Governor Winklevoss? (Hour 1)

Live, across Wisconsin on Civic Media, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Kratlow powered by Up North News.

Now, for my Lake WSOTA studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Kratlow.

Thank you, Don Rue.

Hey there, Wisconsin.

Good morning.

It is 6.06 on this Wednesday morning, July 16th, 2025.

It's another beautiful morning to have you here up north, live from Lake Wissota, from wherever you're spending your mornings, listening across the Civic Media radio network, or listening or watching us on so many other platforms, so many options for you.

Thank you for starting your day right here.

Hope things didn't get too bad by you, wherever there might have been thunderstorms or heavy rain.

And unfortunately, more thunderstorms and heavy rain are on the way for plenty of folks across Wisconsin today.

Meteorologist Brittany Merleau will have the forecast coming up in about an hour.

I got a question for you.

You want to hear about the most Wisconsin thing you could learn at the start of your day?

I actually have to share this with.

Parker Olson, who produces this fine program from Madison Studio A2.

Parker, how are you today?

I'm doing very good.

Mr. Kratlow,

how are you doing?

Here's great.

Here's here's the most Wisconsin thing.

Oh, so we we put together, you know, newsletters every day at Up North News.

Sign up at Up North News WI.com.

Shameless plug there.

And then in the newsletter, both the weekday one and my Sunday Politics One, there are various links that you can click on to read our articles or anything else that we link to.

And then we measure a lot of things.

We measure subscribers.

We measure readers who opens the emails that are sent to them and who clicks on the, not who clicks on the links, but how many people click on the links.

So one of my bosses is just a sweet woman from Georgia.

She just, yeah, just, just love her.

She's so, so wonderful.

And sometimes she kind of worries about us up here in the great Midwest.

She sent me a copy of her report.

from one of our recent newsletters and it had an article there about Wisconsin deaths from alcohol related liver disease and there were clicks there about you know CDC data and about you know all kinds of things about you know drinking culture and everything and Kim sends me a note showing that the thing that was overwhelmingly the most clicked on was apart from the state health department's website

on what exactly constitutes excessive drinking.

Cause we're all curious like, I don't know, are we over the line?

I don't know.

And she sends, sends a little note below it that says, Oh, Wisconsin.

And I said, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Our state motto is on Wisconsin.

That's what I say to that.

I'm curious about this excessive drinking.

Could it be me?

It

certainly is you.

Yes.

It certainly could be Wisconsin.

So again,

Enjoy and moderation to the degree that you are able please coming up on the program this morning It's gonna be a busy one.

We're we're gonna have a look at some campaign finance reports.

Those are normally pretty dull affairs We're not gonna go through them all but something stuck out yesterday when Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley reported raising zero dollars in the last report period not the world's biggest surprise given her history but still not worthy but

Wait till you hear about one of the candidates for governor and where the overwhelming majority, nearly all of his campaign donations came from.

I can't wait.

I'll tell you now.

It's businessman Bill Barion, 1.2 million raised, 1 million of it coming from the Winklevoss twins.

Yeah, the guys from the Facebook movie.

Do you ever see the Facebook movie?

There's a Facebook

movie.

Oh

boy.

Yes, all about Mark Zuckerberg creating Facebook.

Oh,

okay, okay, okay.

Documentary, not.

No, no, not a document.

It's called the social network.

It was a 2010 movie.

You haven't seen the social network.

I have not seen this, no.

And I was terrified of, if it was called the Facebook movie, I would have

been terrified of

what that would have looked like.

Can you imagine,

Pat?

Oh, no, it was Jesse Eisenberg, starring as Mark Zuckerberg.

And Armie Hammer played both Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, who famously had a dispute with Eisenberg or with the Zuckerberg, rather, over who actually created Facebook.

And so the Winklevoss twins were, you know, kind of the butt of some jokes and things like that.

And

Yeah, the Winklevoss twins are still very active businessmen and apparently really believe in Bill Barion because they they put nearly all the money into his account of his new campaign for governor.

What?

Sure, whatever floats her boat.

I guess if you got if you got that kind of money, I mean, look, Elon Musk, he had $20 million to burn on that state Supreme Court race earlier this year here in Wisconsin.

So anyway, so we'll we'll have more fun with that a little bit later on in today's program and other little notes about, you know, who's been raising funds so far for what's going to be a very busy 2026 election.

Some serious notes to share about education in our homeroom segment during our seven o'clock hour.

you would probably be quite alarmed to hear that there is a ticking time bomb in the state budget.

And it's about to explode taxes that we all have to pay for private school vouchers.

The voucher program already cost us nearly a billion dollars a year.

A lot of our tax dollars go into families that frankly don't need it,

but Republicans in their war on public education are taking your money and allowing wealthier families to use it for vouchers.

But there's an enrollment cap on that, so only so many students can take advantage of those caps, except the caps go away next year.

What's that going to do to either the state budget or and or property taxpayers?

and the Parade of Referendums going on all around Wisconsin.

We will talk to State Representative Christian Phelps at 730, more about that.

And then at 830, we're talking to the new Chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, Devin Remacher.

He's going to be in La Crosse tonight, along with lots of other folks for Town Hall in the Third Congressional District.

Now, the third congressional district representative, Derek Van Orden, will probably not be there.

It's doubtful that he can rip himself away from his Twitter machine and stop insulting people long enough to do, you know, the job of listening to his constituents, but Devin Remaker will be along to tell us all about the event anyway, so that folks in the lacrosse area can share their stories about what it is that Derek Van Orden voted for and that Donald Trump put out there.

and Ron Johnson and every other Wisconsin Republican voted for slashing health care and other programs so that their rich friends can get a bigger tax cut.

All that is coming up.

Of course, we will also have, let's see, Jimmy Cusco will be in to share some of the new stories that he's working on.

Earl Ingram will be talking about, he's got that new podcast series, of course, Melissa Baldoff with Climate Check.

We got James Kelly coming in from the Chippewa Falls newsroom about

stories that's being that he's covering for civic media.

And who am I forgetting?

Who am I saving for last?

That, of course, would be Melissa K. Because again, Parker, we got to believe that whereas last week, what's what's the bird's name now?

Lelu.

Lelu.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anyway, Lucy Loo is was hiding last week in in the

The thrilling conclusion of Melissa K's Pigeon Quest So we'll find out if if the bird has made it one week The birds made it

well I'll tell you this much Pat I think that the bird has not been put into a KFC bucket as you had anticipated perhaps no

So

do you know something I don't?

I mean,

no, I don't know a

thing.

I'm

just saying, I think it's probably gone well enough that it hasn't been made dinner yet.

I'm just, you know, Melissa's been such a good sport about this.

And yes, I would like to think she knows that if she really wanted to shock us, we'd bring the camera up in about 30 minutes here and she'd be, you know, gnawing on a drumstick.

We don't have to know that it's a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store.

We don't have to know that.

That

would be a fantastic.

She could tell us that paint bucket, a.k.a.

Lee Lu is was a naughty bird.

We'll find out from Melissa K coming up in today's history lesson in just a bit.

Here's the state forecast from meteorologist Brittany Merleau.

Soaking rain across the state last night continues into today.

Some thunderstorms as well.

Behind it all.

significantly cooler and more comfortable air arrives.

There will be a couple of dry days to end the week before more showers and storms start up again come Saturday.

