact of this?
Because I think I know a lot of lawyers these
days,
a lot of great lawyers.
And it feels like there was almost a chilling effect.
We knew.
that the Trump administration was gonna do these things, they'd written it out.
But even if her case does get dismissed, what is the signal it's sending and what does this mean long-term for folks and how we're trying to function in a semi-democracy right now?
I think you're exactly right, Angela, that for the administration, it's less about winning or losing and more about...
intimidating people and trying to prevent them from doing their jobs, to prevent them from doing what they think is right, to prevent them from taking a careful look at the law and thinking it through and standing up for what they believe the law is.
The administration, which itself takes untenable legal positions all the time and is constantly pushing the envelope,
is trying to make sure that there are fewer and fewer people willing to stand up in opposition to that.
And one of the things, in addition to the fact that the media continues to pay attention to this case, and that is, I think, good and inspiring.
But another thing is that we are seeing conservative attorneys being willing to represent Judge Dugan.
So yesterday's motion was filed by String Bradley.
you know, distinguished, well-known, excellent criminal defense attorneys here in Wisconsin who are part of her team.
and are well known as liberal.
But Steve Buscupic, a former U.S.
attorney in Milwaukee, who was appointed to that position by George W. Bush, and is a well-known conservative, was actually one of the defense lawyers in our case against the fraudulent electors.
But
he is standing up and defending Judge Dugan, and I'm pleased to see that Paul Clement, former Solicitor General of the United States, a native Wisconsinite.
Who has has become one of the foremost attorneys in Washington DC and it is quite conservative again You know a distinguished member of the Bush administration standing up and joining the dig in defense team and and I think that is also a really good sign for the rule of law
And it's also a signal to the the Trump Justice Department that they're not gonna have an easy road ahead They're not gonna have an easy road to trial if there's an appeal, you know
Clements, former Solicitor General is probably one of the best lawyers in the country on appellate law.
And so they're going to have a tough road.
Maybe they don't care.
Maybe they just wanted the symbolism of putting a judge in shackles on her ankles and shackles on her wrists just to show off.
But I got to believe they're not going to win this case.
I have a hard time imagining that they're ultimately going to prevail in this case.
Again, we don't know all the facts, but based on what's public now,
it is difficult to really see how this is valid and proper.
Jeff, you mentioned Trump pushing the envelope.
That's kind of put it in mildly and not as a criticism to you.
But how close are we to this constitutional crisis?
Because in my mind, we're there already.
Because it seems to me he's been flagrantly disobeying the courts, especially on the Abrego Garcia case, where they're supposed to facilitate his release.
from that prisoner in El Salvador, and they're not doing jack about it as far as I can tell, and one administration official after another says he'll never set foot in the United States again, or if he does, we'll ship him back.
What do you make of all that?
Well, I think you're right, Matt.
I think we're teetering right on the edge of this constitutional crisis.
The Trump administration, in a way that is, I believe, unprecedented in our history, has a flagrant disregard for both the law
and the courts.
And it is one thing for an administration to say that they disagree with past administrations or sort of majority understandings of long-standing law and they're going to try new things.
We saw some of that in the first Trump administration.
But it's another thing to do that in a flood the zone kind of way where you're doing it everywhere all at once.
And also
disregarding court orders when the courts try to rein you in and say, no, no, no, that might be clever, but it's not, it's not correct.
That's not what the law means.
It seems to me that the question of whether we are really in a constitutional crisis or just on the verge of one is largely about the US Supreme Court.
The court orders that you're talking about that the administration has been
contemptuous of and largely defied, have mostly been lower court orders.
When things get up to the Supreme Court, my read is that the US Supreme Court has been trying incredibly hard to walk a tightrope and try to rein the administration in a little bit, but not so much that it creates outright conflict and a crisis.
The Abrego-Garcia matter is the best example, though, where it's not clear that that tightrope can be sustained, and that there just may not be a happy medium or a balance here.
I think we'll also learn a lot more this morning in the arguments at the US Supreme Court about birthright citizenship, because here's another example of the Trump administration taking an idea and a principle that has been settled law for a hundred and
60 years.
There's never really been any serious question about what the 14th Amendment means that people who are born within the territory of the United States are therefore citizens.
They are taking a radically different position.
But today's hearing is in some ways less about that than it is about whether
federal district court judges, that is federal trial judges, have the authority to issue orders that really bind the administration or whether they're only about the specific plaintiff in that case.
