Welcome, everyone, to Midday Magazine for this February 2, 2024.
Have your host, James J. Mailoff here at 330,
going to welcome in our friend, Mary Schultz.
Talk a little bit of focus in the empty bulls event coming up,
looking forward to that.
Right now, in studio, all that feels good to say.
Yeah, representative Scott Krueb with a Scott.
It's good to have you. Good to see you, sir.
It, you know, it's great.
I mean, I was in town, project school this morning.
I'm sitting over at next home and I'm like,
why don't I just come over here?
Yes, I'm literally going to cross the bridge.
Just sit in the office. So yeah, let's do it.
Yeah, you know how much we love seeing you.
We love having you in studio.
Appreciate you and you look good, man.
Looking good, sir.
Yeah, man, I tell you that you're not going to see anybody
walk in the capital more than me.
So I tell people all the time is back
before I had this weight loss journey.
I didn't get around the building as much as I did,
but now that I've been out and about,
I seem to get in more trouble.
Something more offices, talking to more people,
making more news, you know, it was weird
because we had that story that the rapper
distributed and published the story
that the journal Sentinel picked up on
and me visiting a Democrat office.
It just happened to be walking by.
So I'm like, what the heck?
Am I still stop in?
And literally as soon as I open the door,
the whole staff like froze.
Yeah, like, whoa, what's the Republican here?
What should I do?
Oh, whoa, whoa.
Okay, that's, that's, that's okay, you know.
Did they spray you with a repellent?
Did they, no, no, I don't, right?
Yeah, they just announced that there was
somebody different here.
I was like, it's been interesting this last year
because of it.
We're going to talk about that and it's very understandable
that you are getting so much movement over there
because you are a part of 115,000 committees.
So we're, we're going to talk a little bit
about the committees you're on as well.
We were going to talk redistricting in the maps.
I want to talk a number of things with you.
Before we do, Scott, we haven't gotten to touch on this
really yet.
2024, we know this is a big year.
We know it's an election year.
How, how is your outline for 2024?
What are your expectations?
What are you looking to do this year?
Well, I mean, you know, my whole goal
taking over campaigns and elections this cycle
is just making sure that 2024 was not another 2020.
That's plain and simple.
That's all I want.
I don't have huge expectations.
I didn't split government.
We're going to make massive changes
or solve all the problems.
I mean, I get it.
I mean, there's small things that we can do.
But there's also some big things that we can do.
So that's what we jumped on this session
is what is the big thing that we can agree on
that we can get done.
And that was that early processing absentee ballots.
So we've got that through the assembly on a voice vote.
We're waiting for Senate action.
The governor said he'll sign it.
And what it'll do, basically, give everybody a chance
when you go to bed at an election night
to know who won the election.
Instead, it may be waking up the next morning
and somebody else took the lead overnight
where you could start yelling and screaming
that fraud happened.
Right.
It is literally, and I've said it a couple of times before.
It's 95% of the problem is perception.
So we're going to fix that perception and turn
reality into you won or you lost on election night.
You can go through your seven stages of grief the next day
at work instead of worrying about it for a week after the election.
I just want the results in.
That's all I care about right now.
The rest of it is minutia as far as I'm concerned.
As long as we know that night, who won?
We can all manage.
How are you and your colleagues working
to make sure that happens?
That like I start is the relationship building.
It's a relationship.
Yeah, I mean, just getting to know people,
getting to hang out, getting to talk to each other.
I mean, the ranking Democrat in my committee,
Lee Snodgrass from the Appleton area,
she and I text every day.
And 90% of it is not about the Capitol.
It's about each other.
It's about what we're doing and what,
I was calling Bingo the other night
and somebody brought me a copy of the rap
and his paper and had a picture of her.
And so I sent her a snapshot of it.
So you sent me a picture of her playing crib at home.
It is just, it's people talking to people.
I mean, and it just, you know, I boil it back to,
you know, all the things I've learned
from when Tommy Thompson was governor
and how the world operated politically back then.
And just being old school?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay, it works, right?
So we've built this huge relationship.
We've got a great reputation.
The entire state's watching our committee
to be the guide for leadership for the rest
of the political process in the state.