So the forecast for today cloudy and cooler, strong or even severe thunderstorms are possible along with heavy rains and flash flood concerns.

Highs around 60 up north to the low 80s in southern Wisconsin, a northeast wind at 10 to 15 miles an hour.

For tonight, the rain moves out, lows will be in the mid 40s up north, 60s to the south, and a northeast wind at 10 to 20 miles an hour.

It was a scorcher yesterday.

It was in the mid 80s here on Lake Wissota.

It felt hotter than that.

Quite a day for me to

have the new lake steps start to get installed.

So the guys that are putting them in, they showed up yesterday and they said, jokingly, I hope, they said, well, we're just gonna start now and we're gonna stop whenever the first signs of heat stroke show.

I was like, okay.

Okay.

So they did, they put a couple hours work in and then they took a break a little after lunch and I did not see them again because it was really hot out here and I don't blame them one bit because we're on a steep bank.

It is not easy to put those steps in.

We're replacing some wooden ones that are falling apart after 30 years and I would not, I'm happy to write that check, shall we say.

Rather than

trying to come up with stairs myself.

Some expenses are good ones.

Yes.

We'll leave it to the professionals, Pat.

You know, in olden days, you pretty much had to make your own steps.

You either made your own steps or you'd like dig into the bank and you'd put like field stone down and you'd have like these stone steps

going

down, you know, with no hand railing.

So Lord help you.

So I don't mean I'm.

I'm glad to see the professionals that are out there and there are more of them all the time that can build these things out of you know aluminum or other metal and wood as the case may be and some of them look really nice.

What we don't have but I see on some of these steep banks around here are those things called

I guess they're technically called elevators.

They're basically on rails.

It's like a little, a little car, you know, that you stand in and think of like the ones for the for wheelchairs when you're in a building, you got to go up just a short staircase.

It's something about that size.

Okay.

And it goes up and down a rail track on there.

And I guess those things started like $100,000 to put in.

Yeah.

Is that

out of

a quite low budget?

Yeah.

And even even then,

I don't, I really don't think I could do it.

I mean, I, look, I have a lot of faith in technology and engineering and everything else, but the prospect of, I'll ride a roller coaster once in a great while, but the prospect of being on one of those cars for fear that the, you know, the brake or whatever holds it there gives out and sends you hurtling toward the lake.

No, thanks.

Can I just attach a bungee cord to a tree up at the top, and then I'll slowly lower myself?

I'll lower myself down on the elastic, and then when I need to come up, I'll just pull it really hard on the elastic and slingshot myself to the top of the bank.

I would like to see you, like, slingshot it up a hill, wearing your little yacht captain

hat.

My little captain's hat over here, yes.

Yeah, I think that would be quite the image.

It is quite the image.

I feel like I'd look like somebody being shot out of a cannon, which also I think some people would not necessarily mind.

Let's see, from Jim and Brookfield.

Good morning, Pat.

Yes, write the check for the lake steps.

Also better incomplete lake steps than an incomplete roof.

Yes, there's

some jobs

you got to get them done and you got to get them done now Thankfully these guys can come back when things get a little bit better out there We'll continue following the day's headlines in just a second tell you about the all-star game first from the heart of America's up north live from Lake Wissota Thanks for making this the place to spend part of your mornings.

I'm Pat Crightlow and this is the Civic Media Radio Network

Got a lot coming up today.

If you missed it off the top new state Democratic Party chair Devin Remacher will be here as will state representative Christian Phelps Melissa Baldoff with this week's climate check and so much more.

Hey, remember the 2002 All-Star game at Miller Park?

The one that ended up tied in Commissioner Bud C League was like, well, that's that's it.

We're done.

That's a tie.

Didn't go over really well.

Well, the solution that they eventually came up with got its first real use last night in baseball's midsummer classic with the American and National League teams tied at six after nine innings.

They went for a mini homerun Derby Parker.

They went for a swing off, which the National League won four to three.

In the swing off each team designates three players each gets three swings and the most home runs wins the Phillies Kyle Schwabber hit dingers on all three swings So he was named the game's MVP Despite going over to it the plate making him the first non-picture to get no hits in the actual game and still be named MVP.

I don't know how I feel about that

Oh, that's awesome.

I know for such a silly thing that and I will say I do think MLB has the best all star game for a thing as silly as an all star game.

That's awesome.

Yes, I mean, I say the same thing all the time.

And I noticed our friend Bob looked with us on social media yesterday too.

Everything becomes such a production.

Just just just play the game.

Honestly, don't need all the Hollywood stuff.

Just play it.

Here's the other development from the game.

They brought in the robots.

Oh, by the way, you'll hear this on today's calendar.

Today is Artificial Intelligence Appreciation Day.

So a day in advance of AI Appreciation Day, Major League Baseball used the robot umpires for challenge purposes last night.

Home plate umpire Dan Iasonia had five of his calls challenged and four of those challenges were successful.

I like it.

Way to have a night there, ump.

I mean, going home and realizing on national TV, you, uh, four of your five calls were overturned and the, uh, the use of a system that could make its regular season debut next year.

Commissioner Rob Manfred indicated the 11 man competition committee will consider the system for next season.

Now here's the part I'm going to read this part.

You're going to like this because okay.

When actually let's start with you, Parker.

If I'd say describe the strike zone, how would you basically describe the strike zone for a batter?

Uh, like knee to.

I don't remember exactly what it like, maybe like ribs, like lower rib.

Okay.

Ish.

And then of course, and then the width of the plate, right?

Yeah.

So, uh, so MLB takes like, what do they do with the robot?

You see the box on TV.

Where is that box?

The automated strike zone is 53.5% of a batter's height.

And the bottom is that 27% of a batter's height, basing the decision on the midpoint of the plate, eight and a half inches from the front and eight and a half inches from the back.

Contrast that with the baseball rule book, where the strike zone is a cube, according to the thing that the umpires use.

But as you all know, if you watch it on TV, it is not a cube.

It's a rectangle.

So if we can't even agree on the definition, then

Yeah, let's just put the robot in there.

This is the beautiful thing about baseball, Pat.

We don't know what the strike zone is.

We don't know what a swing is because Lord only knows what a check swing is or isn't.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Yep.

Again, part of the beauty of the game.

So, look.

the Brewers pitchers, Jacob Mizorovsky came in for the eighth inning, allowed one single and then one line out and two pop outs basically.

I mean, they were hard hit balls, but they were hit way up high and good for the outfielders.

And he threw at least four pitches over 100 miles an hour.

And he had a slider at 98 miles an hour, a 98 mile an hour slider.

That director for Fox was smart enough that after that pitch he right away cut to both dugouts

Yeah, first

one and then the other and all the players are just shaking their heads because they could see it was a slider they could see it break and Still go 98 miles an hour to do that not 75 or something like that and they're all just dumbfounded when this kid Look at

this.

Yeah, so you had to change up of 99.

Yeah

I'm just enjoying it, you know, until his arm falls off.

And I'm not saying I wish that.

I'm just saying I won't be surprised if it does because that's where we're at right now.

Unfortunately.

That's a nature of pitching at this point.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

All right.

Getting back to the Winklevoss twins here for a moment.

They are founders of the cryptocurrency company Gemini.

And they donated a half a million dollars each for a total of one million dollars to support Republican candidate for governor Bill Barion.

This according to campaign finance reports that were put in a story by Anna Kleiber of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

These were donations to Barion's PAC political action committee that he launched earlier this year when he was considering running for governor.