And that is a crucial, crucial question.
So what happens if the Trump administration keeps ignoring decisions at the federal trial level or at the US Supreme Court level, just like Stephen Miller says,
about Ebrego Garcia, the courts have no role in deciding.
This is the presidential authority and they can't tell us what to do.
Then where are we?
Well, that's
the million dollar question.
I mean, that's the question on which the future of democracy hinges.
And if I try to be...
generous to the current US Supreme Court, which at times can be difficult.
But I think that they're trying to pick their fights very carefully because they recognize that the only thing they have in their corner is public support.
And so they want to pick a fight at a place that they think the public will be with them because they're going to need that support if the administration just follows the Stephen Miller path.
But didn't the chief just give Trump a blank check in the immunity decision?
And isn't it hard to roll that back right now?
I think he did.
I think it is very hard.
My guess, I don't know this, but my guess is that he didn't think Trump was going to win when he did that and that he might have thought about that differently if he thought that Trump would again exercise control over the federal government.
Well, we had Trump thank him in person at that kind of state of the union speech there and says, you know, I remember this and thank you.
I mean, if he did think Trump was going to lose, he was being very naive, just like the FBI director was being very naive.
when Hillary Clinton was running.
And those are two mistakes from very senior officials in our government that have had some very grave consequences.
It's true.
Yeah, go ahead.
Just quickly on that, I just want to say, not only are you right about that, Matt, but to call back to that moment at the president's address to the joint session of Congress, where he stopped
with the Chief Justice afterwards and said, thank you, I won't forget what you did.
It is pure mobster behavior in
the same
way that two weeks ago or a week and a half ago, the comments from the White House lawn by Tom Homan, the administration's borders are threatening our governor here in Wisconsin was pure mobster behavior.
This is not the way government
works.
This is not the way government is supposed to work.
This is Banana Republic stuff, not a real democracy.
And so, you know, the question about when we hit a constitutional crisis and what precipitates that is, will it be something that people will fully recognize and refuse to accept?
Because we are quickly getting to a point that that's the question.
What will the public accept?
And we can't accept this pure mobster behavior.
We can't accept a president who refuses to obey a court order coming from
which ever court, but especially from the U.S.
Supreme Court, my feeling is we're going to be there sooner and later.
Jeff Mandel is the executive director of Law Forward.
He's going to stay with us after this quick break.
We're going to talk about a lawsuit he's bringing here in Wisconsin to give us fusion voting, the right to vote for a candidate on a separate party.
And he'll explain all about it.
We'll be right back.
Mornings with Pat Tritlow.
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week as Pat's on vacation.
And we hope you'll join the show by calling or texting 855-752-4842.
That's 855-75 Civic as we're broadcasting all across the Civic Media Radio Network.
And we still have Jeff Mandel with us, which I'm grateful for.
Jeff Mandel is the executive director of Law Forward.
And right before the break, I was trying to introduce this concept of fusion voting, which you have brought a lawsuit about.
I didn't do a great job of it.
So I'm going to throw it to you, Jeff, to explain what that lawsuit is all about and what fusion voting is about.
So thanks.
Fusion voting is an electoral reform.
That is, it is a way that would change how our elections are run and administered.
And the goal of bringing back fusion voting is an old idea.
from our history, and I'm going to talk about that in a minute.
But the goal here is to empower voters and to try to break what social scientists and political scientists call the two-party doom loop.
The idea that the Democratic and Republican parties are so powerful that they crowd out all other political parties, and we see greater and greater polarization.
This is something that is rich, particularly in Wisconsin history.
But if we go back, and I'll try to be quick about this, if we go back to the mid-19th century, to before the Civil War, there were two major political parties in this country, the Democrats and the Whigs.
And the major issue, royally in the country, appropriately, was slavery.
The Democrats were pro-slavery at that point.
The Whigs didn't really have a party position, and different members of the party took different positions.
What you saw growing up were a whole bunch of small abolitionist parties.
Those parties in the 1850s came together in Ripon, Wisconsin, at a small schoolhouse, and they created the Republican Party.
They said, we're going to pool our resources.
But they didn't immediately run people as Republicans.
What they did is they cross nominated.
So people from the Free Soil Party said, well, we're going to have a candidate run for this position.
And the Liberty Party, you have somebody run for this other position and our people will vote for your person and your people will vote for our person.
And that was really typical.
This was a huge part.
of how 19th century American politics worked.
