Welcome, everyone, to Midday Magazine for this May 3rd, 2024.
Have your host, James J. Mailoff here at part in part two today at 330.
We're going to walk him in John and Melanie.
We're going to talk to the Wisconsin Rabbits Kennel Club.
Get to know them a little bit more and some of the great events they have coming up.
First up, though, we have Wisconsin State Assembly District 72 representative,
Mr. Scott Kruegen with us.
Scott, good to see you.
Good to see you too.
I have to pull an audible real quick.
Yeah.
I just noticed your shirt.
I also am a Seattle Kraken fan.
Okay.
That is awesome.
Yeah, that is awesome.
I know, right?
Okay.
So this all came from my sons in the Navy, right?
Yeah.
So he got stationed out in Seattle when his ship was in dry dock.
The Teddy Roosevelt was under extensive repair.
So he had to spend a year and a half in Seattle.
And there was really nothing to do.
And his apartment was right by the arena.
Oh, nice.
So he started going to Kraken games.
Awesome.
My God, it's cool.
So he started watching.
I love expansion teams too in sports, no matter what they do, right?
So I just loaded up on Kraken stuff.
Right up.
Well, it's awesome.
Colors are great.
The logo was awesome.
I love the idea of the Kraken to as big a basket.
That's a great, it's a fun team too.
It's a fun team.
It is.
And it matches all my baby blue brewer stuff.
Ah, there you go.
Well, and you don't have to worry about that.
We don't have a major league team here in Wisconsin.
Yeah, great.
I have no league in Wisconsin.
That's right.
Hockey is a freebie.
Yeah.
Speaking of traveling, you have been doing a lot of traveling lately.
You've been visiting a lot of new areas.
We've talked about this the last time you were with us.
How has that been going?
So the new district is, it's a perfect district.
Honestly, so I don't, okay, I'll say this.
I'll maybe take some heat from some people.
I gotta thank the governor.
It was a good map for me, for me, for me.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Right, because I get to go back to Juno County
where I was a share of Stepity Back in the late 90s, early 2000s,
running to all those people that I served with back then
or now on county boards and village boards.
And I remember you, I was hoping you didn't remember me,
but, and then again, even in Adams picking up some more
of those areas that I used to have,
like Adams and Friendship being downtown there again.
So it feels like it's all brand new all over again.
That's the thing I like about the job the most,
is I don't like when it gets stale.
Yeah, well, this has been nice the last few weeks,
getting out and going to Townsmaneats in Juno County
and doing radio shows in Boston and Adams and Friendship
and just getting around has been refreshing.
I think one of the dangers that any good politician would face,
and I think I know for a fact that constituents worry about,
is that, is the getting complacent,
or getting, I don't want to say too comfortable in the job,
we want you guys to feel good in the job,
feel comfortable in all that.
But the idea of, I don't have to do anything,
I've got this, you know, that kind of thing.
I'm not uncontested, you know, or that sort of thing,
and I can just sit back and lean.
And that kind of leans into a little bit
of what I wanted to ask, you're in a newer area,
you're talking to newer people introducing yourself,
what are you hearing from them?
What are you hearing from your constituents?
Well, you know, just trying to watch some of the things
have been ancillary to my old district
and keeping eyes on, you know, job opportunities
and Adams Friendship and water issues over in Juno County
and just trying to, all the things that I couldn't really
pay a lot of attention to, that I had been hearing about.
So nobody's really talking about, you know,
what's going on in Natas, and everybody's kind of talking about
what's going on in their communities
and what we can do to help.
So, you know, for example, I talked to a lady this morning
over in Juno County, a town in Acita,
she's having a land surveyor issue
and wanted somebody to talk to the county departments
about where her land lot lines are.
Really, people sometimes don't realize
how in the weeds this job can get.
So, I mean, that's the nice thing
is meeting all these new constituents
who haven't been jaded by some other rep
who they tried to work with before
because they had a good rep before,
but now they're just trying to reach out and say,
hey, I don't forget about me.