And I think we set this new way forward
that once we get past all this stuff about maps
and we get past the 24 election, 25, 26, 27
and a beyond looks a lot calmer.
Yeah.
Because the relationships we're building with each other.
It also seems like some of the,
some of the people that kind of went
and turned politics in a different direction
are not going to be there.
It seems like some of that is,
and I don't mean to put this in a cruel way
or anything like that because I'm not a necessarily looking
to, I don't know, I don't look at any politician
as evil necessarily.
So I don't like to, and I don't know 90% of politicians.
I just know what they vote for
or what they're vote, what they stand on these things.
But it does look like some of that divisiveness
is getting out of our committees
and politics in general as well.
It is.
I mean, that's the flip side of the coin is,
I want to set the relationships,
set the standards, set the practice
and how we're going to operate.
And part of that is taking the oxygen away
from the people that shouldn't have the oxygen
to yell about, right?
I'm like, if you don't have this problem anymore,
then you have nothing to yell at me for.
So it's just problem solving
because of the relationship building.
And it's gotten a lot better, honestly,
this whole session from the folks
that we call the more enthusiastic people out there
who are on board coming to testify
at our committee meetings now
because they know that we're listening.
You know, I get where they're coming from.
I get it, but I can show you this, this, and this.
And yes, you're right.
There's with this part doesn't work.
Let's fix that part.
So it is this collaborative effort
from those who we shut out a little bit more
in the last session, hoping they would go away.
No, and they're not going to, but at the same time,
just being the change that we need to be
and monitoring it, controlling it,
and broadcasting it as the other end of it.
Just getting the message out that, you know,
there is a way that we can get through this stuff
without tearing each other's throats out
and playing moral combat every day.
Right. Yeah. Yeah.
When it comes to the elections,
we understand that a lot of this is done by volunteers,
a lot of it is done by people taking time
out of their own day to do this.
Are we going to be able to help with that process
as far as getting results quicker
and making sure we have more poll workers,
more people that are there, more security
for poll workers, that kind of thing?
Yeah, that's another bill that we worked on this session too,
is making sure that we really beefed up
all the protections for election workers.
Make sure that if there are the need for whistleblowers
to call out bad clerks in parts of the state
that they're protected, that they feel they can have a voice.
So that was part of the process.
Another bipartisan bill that will get signed
and through both houses of legislature
and that just comes from communication
and letting those people know we value,
we don't have a system if you're not there.
So to let you be there,
we have to make sure you're protected
and feel safe and non-threatened
and all of those types of things.
That we usually don't talk about as state leaders
because it's a local issue,
but we've got to take the lead,
just let everybody know that hey,
somebody's got your back and that's what we're doing.
So I just, like even sitting here on the table,
looking at this, you've got this sign on your table.
It's be the change you wish to see in the world.
You can't say it any better than that.
It's just the way, it's, you know,
the beginning of my legislative career,
I probably saw things differently.
Yeah, because it was easier to see things differently.
But even the story of trying to get the entire state
to agree on maps in the last two weeks
has been an amazing story about,
you know, I saw a need, filled a need,
almost got the entirety of the Democrats
and the Republicans in the Assembly
and the Senate and the governor
to all agree on a legislative map,
which is the white unicorn.
Yes.
We missed it by a few votes here.
I was curious.
It was very close.
It was, it was so close.
We talked to everybody individually in their offices,
like, what does this version look like to you?
What does this look like to you?
We all kind of came to a consensus that,
you know, if we had to pick something legislatively,
there's a least objectionable way
and that actually ended up being the governor's proposed map.
So seeing as a practical solution
and a political solution,
saying, hey, you know what, we're the legislature.
If we take that proposal, pass it as a bill,
how is the governor going to be to his own map?
Right.
Right?
I mean, that's the assumptions.
Like, that's the one you turned in.
That's the one we're going to operate on.
Yeah.
So we've, we spent, God, I can't remember it.
It was four straight days going to everybody's offices
individually, okay, what do you think about this?
Can you tell me did you look at it?
And honestly, I think the reason we didn't get
to a solution legislatively,
because we had too many legislators
who just didn't even look at it.