So, Barion, who is a manufacturing CEO from Whitefish Bay, is in the race along with Washington County Executive Josh Shulman.

And Shulman, in the most recent report, which runs through the end of June, shows that in the two months or so that he's been in the campaign, Shulman has raised about $425,000.

Governor Tony Evers has raised about $750,000 since the start of the calendar year through the end of June.

Contrast that to four years earlier when he'd raised $5 million in the same time frame.

Again, is that tea leaves about a potential decision?

I would tell you that it's still too early to say.

Again, there was a lot that was said about

Uh, the reports for Rebecca Bradley, the conservative justice whose term is up next year and was widely thought to be running for reelection, but still has not started fundraising yet.

So it's led to speculation.

She may not run for another term, but just remember that all of these, all of these checks, all of these donations do not necessarily mean wins.

For example, Elon Musk who donated.

$20 million to help Brad Schimmel in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race earlier this year.

And we all know how that turned out.

When we come back, we're going to hear from Dan Schaefer, part of my interview with him later in yesterday's show about the shaping campaign for governor.

That's after the Midwest Farm Report on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Welcome back.

It is 635 tomorrow on the program.

State Senator Jeff Smith will be here to talk about whatever it was that happened that the state budget ended up with zero dollars funding a particular program to help homeless veterans.

And now a couple of facilities, including one here in Chippewa Falls that help homeless veterans face closure in September unless the legislature intervenes and fixes the thing that it either forgot to do or I don't know what.

We'll ask Senator Jeff Smith just what exactly happened when he and other Democrats put up an amendment and a lot of Republicans voted no on it.

Also tomorrow, Corrine Hendrickson, a child care provider from the Nuglaris area, talks about the future of child care and at least specifically her future in child care because of what happened in the state budget and what wasn't in the state budget.

All right, but next we're going to hear from Dan Schaefer.

And before I do that, allow me to

pull back the curtain a little bit about this radio show and explain how the schedule works for folks who might be hearing us for the first time here.

We are on weekday mornings from six to nine on now 10 stations across the civic media radio network all throughout Wisconsin.

And we are so grateful to have you all here either live on the radio or by podcast or watching us on social media.

And in terms of the format of the show,

There are opportunities in the seven o'clock hour and the eight o'clock hour where we take these breaks and anybody that listens regularly knows we take breaks at about 20 past the hour and 50 past the hour.

And some of the stations will then break away for a few minutes and give a little local news update.

You'll hear local interviews with people who are civic or community leaders.

And then folks come back and join us at the top or the bottom of the hour.

We keep yapping away over here because there are some stations that don't have a local update and frankly here in the Chippewa Valley

we provide that local update with help from James Kelly and Jimmy Cusca and others.

So sometimes we have a guest interview that stretches into that segment where some of the local stations will cut away across Wisconsin.

And we want you to hear what they had to say.

So yesterday we had Dan Schaefer on for a while talking about Wisconsin political news.

We took a break.

And so some of what you might missed what some of what you might have missed is Dan Schaefer talking about the race for governor next year and a

a few other matters.

So let's pick up the second half of our conversation with Dan Schaefer, the Civic Media Political Editor and Founder of the Recombobulation Area.

Dan, let's get back to the governor's race.

We've talked about the two Republican candidates.

Let's talk about the one Democratic candidate potentially that would be Governor Tony Evers.

And now, of course, everybody watching the tea leaves for any kind of activity.

Can I assume that, you know, again, it's only a couple of days removed from the budget?

that there's been no inklings yet, one way or the other?

I haven't heard any inklings one way or another, and I don't think I'd be the one to know at this point after I've had my say.

Wait,

I was sure that the

governor

would say, you know what, buddy?

You're right.

I'm going to give you the

scoop on this one.

Yeah, no, don't see that one coming right now.

But you know, we're all on pins and needles waiting for the for the governor's decision.

I think, you know, it's certainly been the hot topic at post budget right now to see what's next for the governor.

But, you know, he's going to he's going to make his decision on his own time and he's earned that.

So, you know,

yeah.

And let me say that this is writ large of Democrats.

I'm not going to name names.

But as we've reached out to Democrats to either appear on the show or talk to them.

about news stories or anything, you can just feel them flinching.

You can just feel them go, don't ask me about this.

I can't talk about this right now until the governor makes a decision one way or the other.

But of course, we're all dying to know.

We had, well, we'll pick on State Senator Keldoroy.

She was on a few days back.

She's on frequently.

And you just know she's like, oh, we're going to talk about this again.

And you have to give the safe answer until you know what it is.

So

forgive any skittishness that you might see out there.

to get back to the state budget and we talked about the homeless veteran facilities but

What an interesting microcosm.

We've had just on this show alone in our first two days on the air and Green Bay where we've had an assembly rep, Amadra Rivera-Wagner and a senator, Jamie Wall, both Democrats, one voting against the budget, one voting for the budget, and both very clearly stating the earnest reasons why you would do one or the other.

And I mean, that's a trend we're just going to see for a while where not everybody's going to be happy, Dan, but

The reaction is still coming in from all folks and it really depends on whether they want to see the glasses half empty or half full.

Yeah, you're right and I think you know those conversations that you've been having I thought our friend Mark Becker at the Rational Revolution had a great conversation with State Senator Kristen Dassler Alfheim on her vote on the budget She was also one of the state senators who voted in favor of it And so it you know, it's the nature of compromise, right?

But I do think there is certainly a little bit of a difference between the state Senate Democrats being at the table and assembly Democrats not being at the table in these negotiations and you know that perhaps coloring some percent

from people that most Democrats voted against this budget.

I think we're still seeing some of the fallout from that.

There was a rally at the Capitol of Madison with some childcare providers, expressing some frustration, to say the least, with some of the components of the childcare.

the compromise that went into the child care budget, you know, raising of those ratios from one to four to one to seven, and some of the other, you know, details there that went into that, that I think, you know, I think the way that the child care providers characterized it was compromising.

provider safety.

So I think that's something not to be taken lightly as well.

And so I think, you know, there's still a lot of questions with this budget, especially after it came together in such a discombobulating way, Pat.

Yes, it did.

Way to stay on brand.

Look, when I keep talking about the bipartisan nature of the vote, that is in no way meant to undersell the

And I mean this word anger felt by education advocates about the zero increase in general aids and by childcare providers about funding that only runs for one year and provides no stability whatsoever.

So I just wanted to say again that when I talk about Democrats and Republicans voting for or against and some people not liking it, people want to go, Oh, well, some people don't like it.

It must have been a good bipartisan budget.

Oh, no, no, no.

The things that some people don't like.

They are rightly incensed that they're not in there.

And you're going to keep hearing about this from childcare providers, from education advocates, now from veterans advocates.

These folks, they're not just unhappy with the budget.

They are furious.

There is some real.

real anger out there with with the budget.

That's for sure.

And, you know, add into that the decision that UW system had to make last week with raising tuition because they didn't get the long term increases in funding.

Most of the funding that went to UW and there was a lot of really important funds that

that made it into the budget, but a lot of them were capital projects.

So there are one-time expenditures on buildings, on various improvements in infrastructure within the UW system.

I know the Polk Library, my alma mater at UW Oshkosh is getting redeveloped.

And so I think a lot of those increases are there, but it didn't really fund the system.

Increases in the long term too.