The major players at the Wisconsin Constitutional Convention in the 1840s were actually not Democrats or Whigs.
They were members of smaller parties that cross nominated each other.
And so what fusion voting does is try to bring that back.
It says that one candidate for office can appear on the ballot multiple times because if they're nominated by different party.
So you could have a candidate who is a Republican and that same candidate for governor or for Senate or for any other partisan position could also be nominated by another party.
You know, let's call it the conservative party and you could vote for that person on the conservative party line.
And when the election is over, you just add up all the votes that each person got and whoever got the most votes wins.
But it's a way of trying to empower individuals to create new parties and to break out of
one of the things that's hampering our politics, which is the suffocation of our two major parties.
There was an argument before the Wisconsin Supreme Court a few decades ago.
I know Joel Rogers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison helped with this lawsuit, but they lost on one case at the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
What gives you hope that maybe this time it'll work?
Sure.
And just to finish the history and I'll come back into that piece, what happened was after the Republican Party really consolidated control in Wisconsin, the Republican Party became a major national force, right?
Abraham Lincoln gets elected to the presidency and the Whig Party dissolves.
We don't really hear about the Whig Party after the Civil War and across the country in almost every single state, whatever the dominant party was.
So in the North, essentially the Republican Party, they made fusion voting illegal so no one could ever do this to them.
In the South, the Democratic Party, they made fusion voting illegal, so no one could ever do this to the Democrats.
And so in almost every state in the country, fusion voting has been.
illegal for a century and we're trying to bring it back.
As you say, there was an effort about 20 years ago to do this.
It was done under the federal constitution and it failed both in Wisconsin and at the US Supreme Court.
We are coming under the state of Wisconsin Constitution and saying our state constitution confer certain rights.
I would also note that those cases, one of the things they said is,
We don't need this.
Our constitution doesn't demand this because we have a stable two-party system.
I would argue that what we've seen over the last quarter century is that our two-party system is much less stable today than the courts assumed it to be then.
We're going to take a run at this and see if we can bring this back.
I don't think it's a silver bullet.
I don't think it solves all of our problems, but it is one small piece of trying to make things better and empower voters rather than
than political bosses.
And I know there are voters across the political spectrum who want to see this happen, who are sick and tired of what you call the two-party doom loop or the oligopoly, as Ralph Nader used to call it, probably still calls it.
And to let third parties, fourth parties, bloom again.
And in one of your arguments, I glanced at your...
filing is a freedom of association argument, correct?
Correct.
People have the right to group together in ways that are effective and this prohibition on fusion voting makes that impossible.
You could imagine a group of Wisconsinites who want to get together and create a party that is more moderate than one of our two major parties right now.
You can imagine groups who want to get together and create a party that's more progressive than the Democrats or that's more conservative than the Republicans.
You can also imagine groups of people who want together and
group together around a single issue.
Maybe there's a marijuana reform party that says we don't care about your other issues.
This is what we think is most important and we will endorse anyone who promises that they will get this through the Wisconsin legislature.
There are all kinds of ways that this could work.
And the reason that the Republican and Democratic parties banned fusion voting in the late 19th and early 20th century was because it worked.
And so we're trying to re-empower voters.
Oh, well, good luck with that.
That's Jeff Vendell.
He's the executive director of Law Forward.
And we'll be right back on Mornings with Pat Crichtlow.
I'm Matt Rothschild.
Joined by Angela Lange, my co-host.
And we're coming back with Representative Francesca Hahn.
So you're not going to want to miss that.
I've been so hosting with Andrew Alang all week and they're enjoying doing so and I
hope you're enjoying listening to the program all across the Civic Media Radio Network.
The number to call here if you want to get on or if you want to text 855-752-4842.
That's 855-75 Civic.
And Angela and I are now joined by Representative Francesca Hong.
Representative Hong, thanks for being on the show.
Thanks so much for having me.
Happy to be here.
I wanted to start just with your reaction to what the Joint Finance Committee did last week and I hate calling it the Joint Finance Committee.
It's not joint.
It's overwhelmingly Republican and the Republicans just do what they want to do.
There's no bipartisanship whatsoever there.
Tell me about your reaction.
It's no surprise at this point, the Republicans have absolutely no interest in actually meeting the needs of their communities, let alone listening to their constituents.
So when they voted out 612 of the governor's proposal, everything from healthy school meals for all to eliminating lead out of our waters, other environmental protections, legalizing cannabis, fully funding our public schools.