Yeah.
Just assumed that somebody was going to tell him,
that's the impression I got.
Just assumed that everybody was just going to tell him
what was going to be and that they were okay with it.
I'm like, whoa, whoa, okay.
Can you guys just maybe take a look for five minutes
and get back to me and let me know?
Wow.
Real quick, there are two things I want to touch on.
Sure.
One, you are very good at what you do politically.
I also think you're a bad politician
because you're too honest.
I am off your two real.
You're giving us way too much of a behind the curtain
at all that and I love you for it and I appreciate it, man.
And never change, please, never change.
But as speaking of change, you've done something
a couple of times with me that we don't hear
all the politicians do.
I started this way and I evolved.
I grew, my mind changed.
I got more information.
We need more of that.
So I really, really appreciate that out of you, Scott.
Now we'll never normalize those things.
We need more of that.
Can we, when we look at the map redistricting
in this conversation that's going on,
is there an agreement with you and your colleagues
that the maps as they are right now aren't going to work?
Yes.
So just judging off the votes that we took
in the assembly in the Senate last week,
where I've got the entirety of the state Senate
at the entirety of the state assembly
to take a vote to say, OK, this is the version
we're going to operate off of, which was the governor's map,
minus five line tweaks.
Because on the governor's map, you literally saw
where they drew houses out of districts, right?
Where there was a state rep in the Neenem and Nash area.
They drew him 15 feet out of his district.
Don't tell me you didn't look at his house.
If I'm going to be over here being honest,
I'm going to call you guys out.
I'm being honest too.
You drew him out of his district
because it made sense for you.
Move that line, Pat Snyder and Wassa, another great guy.
Huge relationships with the Wassa community,
the Monk community, all throughout the city of Wassa.
They drew him six blocks out of the district he represents.
OK, I'll take your map governor.
I will pitch your map the entire legislature governor.
But you did some things you shouldn't do too.
Let's put those people back.
Let's make it a 50-50 district just
like all of those seats we've still been,
and not make people have to move just
to represent the people they already represented.
So we gave the governor 99.79% of what he wanted, any vetoed it.
Because it wasn't 100%.
Like, OK, that's your progative.
I get it.
But it's still going to tell that story, right?
Because now what that does is it kicks it to the courts.
And last night, the courts and their consultants that they hired
basically said, everything Republican is bad.
Everything Democrat will keep considering.
That adds fuel to the fire that I've
been trying to put out for the last nine months.
Right.
If you're going to go to consultants,
then at least have both options on the table, Republican Democrat.
I have no illusions that the court is
going to pick a Republican map.
I get it.
I'm a realist.
I is not going to happen.
My whole point in all of the things
I'm doing this session is maintaining the checks and balances
and the powers of the government.
Is the legislature and the governor should pass bills,
sign them into law.
The court should interpret the law.
The court should not be creating their own map,
creating laws, and then telling the legislature
and the governor are too bad, so sad.
It is literally the way our government was set up.
Is that you've got three branches of government,
whichever to agree with each other going to win.
Well, if I'm the one that is not on the right side of the political
aisle right now, I'm going to have to work with the other two.
And at least find one that's going to agree with me.
Most likely to do that would be passing a bill
that the democrats and the legislature agree with
that the governor would sign.
That would maintain legislative authority
over so many things, like the court itself
said in the ruling that said the legislature
maintains the authority to draw the map.
That's what we should do.
And if we have to accept one that we don't like, fine.
But we still have to protect our institution
and hold that authority to pass the map.
So if it's the straight up governor's map
and the governor signs his map, which I don't think
he would at this point anyways, why would he sign his own map
that he submitted when he saw that there are others
that are probably more beneficial
that the court's going to do?
But in the end, that was my effort
as I was not going to sit back
and just watch the courts do this
when we have a job to do whatever the outcome was.
I didn't care what the outcome was.
It's just that we have a job that we're sent there to do.
I've heard some similar things years ago
when the Republican maps were first come out.
And we heard about the redid and some of the situations
and I can remember maybe 10 years before that,
a similar story.
I love every 10 years you're going to hit.