So you you also had yeah, I think some of it like the three main components of the budget that the Evers administration was really dug in on was K-12 education

child care and UW system funding.

And I think we're seeing even, you know, the difficulties of compromise.

Yes, they got a budget passed over the finish line.

Yes, it includes a lot of wins that wouldn't have been otherwise had Senate Democrats not come to the table, but it still doesn't go far enough.

And I think I liked the way that Senator Dessler Alfheim characterized this on Rational Revolution is saying, this is hopefully the last crappy budget that we'll have to pass.

We can all hope for that.

Dan Schaeffer, you can read what he puts out on Civic

media as their political editor.

And of course, subscribe over at the Reconpopulation area as well.

Dan, thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Thanks for having me.

Be well.

And a reminder, of course, that if you either for local breaks or you're just away from your radio and you want to listen back to parts of our show, subscribe to us as a podcast.

Head over to Spotify or Apple, wherever you mention or wherever you get your podcast, whatever platform you prefer.

And subscribe to us there.

you might become an everyday listener, or it might be just nice to have handy when you want to listen back to an interview or some of the things that we talked about.

While you're subscribing to things like Spotify, head over and do our newsletter as well, UpNorthNewsWI.com.

We have a weekend newsletter about Wisconsin politics.

It's called Sunday Mornings with Pat Crightlow.

Again, UpNorthNewsWI.com.

And last Sunday's issue,

There was a link to my commentary from this program last week about how the state Supreme Court is making it harder for politicians to bend the rules.

Politicians from both parties.

This is a very reform-minded set of progressive judges who are in the majority on the court right now.

There's also the clap back to Wisconsin Republicans who thought it would be cute to send a letter to Canada saying please stop sending us your wildfire smoke.

And then there's our question of the week which I want to get into here for a moment and it deals with whether the Democratic Party should be moving further to the left or if it is just right where it is now.

I basically gave four options.

I said option A was yes, go left, B bold, no more squishy Democrats.

Option B was, hey, we're a big tent.

There's room for all kinds of voices as long as they're rooted in progressive values.

There was option C, which was to stop the slide toward the left because it will alienate moderates.

And of course, there was option D. I'm a Republican.

I'm just here with a big box of popcorn.

to watch what y'all are doing.

So I want to give you a little sample here.

Here's Barbara, who voted for option A, moving left.

She says, universal health care, subsidized childcare, taxes on the rich, you call them leftist, many people in other nations call them rights.

Then there's Don, who votes for B, the big tent option, and says, we need to have room for an open discussion on issues.

There's Rocky who voted for option C, the more centrist one, writing, because you can only move the people a bit at a time.

Slow down and get it right eventually.

Patience.

And then Vicki writes, I'm in the D camp and truly believe if the left goes any further, they will hurt themselves badly.

I have popcorn in a large bowl watching what's happening.

So those are some of the responses to our newsletter sign up for it again at upnorthnewswi.com.

So about that drift to the left, a lot of that has come up because of the success of Zoran Mondani winning the New York City Democratic primary.

And again, now New York City is already, you know, a heavily Democratic city, so it's not indicative of the entire country, but it is a microcosm of what the party is doing and how the party should be moving.

Well to that end in Southern Arizona there was a congressional primary election yesterday and it was for a seat that was vacated by the death of a popular congressman Raul Grahalva.

He was a beloved 11-term Democratic congressman.

His daughter Adelida age 54 was the Democratic front-runner

And she had a lot of endorsements, but also had a candidate who was charging hard from the left.

A 25-year-old newcomer, Deja Fox, a reproductive rights and political digital strategist and activist, and she appeared to be gaining momentum.

And if you head over to couriernewsroom.com, you'll see that there was a video series done on her along with our friends at the Copper Courier, our outlet there in Arizona.

following Deja Fox as she tried this insurgency to bring more youth to the Democratic field and to maybe help the party embrace positions that are not as squishy as some critics would contend.

In the end, Adelaide Agrihalva was the winner.

She was perceived to be the front runner, but the campaign by Deja Fox did again.

capture the inner debate that's happening in the party right now.

So head over to couriernewsroom.com and take a look at that video series and weigh in on our question of the week through our Sunday morning newsletter as well.

Today's history lesson is coming up next.

You're up first.

Oh, there

we go.

That's Kenny Loggins and Jim Messina.

Again, folks of Parker's age would not know this, but Loggins and Messina, I mean, they were a big deal for the first half of the 1970s.

There were a lot of duos.

Back then, of course, you had Simon and Garfunkel, you know, England Dan and John Ford Coley, all these other duos.

The Loggins and Messina was a pretty big one.

But on this day in 1976, after six years together, Loggins and Messina decided to split up their partnership after a couple of hits, including that one, Your Mama Don't Dance.

Jim Messina went on to, you know, some moderate success.

Kenny Loggins took off like a fighter jet in the danger zone.

with Top Gun and, I mean, how many other soundtracks?

All that is part of today's history lesson, along with Lee Lu slash Paint Bucket's mom, Melissa K, from WFHR in Wisconsin Rapids.

Melissa, how are you and how's your feathered friend?

Good morning.

We're fine.

It's a little warm, but, you know, pigeons are cool up to 104, so...

I will die before she will.

That's how it is.

Let's hope that's not

a

likelihood there.

No,

no,

no.

We're doing well.

They're still getting used to their surroundings, getting settled in, hiding a bit.

But fans are going out there, so we need to keep it.

OK.

How

long

do you think we do this before we call your bluff and wonder if this whole pigeon quest was even real if there actually is a bird in your house?

I mean, I did show you the cage.

You did show a cage.

I shared a picture.

A photo.

Yep.

Yep.

The photo looked just like the moon landing in that sound studio.

Yep.

So next week you're demanding video with me in it, I guess is what I'm hearing.

Well, you know what today is AI Appreciation Day and now that I realize anything can be faked.

It doesn't matter.

We're on top of that.

There was a development though.

The pigeon pants arrived

yesterday.

They are so cute.

Do you have those for show and tell?

I'll have them.

I'll go get them.

They're on the table.

Okay.

Let's see.

In the meantime, let's get back to the history lesson for today.

Barry Manilow had the number one hit this day in 1977.

This would be Daybreak, which I thought I'd queued up to the chorus, but of course I did not.

So while Barry sings in the background, I'll tell you that it was on this day in 1941 that Joe DiMaggio hit safely for his 56th consecutive game, a streak that stands to this day.

The atomic age began this day in 1945 with the first successful detonation of a plutonium based nuclear weapon in New Mexico.

On this day in 1956, Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus closed their final big tent show in Pittsburgh.

Due to changing economics, subsequent shows were held in arenas.

And let's see, Barry Manilow, I said he was number one this day in 1977.

That was his album, Barry Manilow Live.

Here's the number one single from 1977 by Sean Cassidy.

Do you ever see Stripes, Melissa?

Yes, it's been a long time.

It's been a long time, but Harold Ramis, he was like teaching English as a second language.

Do you have that clip still, Parker, of

Harold

Ramis teaching English in the movie Stripes?

Go for it.

Okay, that's really very good.

I'd like to try it just one more time and then we'll call it a

day.

My heart stood still.

Somebody told me that her name was Jill.

Why wouldn't you want to learn English that way through the lyrics of Sean Cassidy Hits, right?

For

sure.

It's kind of how we learned, you know, listening to the radio.

This was the anniversary of the birth of Orville Redenbacher, the popcorn magnet, who died in 1995.