So, to come help me deal with this issue.
So, I've taken a lot of new calls
and a lot of new things have popped up
and the way the districts laid out
being on both sides of Piedemann and Cassarock
and in their entirety,
I kind of like take ownership of those lakes now, right?
Yeah, they're in their mind, right?
So, we've been spending a lot of time with those folks
on both sides of the lake and all those communities
and dealing with, you know, water quality issues
to even water quantity issues right now
because the lakes are so low
and people are wondering when can I get my doc out
and who do I talk to who about this?
So, it's just a whole myriad of new issues.
I mean, there's usually been issues,
but after being in one area for a dozen years,
people get so used to their issues being either dealt with
or handled that, you know, they stop calling
because they know it's going to be fine.
Yeah.
So, now new people come into the district
and they're like, well, I got to test this guy out.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's been test time.
So, you've been test, you've been being tested.
Yeah, so we've been really trying to up the game
on constituent services and reaching out to agencies
and talking to the great story.
I almost forgot about this one.
The other night we're at the Juno County Towns Association
meeting down in Boston.
Boston's not my district,
but most of the towns in the northern part of the county are.
And 81-year-old lady, she's a town clerk
and two of the towns up in the northern parks
are very sparsely populated.
So, there's a highway 80 and a highway 173 across.
You probably saw some D2 resigns all the way up here
and rampage for it.
Yeah, that's right.
As a massive road project.
We're loving it.
I'm done out there.
So, she's from this little town of Finley.
81-year-old, I introduced myself to her
and she gloved down right away.
She's like, you're the guy.
What did I do?
Yeah, no, that's not me.
It's not me, yeah, I'm just running for it right now.
The other guy's over here, it's still his district.
I didn't do it, nobody saw me do it.
But she was like, okay, we're de-truing all the state traffic
onto these town roads in Finley and...
Oh, I forgot there.
Kingston.
The other town up there.
And she goes, we have to start our town roads
after we divert all the state traffic
onto our town road, who's gonna fix our town road.
Well, which road is it?
I don't even know what your road was talking about, right?
So, she kind of went through this whole process.
The entire town's meeting was about this 81-year-old lady
who was in Finley and Kingston.
And she just wanted to know who's gonna take care
of their stuff.
Yeah, that's a good question.
I'll tell you what, since you put me right on the spot,
there, ma'am, I will call the secretary of the DOT tomorrow.
Right?
I mean, that's what you do.
Yeah.
I'm not doing it to impress her, but I'm doing it to say,
okay, I hear you.
Yeah.
Let me call and find out.
We had a good conversation with the DOT yesterday
about diverting state traffic onto town roads
and sports populated areas, picked up some of these areas
from Babcock to Dexter and all that in between,
you know, we're all gonna be impacted.
Yeah.
So now it's talking to a law enforcement today
in Juneau County and Wood County and say,
okay, how do you enforce this?
So just that one meeting.
And one, and one person speaking up, it's part of the reason
and we're getting into this in a little bit
about a series that you're gonna be doing.
I want to highlight, but it's part of the reason
why it's so important on a local level,
especially of having those town hall kind of meetings
or when you do go out of your way
and go out there and try to meet constituents
and everything, to be honest, as always,
as we always are with each other and everything,
there is a pushback sometimes, especially this time of year
of, hey, are you, what are you guys doing?
What is getting done?
I didn't see a new bill pass in the last 10 minutes.
What are you doing?
You know, why aren't you in Madison every day?
Why aren't you working?
Why aren't you working?
Right.
I mean, that's the one thing that drives me nuts
this time of the cycle is why aren't you working?
Well, there's two reasons why I'm not in Madison.
I don't need to be, right?
I mean, a hard session calendar runs 15 months
out of 24 because you do not want your government
passing bills every single day.