This is now the fourth budget where they've just not even brought any of those proposals up from or up for debate.
They're starting at what we call back to base.
And, you know, even though thousands of Wisconsinites showed up at these listening sessions to tell those folks to their face what they needed for their communities, Mark Lyne and Bourne decided now we're just going to do the bidding of Robin Boss again.
It makes a mockery of.
so-called listening sessions there if they're just not going to listen at all.
Yeah.
Precisely.
I don't waste the folks' time.
Yeah.
I want people to, if you're listening and you want to let your legislator know, represent Francesca Hong, just mentioned Senator Marklein.
Here's his email.
S-E-N period for Senator Marklein.
M-A-R-K-L-E-I-N.
That's sen.marklein at Legis for Legislature.
legis.wi.gov.
I'm going to give it to you once more.
sen.markline at legis.wi.gov.
And you can do the same thing for born.
sen.born at legis.wi.
Oh, born as a rep, born as a assembly person.
So it's rep.or.
There you go.
So that would be rep.born at legis.wi.gov.
Give them an earful.
It's just disgraceful what they did at the so-called Joint Finance Committee last week.
And if you feel like heading out to the Spring Green area or Beaver Dam, there are folks in those communities who representative and their senator are not listening to them.
So I think it's important that someone goes out and lets them know that there's a lot of issues Wisconsinites connect on.
Child care, especially being one of them.
And I know for Senator Marklein, he's been getting an earful about that for years and has done nothing.
And there was a public hearing or there was a meeting that he was invited to a public meeting in Nucleus earlier this week.
We had a childcare provider, Karine Hendrickson, who had invited him to come to that.
And he just did a show once, right in his district.
Yep.
It's really disgraceful.
And childcare workers at this point, they are asking for the $13 an hour that was funded through the childcare account program.
That's where we are.
Childcare.
you know, it's part of infrastructure, child care, anything in the care economy, paid leave, caregiving work, long-term care.
These are things that are absolutely disintegrating.
And if we don't invest in these people now who are so willing to do care work, it's a future that I really don't think any of us want to be a part of.
I mean, it's amazing.
These are the people who are taking care of our kids and taking care of our
elderly parents or grandparents, and they're the least remunerated people in our economy.
And yet the Republicans at the so-called Joint Finance Committee were not able to sustain the childcare industry in the way they need it.
And Representative Hong, you've been a small, you're a small business owner.
You know how hard it is to keep the doors open.
And for childcare providers, according to the study that they
presented, they're going to lose up to a quarter to a third of every child care business in Wisconsin if this funding is not restored.
I mean, that's just a horrible consequence of these savage cuts.
Absolutely.
I mean, parents are going to lose care, providers are going to lose businesses, child care workers and educators are going to lose their jobs.
But I mean, it's ultimately, we all have to care about our kids.
I just, I wonder who is going to take care of Senator Mark Liner, Mark Bourne.
If our care facilities close, if we don't have childcare centers and parents and care providers aren't able to go to work, it's already incredibly difficult right now to be making a living wage and getting by.
We should be a state where people have opportunity to thrive, not struggling to survive.
So thinking about how you organize in this political climate, right?
This isn't your first rodeo.
You've been dealing with some of your colleagues across the aisle for years now.
And we had state rep Christian Phelps on earlier in the week, and I asked a similar question I want to pose to you.
And I think it teased up for something else I want to mention is how do you all organize understanding these?
And I say organize.
I don't use that term with every elected official.
But you are an organizer and how you show up and whatnot too.
How do you all navigate this moment of understanding the political climate?
How are we able to bring folks together?
And I also want to leave space to talk about some news from earlier this month that involved you and one of the things that you helped start at the legislature, but how you all see different ways of tools to be able to combat this political environment we're in.
I think every elected official needs to be an organizer and one of the first things that makes a great organizer is one, you leave your insecurities at the door and two, you actively listen.
I think it's the first step in organizing is that you have to meet the folks whose lived experiences are most impacted by policy and oftentimes too often power and corruption that's happening at the government level.
And so organizing requires leaving your ego at the door, actively listening to the needs of your communities, and then really assessing how
you know, the team that you're working in, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and who is best suited to go have really meaningful conversations to build trusted relationships, because people right now have no reason to trust politicians.
I mean, truly.
And so, how do we make sure that we are surrounding ourselves with people who are willing
to open up conversations about, hey, these are policy decisions.