He was born this day in 1907.

Packer legend Max McGee was born this day in 1932, passed away in 2007.

And actor Will Ferrell is 58.

Do you have a favorite Will Ferrell role?

I, of course, have to defer to Ron Burgundy in the movie Anchorman, but with all the others out there, do you have a favorite Will Ferrell character?

I actually don't like his acting.

Wow!

I

did not see that coming.

I

was

waiting for Ricky Bobby or the character in Stepbrothers.

I usually just kind of shy away from his movies.

I've heard I have to watch Elf because it's like his best role ever.

Oh, yeah.

But I just, I don't know.

I don't watch a lot of movies and TV, Pat.

I just

don't.

That's

fair.

I'm with you.

Parker, how about you?

Will Ferrell characters?

I'm fine with Will Ferrell.

I think Will Ferrell is fine.

I just don't watch a lot of stuff.

Ricky Bobby, sure.

He's an excellent actor.

There's no, there's no faulting his talent.

I just don't have an appreciation.

I just don't run from to it.

Okay.

On the national day calendar for today, again, we've already mentioned, and I don't know why it's it's this way, it's artificial intelligence.

Appreciation day.

When I really feel like given all the what's ominous out there, this ought to be artificial intelligence.

awareness

awareness day.

Yes.

I

agree.

Be aware of AI.

It's a wrap.

So, it's when you bring in the music Parker.

Oh,

yeah.

There we go.

All

right.

Yes.

I asked the Google AI to justify its existence and it just gave me some kind of platitudes and I Parker rightly pointed out the robots don't tell you when they're going to kill you.

Yeah.

They play it cool until then.

Today

is

National Cherries Day.

You like cherries?

I do.

Actually, I have some cherries in my fridge.

I'm excited to eat them later.

Oh, cherry pie is my favorite.

Fresh cherries.

Fresh

cherries.

This is also, by the way, fresh spinach day.

And I like

how

they take pains to say it's fresh spinach day, not that garbage that's in a can.

Or the frozen stuff.

Come on, they both have their place.

Yeah, they have a place.

It goes out with the...

the barrel every Monday

afternoon.

This is Guinea Pig Appreciation Day and this is Rural Transit Day, which I know is a real issue out in Wisconsin Rapids

and other

areas.

So, so much that needs to be covered and Melissa K. does it all over at 97.5 WFHR 105 5 W IRI.

Thank you, Melissa.

Have a great day.

Say hi to Lelu for us

and we'll be

back after the news.

You're up north.

Live, across Wisconsin on Civic Media, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Up North News.

Now, for my Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.

Good morning.

It is 706.

Nice to have you here up north on this Wednesday morning.

It is July 16th, 2025.

Parker Olson is our producer down in Madison Studio A2 and we will hear from meteorologist Brittany Merleau on the way as well.

Coming up this hour, we'll be talking to State Representative Christian Phelps from Eau Claire in our homeroom segment where we talk about education issues in Wisconsin.

and the ticking time bomb that is awaiting Wisconsin taxpayers when it comes to the voucher school program.

It's already costing nearly a billion dollars a year and that's with a cap on enrollment.

That cap is supposed to go away.

What happens then?

for state taxpayers.

We'll talk about that with Representative Phelps coming up.

And in our next hour, the new chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, Devin Remaker, will be along talking about an event that's taking place tonight in La Crosse in the Third Congressional District so that folks in the Third Congressional District can finally talk to somebody.

other than their missing congressman about the cuts that their congressman is supporting for Medicaid and healthcare programs and a host of other things.

to pay for tax cuts for the very wealthy.

While we await Mismar Lowe and the forecast, a reminder that you can join us here by using the comment sections either on Facebook or YouTube or on the Up North News, Facebook and YouTube pages and the Civic Media Facebook and YouTube pages.

You can also use that Civic Media app to send us your texts and comments and questions as well.

For example, Rob does that from Tigerton every morning.

He says, good morning from Tigerton.

Sunshine in 65 degrees.

Really?

Because it is like super overcast over here.

So not so much in Tigerton.

He said yesterday I had six lawns to mow in Tigerton, drank a lot of Gatorade, took plenty of breaks and it tired me out.

I fell asleep on my recliner.

Yesterday was the 45th anniversary of the 10 tornadoes in western Wisconsin around the Chippewa Valley.

With three deaths 27 injured I watched the old WEAU TV reports on YouTube Yes, that July 15th 1980 is a date that is seared into the memories of anybody in the Eau Claire area and I mean somebody got a picture of the the wall cloud that was coming and The straight line wins that that front brought along and just did a immense

damage all throughout the city of Eau Claire and just outside the area as well.

So yes, that did indeed get mentioned.

by a lot of folks around here yesterday.

Rob goes on to say on YouTube, I love weather history.

And when I was a kid, I would track severe storms with a roadmap in the direction they were moving.

And that's how I got to know geography and math by tracking storms.

He says, I'm looking forward to the cooler and less humid weather.

It will have a fall feel great feeling to it mowing yards.

We talked about Sean Cassidy in our last segment and he said he remembered seeing Sean Cassidy on Tiger Beat Magazine.

And of course he and Parker Stevenson and you know others who were starting in the Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries that were on ABC.

Oh and then Rob adds here on YouTube.

Clouds are moving into the Tigerton area as we speak.

So, there you go.

I saw Brittany come up.

I think she had a little connection issue.

So, let me go back and get her state forecast at least because, well, I mean, stormy is the main thing to share there that there will be soaking rain across the state and then there will be some thunderstorms.

There is the potential for flash floods and then there is cooler air behind it.

Her forecast for today says cloudy and cooler.

Strong or even severe thunderstorms are possible, along with heavy rains and flash flood concerns.

Pies will only be around 60 up north, low 80s in southern Wisconsin, a northeast wind at 10 to 15 miles an hour for tonight.

The rain moves out, lows will be in the mid 40s up north to the 60s down south and a northeast wind at 10 to 20 miles an hour.

The radar right now shows a very large area of rain.

A few thunderstorms embedded in there as well, taking up basically the entire eastern half of Minnesota.

And it looks like it's just starting to roll into western Wisconsin.

And the funny thing is, I mean, the system is curved.

pretty much like the Minnesota Wisconsin border.

So I mean, it is quite literally moving into all of Western Wisconsin pretty much at the same time.

So keep an ear on your local civic media station for the forecast details.

And again, Brittany and others will be following that, especially when it comes to the potential for severe weather that could be in the forecast for today.

Parker.

You like balloons?

Well, like balloons, right?

I mean, they're sweet little innocent things, right?

Have you ever, when you were a kid, Pat, did you ever get a balloon and it was like, it has a bunch of air and it hits the ceiling?

Yeah, yeah.

Would you ever wait for it like over a course of like a couple days or a week or whatever for some of the air to like escape from the balloon or however it works?

and then

it gets to a level.

I'm not a scientist.

And I'm now Britney Marlowe.

Come on.

And you get it to the point that it's just kind of like floating around like eye level.

And then you just fly it around the house with the windows open or something.

Can you can you play the mystery music for that and we'll describe this some more because that's that's the vibe I'm getting from this as you're describing Okay, so what it is yeah watch a balloon as it's come off the ceiling But it's not to the floor yet.

No, it's not it's just it starts to kind of hang What we would do when we were kids is we would take like tape and paper clips to weigh it down So it wouldn't be on the ceiling and we just like open the windows and fly around the house

your science teacher then teach you all about ballast and how that all worked.