I've said it for a decade or more.
Every time we pass the bill and it becomes law,
we create two more problems, somewhere else,
because we don't know everything.
And every time we create something new,
we create two more problems.
So we just create more work for ourselves
as opposed to being back in our communities
for these nine months in particular,
where everybody can throw everything at us
because we are everywhere.
It's like, hey, can you go fix this issue?
I stopped at my church yesterday, talked to my pastor
and he's like, hey, as long as you're here,
I met with a guy who's having a military problem
and told me this great story.
I'm like, you know what, it's not a thing for the state,
but I know our congressmen's people,
so I call Scott Soik, you know,
Van Orden's representative, I say, hey Scott,
I need a number of standing here with my pastor.
Can you hook us up with this so we can figure out
how to solve this guy's problem?
It's like, yeah, here's the number given to the pastor.
Pastor called back, like, hey, this is awesome.
Like, that's how it works.
It can't work like that if I'm sitting
in my office in Madison.
Right.
That's what the work really is,
is us being here talking to people,
getting things figured out and accomplished
in their daily lives that are more important.
I'm sure this is a two-parter thing.
Part of it being society, just, you know,
wanting everything faster.
We've been this way since, you know, you and I were kids.
It's been that way with microwave meals
and all of this, 24 out of seven news cycles
breaking, everything's breaking news.
Nowadays, a lot of that.
But do you think some of that pushback,
whether or some of that feedback you're getting,
is more about our politicians that you're seeing
on the news every day, a lot of senators,
a lot of congressmen, a lot of that and everything,
and it kind of trickles down
and affects almost every other politician
on a local level.
It seems like a lot of, I mean,
we've been doing this for a while here and everything,
and I don't, my issues are certainly,
I do have some complaints and some issues up top,
but as far as our local representatives,
whether it's us here or in point or any others,
I've talked to a lot of them and you guys are working hard.
And I don't, I see the exact opposite on a local level.
It seems like more of the national narrative
that's a complaint.
It is and that's the struggle right now
as people have talked to me all the time,
saying, well, why can't you guys get this done?
Like, well, that's a federal issue
and if I try to describe to them,
I've got great friends in Congress.
I do.
Derek Van Orden is a dear friend.
The guy works his tail off, probably even 10 times better
than I am at constituent services.
But he's one out of 435, right?
And when you look at the national politics
the way it is right now and you've got such a close majority
and you've got six to seven people in that majority
who are just, I'm sorry, they're nuts.
They're just nuts, right?
So there literally is no working majority
in the US Congress right now.
Stuff's not gonna get done.
It's just not gonna happen.
So that's why it's on us as more local public servants
to say, hey, I know you're waiting for Washington
to fix this is not gonna happen.
And what can I do to try to help solve that log jam
a little bit here at the state?
Or who can I talk to locally here
that might help you with it as well?
Because if you're waiting for Congress to do something
or you're waiting for the US Senate to do something,
you're waiting for the president to get a bill from them
just not happening.
Just not gonna happen until after the election
because they're so dysfunctional right now.
As a body, it makes the rest of us kind of look bad.
Talk with Senator Tesson about this the other week.
And the idea of not passing a bill
because it makes the other party look good
and you're in an election year
and all these head games that are being played
and everything, this political dance that goes on
and who suffers?
People.
Yeah, I mean, that's why you look at that.
But we know the game, right?
This isn't usually a head game.
The other person doesn't know what's going on.
We know what's going on, right?
We understand the game here.
So this isn't, I'm not pointing at either party.
I'm pointing at both parties.
Both parties need to act like adults and get stuff done.
When we're talking about constituents complaining
about nothing getting done,
this is what we're talking about.
Not so much on a local level,
but I think the complaint is, hey,
and to not to forgive this
because I don't like the idea of people complaining
to people that can't do anything.
You don't like the gas prices,
you go complaining to the clerk,
that doesn't do anything, that doesn't help.