The reason your schools are struggling and you're having to go to referenda, and this was over 421 referenda that were put up for votes back in 2024, these are why these things are happening, identify some of the villains, and really share the power.
It's not just necessarily about empowering, but how do you provide opportunities for other folks to really
be the community leaders that they are and help you organize.
And I think especially right now, Representative Phelps and I are really fortunate that we have amazing community organizers who have chosen to trust us to bear the burden and responsibility of having to say what's going on in the legislature when people rightfully so may not like choose to tune out.
And so that's
I think it's back to basics when I think about how we organize in this moment as legislators and it's really providing spaces for other folks to lead and then making sure that they have, you know, the knowledge about what Robin Voss is doing, how to identify that fill in, what some of the things we can do in our community.
while we try to build power in the capital and take care of one another.
So that's what I'm encouraging a lot of members to think about.
It's just a lot when you also have, you know, fascists at your door and looking at you in your face, telling you, don't go back to your community with anything.
Yeah, I mean you mentioned talking about folks with lived experiences and I really want to lift up because I am proud although I think it's long overdue and congratulations that earlier this month There is now an Asian caucus at the legislature And I think that's really important because I have an article pulled up being the first means nothing if you're the last right and when you were the first Asian state rep in Wisconsin
just it feels like not that long ago, right?
And then now there's enough to be able to have a caucus.
And I bring this up because I do think that it's part of the organizing that you're talking about, about centering people's lived experiences and centering community experiences.
So I just wanted to give you a moment to one, give you your flowers for being able to help bring folks together and be able to have this caucus, but also your vision and how do you think this kind of plays into being able to build as well?
Well, I really appreciate that.
Yes, we just need two people to create a caucus in the legislature.
So when Representative Renuka Mayadev here in my neighboring district in Madison and Representative Angelito Tenorio, who represents the West Alice area, were elected.
You know, just personally, I felt this immense sense of relief and pride.
We often, as leaders of color, we get pulled in a lot of directions.
You're ripe for disappointment.
And one of the worst things is disappointing your communities.
And when there are fewer of us or only one of us trying to figure out how best to uplift the diversity of your community, the Asian community is one of the most diverse diasporas.
It's a lot of pressure.
And so personally, to have Renuka and Angelito with me there, I think is only going to make me a better legislator.
And in terms of more than representation, right?
It's not enough just to have folks who may look like you in the halls of power.
It's really about, again, how do we share
the power that we have and how to create platforms for folks not necessarily to have us be their voice, but for folks to be able to bring their voice to spaces of influence.
And really, we have a responsibility to make government accessible, right?
for folks who, you know, I think each of us has to make ourselves more accessible than other representatives because people for the first time, maybe, you know, learning about the state legislature, what it does, how to get engaged and be a part of a state government that is supposed to be working for them.
You talk about accessibility.
A lot of Republican legislators, certainly in Congress, aren't accessible at all.
If, you know, we're not doing town halls anymore, not meeting their constituents.
They're, you know, Van Orden's not doing it in his district.
And then you have folks in the legislature, like Senator Mark Lyne that we talked about a second ago, not meeting with his constituents.
And it's not the first time either.
I mean, when they were shutting down UW Richland Center, I know Todd Albaugh and the Todd Albaugh Show.
really reported this out better than anybody and was calling out mark line almost every day for not showing up, not being responsible, not exercising power.
I mean, he's one of the chair of joint finance.
He could have saved that institution if he wanted to and he failed and he's not meeting his constituents.
I mean, what do you tell people who are living in districts where their elected officials aren't accessible?
I was in Multoma and Green Lake over the weekend and I have to tell you, rural organizers are exceptional and they are showing up in hundreds and they don't care if their Republican representative or Senator is not there.
They are there to share stories.
They are there to affirm their neighbor's struggles, but also work together to try to figure out how do we get to Madison and hold these folks accountable at their doorstep.
And so I think those folks, I tell them, look to your community.
That's good advice.
Please stay with us for the next segment.
I want to hear from you, Representative Hong, about the Economic Bill of Rights.
We'll be right back on Mornings with Pat Cradle.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website,
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four days here filling in for Pat.
I hope you've enjoyed it too.
If you're listening, 855-752-4842.
And we're thrilled to have State Representative Francesca Hong still with us for the rest of this half hour.
Representative Hong, in the last couple sessions, you've been introducing a bill called the Economic Bill of Rights.
Talk about that.