No, this

is just a family thing that we did.

Oh, okay.

All

right.

Well, I bring it all up because of power outages that are being caused by mylar balloons, one most recently in the Milwaukee area, led to some 2000 customers being without power.

In parts of Walker's Point Lincoln Village in Bayview and it was hours and hours before the power was restored There were balloons found tangled around we energies equipment a lot of folks release balloons to honor lost loved ones or special occasions but According to a story in the journal Sentinel here

At least 10 states along the coast like Florida and Delaware have passed laws to ban the intentional release of balloons and Milwaukee area State Senator Tim Carpenter has introduced a bill as well to prohibit the release of 10 or more Mylar balloons.

If you do that.

it constitutes littering and you could face a fine of up to $500.

WeEnergies estimates that 120,000 customers have experienced power outages over the last five years from mylar balloons that run into power lines or equipment and short them out.

I did not see that coming.

That many people have had their power knocked out by balloons.

I didn't see coming that you could get a fine for releasing balloons.

All right, well, you can't.

Well, in Wisconsin, it's not yet.

It's a bill that's been proposed by Senator Carpenter.

But in several other states, they've already passed that law.

consider other things.

The other thing that worries me, you see this especially at weddings are those, I don't know if they're called lanterns, essentially it's like a little candle in a paper bag and then they attach to a balloon.

And then these little tiny things blow away.

And it seems innocuous enough, but then you worry if it's just dry enough and it lands in a field someplace.

And what it can do.

I feel like you need better substitutes for some of these things.

There's got to be ways that you can do something that don't involve, you know, flames or things that can cause power outages for thousands of people.

I think about like, for our wedding, you know, and again, we're going back almost 40 years now, but back then people were still throwing rice, you know, at the bride and groom, like it's almost like confetti, you know, prehistoric confetti.

That's what we'll call rice.

And

We were, we were like cutting edge for our wedding.

We said, no, no, no, no rice.

You got to throw bird seed.

You get the same effect, but then at least it's safe for the birds as opposed to them eating the rice and causing, you know, death and destruction and everything else.

So throw rice or throw a bird seed instead.

Throw bird seed.

I like that.

You completely just explained why you shouldn't throw rice.

You're

like, yeah, I'll throw rice.

So throw rice.

No, throw bird seed.

What we didn't count on was that how many birds would appear?

No, it was 96 degrees that day when we got and we were already glistening shall we say standing outside of the church and the people are kind of throwing their bird seed and it's so much of it just stuck.

and all I want to do now is once again, 39 years later, is apologize to the housekeeping staff of the Motel 6 in Appleton where we went after our reception was over because I'm sure that cleaning crew went in the next day knowing that there were honeymooners staying in there and there was birdseed everywhere.

because we got to the end of the day.

We've been outside, we get hit with the bird seed, and then we polka dance for like the next seven hours or something like that.

Get to the hotel about midnight, and as we're, you know, getting set for the end of the day, we're like, how much bird seed was stuck to us all this time that we did not even know about?

So, I

don't know if there's

still.

I don't know if they're still throwing birds.

There's days I still feel like I could reach back behind my ear or something.

Oh, look, here's a little bit more.

It was not our best.

It was still a better idea than rice.

Yeah.

But it was ultimately not maybe our very best idea that we could have come up with.

But hey, you made a heck of a memory.

Here's the thing.

Nobody is writing a bill to say you can't do this anymore the way they are with the Mylar balloons, OK?

So.

We've got that going for us, which is kind of nice.

Let's see, the Emmy nominations came out that I wanted to lay out there for folks.

Severance, do you watch any of the Apple TV things like Severance or Trinket or any of that?

No, we only get Apple TV for the free trial when the boobers get stuck on there for a

night.

Severance, 27 Emmy nominations and the studio led the comedy nominees with

23.

Apple TV had 79 nominations overall, shrinking added to that total with seven more in the comedy category, including acting nominations for Harrison Ford and Jason Segal.

I've not watched Severance or the studio, but we have watched all of shrinking.

And I cannot recommend that highly enough.

It is, it is really funny.

It's a good show.

Over on Disney Plus and or

got 14 Emmy nominations.

I hear a lot of people talk about Andor.

I talk about Andor.

Do you talk about Andor?

I talk.

You follow it pretty regularly?

I was a big fan of Andor, yes.

I wish that there was space in the timeline for there to be another season, but there's not.

Oh, because, yeah, it's only a certain segment of before

the universe is limited and before what?

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Other events.

Got it.

Uh, let's see.

So Tony says, uh, shrinking equals great severance equals great and or equals great.

All right.

Well, this is Tony's Tony's watching all the popular stuff.

He knows Tony's

one.

Tony's one of the cool kids.

Uh, there, there is one other TV, uh, news item that I have to share.

I don't want to share, but I have to share when people go, Pat, why do you do what you do?

Uh, what's with civic media up north news?

Why do you do all these things?

Here's why.

During the month of June, okay, for the third and now for the third straight week, Nielsen reports that Fox News Channel, which isn't really news, but whatever, Fox News Channel had more viewers in prime time on weeknights than any of the main broadcast networks, ABC, CBS, Fox or NBC.

That's how many folks aren't getting outside in the summertime, but they're watching a propaganda network that

is going to keep me employed as we keep trying to knock down all the disinformation that it spews repeatedly.

From the heart of America's Up North Live from Lake Wissota, thank you for making this the place to spend part of your mornings.

I'm Pat Critello.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Coming up in 30 minutes, we'll talk to Jimmy Cusco about some of the stories he's following for civic media from his corner of Wisconsin.

Earl Angerham from the southeast part of Wisconsin is along for...

Much longer after that, James Kelly coming up at 8.50 with stories he's covering in Northwest Wisconsin.

That's a day when we check in with a bunch of our civic media friends like we did a little bit ago with Melissa Kay.

over there in Wisconsin Rapids.

So that all is still ahead here across the Civic Media Radio Network.

The Brewers, of course, are off for the All-Star Game.

They'll be back in action Friday in Los Angeles against the Dodgers.

You can catch the games on several Civic Media stations.

Head over to the website to learn more.

I will tell you, I have to scroll down a bit because they're out on the West Coast here.

Friday night, the pregame begins at 8.35 Friday night.

and then 7.35 on Saturday night.

So if you are a night owl and you love when the brewers are doing those West Coast road trips, you've got some baseball waiting for you come Friday and Saturday nights.

When I do the history lesson, I don't

share necessarily everything that's on there because I mean, we only have so much time and some of it is frankly, you know, not happy stuff.

But I wanted to share this one from 1917 here only because again, it's somewhat illustrative of the times we live in and I would.

At this point, bring up Adam's comment on YouTube that says that Fox News statistic is horrifying about their viewership.

Yes, it is Adam, I agree.

Imagine how they would have covered this from this week in 1917.

Out of Arizona, Bisbee, Arizona.

The Bisbee deportation took place this week in 1917.

It was the illegal kidnapping and deportation of more than a thousand striking mine workers.

Their supporters

and citizen bystanders by about 2,000 members of a deputized posse who arrested them.

The action was orchestrated by Phelps Dodge that was the name of the major mining company in the area.

It provided lists of workers and others who were to be arrested to the local sheriff.