It doesn't help to complain about gas prices to me either.
Just everybody knows if you're listening.
Just everybody knows, get that out there.
But it does get a little frustrating
when I can't get Biden on the phone,
but I can get you on the phone,
that kind of thing.
And it falls on you guys unfairly.
I think, but I do appreciate that you take that on.
I think a lot of us understand that role as counselor.
I mean, I take a lot of calls that I know
I cannot do anything about,
but I know that the person on the other line
has been struggling to get somebody to listen to them.
We just want to be heard.
People just want to feel like somebody's out there
that can understand what they're going through
in the time that they're having a struggle.
Whether I fix it or not is not their problem,
they just want to know that somebody's there.
And I've always appreciated that
because that's always what I've been about,
either when I was a sheriff's deputy
or in my job at the jails or whatever it is,
even in my private business in real estate or whatever it is,
Tommy Thompson's always taught me.
Two years and one mouth.
Use him in that proportion, right?
So as much as I'm talking right now,
I'm listening to ladies like Ellen and Finley,
even more.
Just tell me your story.
I will try to do it my best I can for you.
If I don't have an answer, it's okay if I tell you,
I don't know, or it might take some time.
So people just, and I call it the American Idol Society
that we live in sometimes.
You had mentioned where everybody wants to vote now
and everybody's going to decide for them.
It's like, there's processes, there's procedures.
Government's supposed to be slow and messy
because you don't want us doing too much too fast.
I mean, so it's a lot of educations,
a lot of counseling, my psychology degree
has come in handy more than I ever thought it would.
I'm glad that I'm in now, so.
Speaking with Wisconsin State Representative Scott Krug
right now, Scott, you were a part of a bipartisan push
for election confidence here in Wisconsin.
You and Representative Snoggrass worked on this.
Last time we were together,
we didn't get a chance to really touch on this one.
I wanted to go into this a little bit with you
and how this all came about and what developed
from it.
Yeah, so at least Snoggrass and I have served together
probably four years now of my best recollection,
but I think the first conversation that Lee and I ever had
was when I got appointed to be the chair
of the Assembly Campaigns and Elections Committee
and I found out she was going to be
the ranking member that had Democrat in the committee.
So both in the same day and the same time,
we both saw each other in the room,
walked towards each other and said,
hey, what are we going to get done?
And from there, it has been an amazing relationship.
She is a trusted friend.
She is an advisor.
She is a Democrat.
I'm a Republican.
We never talk about who's a Republican or who's a Democrat.
That's cool.
We don't talk about the things we don't agree on
because there's a lot that we don't,
but this issue we agree on almost everything about, right?
And that's the thing that we're trying to do statewide,
where we're getting national and statewide accolades
for being people that are working together
and doing what you're supposed to be doing
and what you're taught to do in kindergarten.
Yeah, yeah.
And that's the thing that Lee and I talk about all the time
is like, why are you recognizing this
because that's the way things are supposed to be?
It's cool.
But at the same time, we understand that it is important
to people to recognize that.
So we've leaned into it.
And I've dubbed it the new way forward,
even though it's the old way of doing things.
Like in the 60s, 70s and 80s,
when we had governors and legislatures,
there were different parties.
Stuff got done, but it just got passed.
You didn't hear about it all the time
that there was consternation or arguing.
Well, that's what we're trying to bring back.
And we may not have gotten all of the bills
that we wanted through our committee passed
and signed into law because either the Senate
didn't want to do them or the governor didn't like them.
It's not the point.
We're bringing back this new way of collegiality
across the state capital.
This is where other committee members
and other committee chairs and other ranking members
can see that relationship that Lee and I have,
take it to their committee, whether that's on housing
or whether it's on education or universities
or corrections, develop that relationship,
get some common sense bills done,
talk about the things you agree on.
Don't talk about the stuff you don't agree on.