I feel like this is something that whenever this topic comes up,
one of the things that I notice from our listeners
from people that I talk to in the community
is it doesn't feel like this subject is understood well enough.
So you and I could spend the next 20 minutes going back and forth
about the mapping and some of the things that you've discussed
and we've heard discussed in the news.
I think that's all well documented.
I don't feel like wasting the next 20 minutes
repeating some things that you've already said
and I've already said or though,
has already been said in the news.
What I'd like to talk about is what redistricting is.
And how often this happens and who makes these decisions
because I don't feel like that is common knowledge
and needs to be known and not.
So yeah, I mean, literally the 101 on this is redistricting
happens after every census.
So once a decade, theoretically,
it's only supposed to happen once a decade, right?
So we're in the 2020s and this will be the third map
so we've used in the 2020s once it gets passed.
That's how bad it's getting politically
is that this should not be a political problem.
This should be a once a decade thing that is done.
And in 2011, that was the only time in the last 50 years
that there was a legislative map signed into law
by the governor.
Otherwise, every 10 years we go through this argument
and the court of one sort or another federal or state
end up creating a map.
Our state constitution is very clear
that every 10 years there's a redraw every session
that we run on those maps that's done once every 10 years
and that those districts have to be drawn to be contiguous
and compact as all the constitution says about it, right?
And that it's the legislature's job to do this.
So that was part of what we dealt with this past week too
was telling, you know, even the governor, like,
hey, you know, I know we tweaked your map
it's only 99.79% of what you want,
but your chance to have us pass a bill to do this limits us
from doing it again until 2031.
Say, for example, next year we have another Supreme Court
race and the Supreme Court flips again.
Are we gonna go back and draw maps again, right?
Now it's probably likely because if the Supreme Court
institutes a map and the court flips,
probably gonna go back and draw maps again
because the new court's gonna come up with another reason
the draw maps.
Whereas if we have a legislative solution
that's signed into law by a governor,
we can only do it once every 10 years.
Right.
Plain and simple.
The way that we had planned on doing this,
the way that we were supposed to.
It's locked in.
So we even went a step further this year
and said, you know what?
You've been talking governor for the last six, seven years
about just doing a straight up nonpartisan redistricting plan
through the legislative service agencies.
Fine, let's do it.
Let's attach it on to, let's assign your map into law
and the nonpartisan redistricting on to it.
Call it good.
We don't ever have to do this again ever.
Mm-hmm.
Done.
Yeah, you know.
Well, I wanted to stick with just what it is ready.
We're getting a little off topic,
but I will say that I, we see this every political cycle
no matter what level it is.
I'm sure that governor Evers and his team will be saying
that they're just trying to correct what was done
in the previous regime.
And the next regime will say that about governor Evers.
So I mean, as far as that part of it.
Yeah, once every 10 years based on population growth
and change in the state of Wisconsin,
those populations grow more currently.
And you know, the west side of the state
is the St. Croix County area outside Minneapolis
where folks are moving in a little bit more.
The pressure growth in Wisconsin is more in the east side
where you see Fox Valley,
Appleton, Green Bay growing more.
So that's what draws those districts wider or taller.
Mm-hmm.
And it's basically you have to be equal in population
between all 99 assembly districts
and 33 senate districts at to be contiguous in nature.
Can't have any.
You had to jump in and out like right.
You've seen Illinois maps.
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I mean, that's what it is basically.
It's every 10 years based on populations
where we're supposed to reapportion the voters.
Who proposes these maps?
So the way that the process is meant to work
under the Constitution is that the legislature
creates a bill that goes to the votes
in both the chamber is signed by the governor.
So every map gets started by the legislature.
And usually we use our internal map jars
with our own caucuses to decide what they want to do
and whichever party's in power will vote
if the majority has the votes.
They're going to vote the way they vote.
So that was why they pushed for a and I've said it for years.
A nonpartisan antitita job maps has been the preference
for folks for a long time,
but I've been in Madison long enough to know
that there is nobody in Madison who is nonpartisan.
Yeah, yeah.
I always remember my argument against is like,
okay, it just doesn't exist.
It's not like I'll have our paper.