Those who were arrested were taken to a local baseball park

before being loaded onto cattle cars and deported 200 miles out to New Mexico.

The 16 hour journey was through the desert without any food on the train and very little water.

And then once unloaded in New Mexico, the deportees, most without any money or transportation, were warned against returning to Bisbee.

And again, it's because these mine workers were on strike.

no doubt for safety and other working conditions and pay.

And back then, a mining company could simply call up the sheriff and say, you know, we're tired of exploiting these foreign workers.

They're starting to get a little full of themselves.

Here's a list of them, round them up, take them out to the desert, and law enforcement says, okay.

And up until not that long ago, you probably would have said, well,

That could never happen in this day and age.

And yeah, now we know that it could.

In that vein, let me call your attention to our friend Trig Vilsen from The Lincoln Project.

You hear him on Wednesdays on the Todd Alba Show in the afternoons, and he has something that he writes on Substack, all about basically fighting authoritarianism and autocracy.

And he talks about last Friday's mass layoff at the U.S.

State Department.

Now these weren't mine workers, but these were people who engaged in what you would call soft power.

Because the U.S.

isn't seen as well as it has been for these past few decades because solely military might, but for the good works that we do around the world, encouraging diplomacy, engaging in democracy.

That's not something the Trump administration likes and so fired more than 1,300 State Department employees on Friday Critics say that this will damage America's global leadership and efforts to counter threats abroad and so trig v. Olson who has worked with small developing democracies around the world Had this to say about the hollowing out of the State Department.

He says the collapse of America's ability to

to lead, to connect, and to be believed, in other words, weakening diplomacy, isn't a byproduct of authoritarianism, it's part of the plan.

The way he put it is, hard power intimidates, soft power persuades, and persuasion

is what makes democracies different and it is what keeps the peace when we lose the people we know how to build coalitions or when we lose the people who know how to build coalitions organize allies speak across cultures and show up in hard places without a gun when we lose those people we lose our edge we also lose the respect of those fighting on the front lines of freedom

But Donald Trump doesn't want a State Department, Trig Wilson writes.

He wants a loyalty department.

American power, he writes, doesn't just come from missiles and from consumer markets, but from people who carry our values into the world.

We are weaker without them, and the world knows it.

And a whole bunch of us know it here in the States as well.

In the final 60 seconds or so I have in this segment and I'm giving myself just that little time because really that's all I want to say about what's being said about the Jeffrey Epstein case or the Epstein files or whatever the case may be.

Jeffrey Epstein was a terrible man and it is my personal belief he's probably roasting in hell someplace for what he did to so many children and underage girls and things like that and there certainly a lot has not yet been uncovered about what he did.

And there may be people that allied with him, people that, you know, we might agree with politically or people we don't agree with politically.

For all the consternation about MAGA World being upset that Donald Trump said he was going to release the so-called Epstein files and now is refusing to and Congress yesterday voted not to release them.

Speaking on behalf of most Americans, can we just say we don't care the political alliances of who's on that list?

If somebody was taking part in these horrific crimes, we deserve to know who they are sooner rather than later.

It's taken much too long and Donald Trump could be part of the solution if he's not part of the problem.

Representative Christian Phelps is coming up next.

You're up north.

It's going to be a busy day on the Civic Media radio network because it's a road trip in week with Jane and Greg and with Todd Alba all on the road today in Oshkosh on Mattenair on Air with Jane Mattenair and Greg Bach at 930.

Dick Kopinski from the EAA Museum because that little thing called Air Venture is next week.

So they're getting set for the big fly-in.

So of course Todd will be broadcasting from Oshkosh as well.

this afternoon on his show from two to four.

And then on the Maggie Dawn show later this afternoon, there will be Dr. Kristen Lierly with a segment called Broad Appeal during the four o'clock hour, taking calls from women about what they are most concerned with right now.

And then in the five o'clock hour, State Senator Chris Larson.

So again, a busy day ahead.

here across the Civic Media Radio Network where right now we are going to hear in our homeroom segment from State Representative Christian Phelps from the Eau Claire area and our subject today by and large is about enrollment caps for the voucher program.

We'll talk about the state budget as well.

Representative Phelps, how are you?

I'm okay.

How are you, Pat?

Good to see you.

It's good to see you as well.

It's been no doubt a busy couple of weeks for you here as a freshman rep with your first aid budget, a process that was not typical.

put it mildly when things plotted along and then suddenly had to race at breakneck speed at the end of it here.

So let's cover that ground first.

Your overall observations on the budget, you were in no vote on it.

So talk a bit about how you came down that way last week.

Yeah, it was a busy couple of weeks at the end there.

It was busy.

because of a manufactured timeline crisis that Republican majorities could have avoided easily.

They know as well as I do who the president is, what federal cuts that president was trying to implement since the day he was inaugurated.

And these are the people who had abandoned the governor at the negotiating table partway through the budget writing process.

So it was a little bit...

disingenuous, in my opinion, for them to come back to the full legislature and say, all right, we need to get a deal and pass a budget immediately in order to avoid the Medicaid cuts that the Trump bill is going to implement.

That was, you know, true by that point, but it was entirely their fault that it had to be on such a condensed timeline.

I come right out of the advocacy world, and so I work with

continue to work closely with teachers and parents who advocate for public schools, as well as sort of issue allies that advocate on healthcare, Medicaid expansion, criminal legal reform, trying to reduce the incarceration rate in Wisconsin, environmental advocacy groups, and they were clear that a budget, especially with close margins in the legislature and Democratic governor,

for them to support was going to require certain benchmarks.

It was going to require Medicaid expansion, 60% special ed reimbursement at a minimum, and closing the Green Bay Correctional Facility and funding child care at least at the rate that it's been funded through child care accounts.

So like those advocacy groups, I knew that if a budget didn't include those things, I wasn't going to support it.

And the budget we got didn't include any of those things.

So I

voted no on it.

And I was pretty consistent in my reasoning for doing that.

I thought it was I thought it was strange that we were being put in the position of suddenly being in kind of a state of legislative panic when really the Republican majorities could have avoided that by just negotiating in good faith from the beginning.

I would let folks know that while Instagram is normally about photos and videos and you know there's

sometimes just a very brief text that's in there.

Christian's Instagram explains again all these reasons why he voted no on the budget.

It is laid out in like six little bullet point paragraphs and is probably the most

informative Instagram post I've ever seen in terms of explaining something that's in the news.

And you'd find them on Instagram at CS underscore Phelps.

If you want to see that, I'm sure you've got it written in other places as well.

But it really stuck out when I saw it on Instagram yesterday, Christian.

I'm glad that's that's the best compliment a state or local elected official could possibly get that our social media presence is in fact helping people understand what's going on in the in the political world.

without any cute animals required, you know, or anything.

Yeah, sadly, it just did.

Actually, and you it is, it does accompany a photo, talk about the three other legislators in the photo, who all banded together on the on the snow vote.

I know.

Yeah, Fran Hong was one of them.

Yes.

So and she's the ranking Democrat on the Education Committee, we worked really hard with her.

and several other public advocates to make sure that our colleagues, including the governor and our colleagues in both parties, to the best of our ability, understood the education components of the budget as well as we could.

And then representatives Clancy and Madison are both from Milwaukee.

All four of us are Democrats in the legislature in the Democratic Caucus and we also caucused the four of us in the Wisconsin Legislative Socialist Caucus and try to always analyze everything through the lens of an advocacy perspective.