And the one person that I literally lean on the most right now
to bounce ideas off of.
It's a Democrat.
Oh my goodness, right?
How dare you?
I can't figure out the scandal.
Where the guidelines are, what might be acceptable
for people who think differently than me?
Lee, here's an idea.
Here's what I thought.
What do you think?
She'll push back and say, well, this is where we wouldn't go.
I'm like, well, I think we can figure it out from there.
That's how the world works.
Why can't politics work like that, too?
So we've really leaned into this.
It's incredibly smart and mature of both of you
and insane.
What are you guys doing?
You can't do that nowadays.
You guys will never get reelected.
Oh, wait a minute.
That's right.
You guys did get reelected.
You just see the looks when I walk over
to their side of the aisle.
It's down there and talk to Lee.
Or she comes, God forbid, over to my side.
The front corner of the Republican side of the chamber.
And everybody's like, what are they talking about now?
Just talking about how their day is.
Yeah.
What are your kids up to?
What's the family like?
It's weird dynamics sometimes, but people
are getting more used to it, finally.
I first talked about this with Congress Mankind.
But whether it is him, Senator Teston, Katrina Shanklin,
yourself, anybody that I've talked to, I have brought this up.
And I've talked about the idea that Wisconsin
has a better opportunity than any other state in the union
to be the example of being purple, of being the perfect mix
of both.
We are fortunate enough to have a country of freedoms,
a country of democracy, a country where it isn't just
what I want or what Scott wants.
It's what we all collectively kind of come together with
and find some common ground on and everything.
If 13 guys can sit in Philadelphia
and figure out how to write the entire guidelines
of our country being as split as they were within their party
and intro party, how can't 99 people in the state
assembly figure out something that's a lot less complicated?
I call it on, because we've got a nice amount of listeners.
It's out of our state and everything.
I call upon those other people to demand that from their state,
demand that from their representatives.
We are fortunate this state, not saying it's perfect.
No state is, but we are a lot better off than some
when it comes to this.
And I do want to do something.
I don't do this very often.
I don't get a chance to do this very often.
You mentioned a friend of yours, Derek Van Orden.
Yeah.
When he first came out and his first campaigning,
I came out against him pretty heavily.
I was too.
Not very real, because I don't like the device of this.
I noticed he has listened to his constituents
and he has changed his game up a lot when it comes to that.
And I appreciate that, because you started off
our show, something with something today, Scott,
that I thought was remarkable.
And I didn't want to slow you down.
So I don't want to get in your way.
You admitted that you didn't know something.
You admitted that you had to learn something or whatever.
We need more of that.
I don't expect whoever I vote into know everything.
I don't expect you to have all the answers.
I do expect you to have ownership of this stuff.
And that's all we're asking, I think.
That's, it goes back to what you were saying before.
It's hard to take credit for things
that we're supposed to do, but I do give you credit for it.
Yeah, I mean, if we don't start taking credit for it,
other people are not going to replicate it,
because the one thing that politicians,
slash public servants want is, hey, look at me.
Hey, look what I did.
Hey, no, this is what I am.
It's campaign time, right?
I mean, sometimes you have to take credit
for these things to get reelected.
Absolutely, yeah.
So yeah, you do have to stand up and say,
hey, this is what I got done.
So it's, that's the worst part about campaigning.
I've never been a big self-promotion kind of guy.
Yeah.
And now I'm going to make you do it again, right?
I know.
But you lean into it when you have to, right?
And that's what I've learned even in being in business now
and in real estate.
I mean, that's what you have to do in business
at be a self-promotor.
So I learned really early on in the process,
probably my second or third year in.
Yeah, I have a lot of strong opinions.
I have a lot of strong ideas.
I'm one out of the 57,000 people I represent, though.
Like I've been listening to myself as much,
as I think I should.
Yeah.
And listen to the majority of the people in my district.
Right.