But yeah, to be real with everybody who's listening,
we all know we have a preference one or another.
I mean, there are so many independent voters.
Mm-hmm.
They still have preferences and nobody is nonpartisan.
So having going forward and trying to keep this back
to the whole 10 years in everything,
do you think that there are way processes
we could do to correct that as far as having a committee
of multiple Democrats, Republicans,
all of the above pulling up, mapping these things out.
Yeah, I mean, that's what I took that role on
as the Chair of Campaigns and Elections.
I mean, that is legislatively where a bill should go
would be the Campaigning Elections Committee
because that's the name of my committee.
It's got your job.
That's the election, right?
So we never saw a bill come to our committee.
So I said, you know what, that's ridiculous.
Let me just go do this myself.
So that's where I went to every single office in the Capitol
on all of my walks and talking to everybody individually.
And I know that most people were just kind of staying
there waiting to see what would happen.
I'm like, huh.
So it's opened up a whole new avenue of my job
and kind of made it a little more fulfilling in the end
to know that there is more of the mission
that I started on to finish is trying to help everybody
understand what their actual role in this process is.
And hopefully by the time we get to 2031
and proposals come out, legislators will be prepared
to talk about their potential maps
and the partisan split of it.
And if it divides their communities of similar interests
and just to have them learn about it through this process
has been fulfilling to know that in 2030,
they're going to know more about it at least.
Yes, yeah.
And that's part of all of our jobs, you know,
sharing information, keeping information
for a fresh and in people's minds and going forward.
Scott, I do want to, we're running out of time.
I did want to let people know that you can hear more about
Scott and more of the things that he is doing in Madison
on his eUpdate.
You've been doing this for a little while
and I really like what you're doing there with that
where it's a sort of a newsletter sort of thing
with a bunch of what you've been up to that day,
that week.
I want to encourage people to find out
you're finding your Facebook page, check out that eUpdate.
It's a great way to hear much more in depth
about what Scott is up to.
Yeah, absolutely.
When it comes to the committee work,
encourage people to look into that more too.
You are on so many different committees.
Is there anything that you're going on this week
or coming up that you wanted to touch on?
Yeah, I mean, we're building off of a $550 million
housing and real estate investment
that we made in the state budget
and creating programs for communities like Wisconsin ramps
that have more available housing
for middle income and lower income people.
It doesn't even get talked about, right?
Because there's so much action getting eaten up
by campaigns and elections and maps and all this stuff.
I wanted to talk about it today, we were into it.
I mean, I'm on the local government committee.
We have a generational change in house share revenue
works.
If there's more money back for communities for roads
and for police and fire and EMS services,
I mean, when people talk about how contentious Madison is,
this has been the most favorable session
that we've ever had on a green on major,
major initiatives.
And it all gets eaten up because of all of these other things.
Yeah, that really don't matter in the end.
Like, it really doesn't matter what map I'm going to run on.
I don't care.
I just need to know.
So I have to tell my wife I have to move, right?
That's all legislators are looking at.
It's like, I get it, I'm going to run,
but I just want to know if I have to tell my wife
that we've got some bad news, right?
So I mean, the E update will describe,
I mean, all of those things are coming up.
We've got a lot of local bills.
We just did one for it.
$150 million project is going to be coming up
and Steven's point for a potato company to come process.
18,000 acres of potatoes and frozen food products.
It's a big opportunity.
Just testify that yesterday.
And even I forget about it because of all this other stuff.
There's so much.
It's been an incredibly successful session.
Incredibly successful.
And at the end of it for having maps and elections
take up all the noise is a little unfortunate sometimes,
but it is what it is.
You can ask out your own questions.
You can find out things from Scott yourself.
Scott, how can they get in touch with you
if they want to?
Cell phone.
Usually when we do this, you record the morning
and play later type of thing.
I get a lot of phone calls about 330.
So 715-323-3293.
Appreciate the time as always, sir.
Again, Steve travels out there.
And thanks so much for joining us in studio today.
Absolutely.
We'll see you soon.
We'll be back with more Midday magazine coming up right here
at 975 FM 1320 AMWFHR locally grown radio.