And one of the things that I say is that we all believe that healthcare, housing, food and education are human rights.

I think we're not alone in that, but we hold each other accountable to the best of our ability to always analyze policies, including the budget bill through

Does this policy move us closer to treating those four things as human rights?

Not through, is this politically convenient and will this lead to my reelection?

And if there's a gap there, we close it through messaging, not through compromising on our principles.

And I think that that was.

a defining way that we looked up this budget vote as well.

So I think I know where you're going to come down on our Sunday morning newsletter question of the week, which is which direction the Democratic Party should go in.

The options were a go left, be bold, don't be squishy.

B was the big tent option.

C was far left positions are going to kill the party and driveway moderates and option D was I'm a Republican with a box of popcorn just here to watch.

I

I can see, I see a lot of responses for all the various things people are putting their hearts into these responses.

And I just heard from you right there, the heartfelt reason why Democrats ought to embrace either option A or B.

Yeah, I mean, I don't want to frame my position as an opposition to a big tent.

I like a big tent.

And frankly, in Wisconsin, as in the United States in general, we don't really have a multi system governing

a multi-party governing system.

We have a two-party system and we are, that's the way that our legislature is set up.

And so what I have found that people want in the Eau Claire area and among my neighbors is an authentic representation and an authentic candidate.

Candidates who don't try to sort of walk a tightrope trying to keep everybody happy but instead articulate

where they stand, why they stand there, and where those values align with their neighbors.

And that's what I spent all year doing last year through a competitive primary and a competitive general election in the Chippewa Valley.

I said, I'm very steadfast on these principles, and I think it's because of values that I share with you, urban and rural residents of this region.

by electing me that those folks said that they agreed with me on those values, and I think that they want me to be consistent and honest in my way of upholding them.

That doesn't necessarily mean an ideological prescription, but it means tell your constituents what you're going to do and why.

and then explain it every step of the way.

That's what I want to see from elected Democrats moving forward.

And I think not doing that harms not only the state and people's livelihoods, but our electoral chances because people are smart and they can tell when you are hedging on your values.

Oh, yeah.

And I could see in the legislature as well, people that I

you know, referred to as clock punchers.

They came in, they punched the clock, they did the least amount of work possible, didn't talk about their values at all, just tried to get reelected.

And it was no fun serving with them, even in the same party.

but you see it in both parties as opposed to everything that you just said, which is what a legislator should stand for.

All right, well, let's get back to the topic at hand here.

And again, your education advocacy work that you were doing prior to being in the legislature has you uniquely positioned to talk about the issue of enrollment caps on voucher schools, which I am sure

I would dare say 97, 98% of people do not know about.

They know we have a voucher school program.

They don't know it's costing us nearly a billion dollars a year and that there's an enrollment cap on it.

What is the current condition?

What can you tell us about the cap and then how it apparently could go away next year?

Yeah, thank you for asking.

It's true that a lot of people are not really familiar with the gravity of this program.

In my work, I've met people, for example, who get elected to a school board.

And when they get onto the school board and start seeing the books and the budget for their school district up close, that's when they learn things such as the fact that their district is losing funds to the private voucher program.

And the reason for that is because the statewide voucher program and all of the sort of increases or

or growth of that program have mostly happened behind closed doors in Wisconsin.

When you look at other states where people have ballot initiatives and they can go to voters through kind of a democratic process to say, do you want something like this or a referendum on vouchers, they always fail.

People don't like the idea of spending public dollars on an unaccountable private school system.

We've seen it fail in places like Arizona, Kentucky.

We've seen very Republican legislatures in places like Idaho reject this idea.

But in Wisconsin, we've had a voucher program in Milwaukee for about 30 years.

And now we have a statewide and a Racine voucher program that Republican Governor Scott Walker put into budgets.

And one of the things that was sort of snuck into a Walker-era budget in 2015 was a 1% annual increase in the enrollment cap on that program.

So it started at a very low percent.

It's now at 10% of a school district's population, student population in that school district, can participate in the statewide voucher program.

And the way that's funded is that school districts get whatever amount of money is agreed on in the budget from the state.

And then the first thing they have to do is take some off the top and send it to the private voucher program.

At that time, they lose all of their oversight over those dollars.

They don't know which students are getting it.

They don't know what the schools are going to do with it, and they have no real way to find out.

And that number has been going up by 1% every year since that Walker-era budget.

And in statute,

it says that in 2026, going into the 26, 27 school year, that enrollment cap will come off entirely.

And this was like a big elephant in the room.

I saw like hanging out as we were going into this budget process because we have biennial budgets.

This is the last one we were going to pass before that enrollment cap comes off and the balloon pops.

And we don't know, there's no way to know how big the program could get.

So before the budget, actually, I introduced a bill, Assembly Bill 307, I recommend people look at, to just keep those caps on.

I'm an opponent of the voucher program.

I think we should sunset it.

That was an olive branch.

I reached out directly to Republican legislators saying, please sign on to this bill.

This is fiscally responsible.

We have to buy ourselves some time.

But it has not passed.

No Republican has signed on.

And now a budget has passed, guaranteeing a 9% funding increase.

to the voucher and charter programs.

We're already losing about $800 million a year to these programs.

And the Legislative Fiscal Bureau has confirmed for me that we really do not know how much this is going to cost the state and our school districts when that enrollment cap comes off in one year.

So we need to pass that bill as soon as possible.

And if you have a Republican state legislator, please reach out to that person and invite them to sign on to my compromise bill to just keep those caps on.

Our budget needs that.

And the thing is, in other states, in multiple states, Republicans are becoming aware of this and they are now supporting putting caps on when they see what it's done to their state budget.

So there's no excuse for Republicans in the Wisconsin legislature not to see this and to try to defuse this ticking time bomb before it goes off.

Representative Christian Phelps from Eau Claire, thank you so much for spending some time with us on all these great subjects today.

We appreciate it.

Thanks for inviting me, Pat.

our pleasure.

And coming up, a local break is next for some of you.

For others, we'll visit with Jimmy Cusca and talk about news around Western Wisconsin on the Civic Media Radio Network.

In 30 minutes, Melissa Baldoff will be here for this week's climate check.

Another thing that we do on Wednesdays.

You know what else we do on Wednesdays now?

We check in with Jimmy Koska about some of the stories that he's following across Western and Southwest Wisconsin.

When he's not doing a 5 a.m.

football practice in the heat of summer, how's that been lately?

I tell you what, football season is here, man.

We actually, our home opener, our football season opener,

is only a little over a month away.

So like this time of year, fall sports coaches for high schools are definitely in high gear.

There's a week where everybody's forced to take off at the end of July before practices begin.

But I tell you what, it's exciting.

July is kind of that turn-the-page moment for high school sports at Wisconsin.

And this is kind of our last chance to get a little summer work in before things really get going here at the beginning of August.

Did you switch in sports gears here?

Did you tune into any of the All-Star game?

I wanted to ask you either about the brewers pitching performances or the robot umpires.

If you, if you caught any of that, I'm sure you have an opinion whether you did or not.

You know, it's, it's funny.

The all star games are, are not designed as a, um, um, you know, like, Hey, come on.

You know, it's, it's, it's literally a spectacle, right?

You're, you're there to be entertained.

And that's, I think.

For that, I think for that it did it well.

Ending the game with the home run, you know, the

swing off.

Yeah, the swing off.

I was failing on the name there for a second.