Yes, so stoked that representative to norio and the fellow members and my Democratic Socialist caucus and I as well as our Democratic colleagues introduced the economic justice bill of rights So this is actually assembly joint resolution 33 And it's a set of 10 tenants that we believe every single Wisconsin night Should have their government provide so that they have the agency and the opportunity to for to have
because it's economic security that provides folks freedom, that provides folks safety, and allows them to care for themselves and care for others.
So those are things like a right to a living wage, a right to collectively bargain and form a union, a right to a retirement, accessible childcare, high quality public education.
I mean, these are things that, you know,
Almost all Wisconsinites can agree are good things to provide folks so that they can create opportunity for themselves
So if all Wisconsinites probably agree that these are simple standard basic things How come it hasn't been passed yet like what are and I hate to give space but um
I think it's important to name, and we've talked about this with Rep Phelps, of that they don't like to hold hearings because they don't want to go on record to say why, right?
But I'm curious, your conversations, it can't just be a financial thing because that doesn't make sense.
Paint a picture of these villains that you had mentioned, right?
And why they are so opposed to basic worker rights and decency for Wisconsinites.
Well, because they're cowards in addition to being villains, right?
I think it's important to recognize that a lot of them aren't you know acting on their own whether you're beholden to the donors that not just give to your campaign but the campaigns that are financing your
The campaigns that are financing your campaigns, right?
On the darker money side, Speaker Voss has immense power and influence over how each of his member acts.
And I think a lot of it comes down to they truly believe Wisconsinites are not united with shared funds.
They want to defy this.
I still believe that's why they didn't want trains.
They truly, they don't want folks
from different zip codes to come together, have conversation, break bread, and realize that, oh, if we all had good public schools, that would probably be good for all of our communities.
You're struggling with housing costs.
I'm struggling with housing costs, too.
I would like more small businesses, independent businesses on my main streets.
We would love to keep more of those open, too.
The strategy is divide and conquer.
The last thing you want to do is talk about what all Wisconsinites want.
And
then when someone confronts you about it, it's easy to blame the Democrats, right?
When we do not have the majority nor the actual power to pass legislation on our own, let alone choose which bills get a public hearing.
for debate.
And so that coward part not only comes from ignoring their constituents and ignoring and refusing to debate, but also not recognizing that you have like you're ignoring your own power.
You can make different decisions.
You can organize your caucus to act differently.
You choose not to even try and then you're going to be a mouthpiece for the speaker.
That's
they're the ones who are lacking dignity and thus want to strip it from the rest of Wisconsinites.
In Representative Hong, one of the reasons the Speaker has so much power over other Republicans there is a campaign finance problem because they rewrote the campaign finance law in 2015 to allow legislative campaign committees run by the Speaker and the majority and minority leaders to collect unlimited donations from people.
There used to be a limit as to what people could give
to these committees and now there's no limit and so the speaker's able to raise unlimited amounts of money and so if you're a republican and disobeying what the speaker says he's gonna say hey i've got a couple million dollars here in my pocket i can primary you and you're you're gonna be dead isn't that what's going on too
Well, and they get a discount, right?
When they have the gerrymandered maps, like, folks really didn't have to do anything, which is why it's wild that they have the audacity to judge and make decisions about work requirements for folks and transition for their benefits, to blame Wisconsinites for not being hardworking when one of our strongest values is that we all work hard.
And I'll also just mention that
We can be passing different types of campaign finance laws.
We need more working people, single moms, bartenders, organizers, educators to be able to run for office, but that takes money.
You're putting your life on hold to go talk to your communities.
We can have
policies that help cover living expenses while you're campaigning.
It's beautiful to see people come together and offer to mull your lawn or take care of your kid while you're campaigning.
But that should actually be part of the process to make our democracy actually stronger by having working people, you know, actually have the opportunities to be able to run for office and it be sustainable.
Because a lot of them are like, we're asking people to sacrifice probably much
like higher paid work, higher paying jobs in the private sector to come deal with Robin Voss for like 55,000
a
year, right?
Like that's, it's hard, but a lot of folks want to do this and imagine if they had.
child care, help with their mortgage, just for while they're campaigning so they can actually represent the people who have their shared lived experiences.
Yeah, we'd have a much more representative democracy that way.
Representative Francesca Hong, thanks so much for being our guest today.
On mornings with Pat Preitlo, Angela Lang and I will be right back with Dave Zirin, the sports columnist for the Progressive and the Nation.
Yes, thank you all so much for having me.
It's so good to see you.
Thanks Fran.
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