So I know I am exactly where the majority of the people
in my district need to be, because I am here daily basis
doing this, instead of quote unquote,
working at the capital.
As we're wrapping up last couple of minutes,
we have, Scott, I wanted to let everybody know
about a, now a series of listening sessions
that you're going to be doing across the district.
Yeah.
So typically this time of year, we probably
shouldn't be doing listening sessions
because technically we're out of session.
So if I'm listening, am I really taking it back
to Madison?
But yes, I am, because we're starting
to develop the next day budget already.
I've got so much new area to cover, right?
So I picked up Nacusa.
I picked up, you know, Adams and Friendship.
I picked up Nacita.
I picked up Camp Douglas.
You know, all these different parts
of the district that are close.
So I kind of know what's going on.
But I really don't have a great idea.
So we did schedule listening sessions on the sixth
and on the eighth.
I don't have the exact times with me for all of them
right here in front of me, but I know
that the sixth we're going to be more rapid-based.
Nacusa-based.
The eighth we're going to go over to the Juno County side
and do some of those listening sessions, too.
So I talked about those a lot over on, you know,
Merfs in the morning, on 92.9 in Austin this week
and with Bob Goff at 1061.
And we've really been trying to promote these quite a bit
for people to be able to get out.
And I wish I could remember exactly the times and places.
I'm seeing May 6th, okay.
Now May 7th, May 6th and 7th, you'll be in May 6th.
You'll be in Nacusa and Adams at the Charles and Joanne
Lester library from 10 to noon.
Adams County library from 1 to 3 in room 123.
On the 7th, you'll be here in Rapids
over at McMillan library from 11 to 1.
And then May 8th, you'll be in Nacusa, I see.
Yeah, Nacusa and then later in Camp Douglas.
So I don't expect a lot of people to turn up to all of them.
But, I mean, it's an opportunity.
And if you want to come sit and hang out with me for two hours,
great, if you don't, I've got plenty of real estate stuff
I can do for those two hours.
I'll just sit in a different place than the office.
I mean, it is what it is.
We don't do a lot of them this time of year,
but I just want to give the opportunity.
Do encourage people if you do have thoughts and feedback
to reach out to Scott because you gave us two great examples
today, and that's just among the many that you have probably
had in your 10 plus years of doing this.
So much can change, so much can be done by just reaching out
and having a be adults, have it be an adult conversation,
talking to tone, it's acceptable and all that, be cool.
But at the same time, be sure to get your word out there
if you have some feedback.
That's what Scott wants.
He wants to hear from you.
He wants to be able to do his job.
Yeah, the job.
I'm a representative.
I am not the owner, so I mean, it's not my chair.
It's everybody else's.
So just tell me what you need me to do and we'll get it done.
You are doing too much.
You are too busy.
We don't have the time to talk for hours as much anymore.
Hey, it's okay.
I'm just, I'm going to knock on wood
that it just keeps going smooth.
And if I talk about them less, they usually do better.
Maybe, maybe.
Been really enjoying the young talent, though, Matt.
It's been really cool.
That bright string.
I like him.
That's a couple of nice players on it.
You know, they call themselves like the average Joe's.
Like the movie Hodgeball, right?
Just a bunch of guys who got together and played a game.
Yeah.
Real quick, real big shout out to Pat Murphy.
Live your life the way Pat Murphy is living his life, Matt.
He is making the most of this opportunity.
And he is doing great.
Yeah, he reminds me of Lou Brown that managed to cleave
with him and the movie Major League.
Yeah, yes.
Scott, if people have follow up questions
to be able to reach out to, how can they do that?
Cell phone is the easiest.
It's 715-323-3293 that darn things always on.
Even overnight nowadays, so just give it a buzz
and see what happens.
If I don't get back to you right away,
I get back to you the day after.
Appreciate the time, as always.
You take care of safe travels.
I'll tell you two things.
Well, I'm on Midday Magazine coming up right here at WFHR.
