Welcome everyone to Midday magazine for this June 7th, 2024.
Have your host James J. Mailoff here in part two.
We're going to talk with Tria Kimble from Wisconsin Revit City Band looking forward to talking
with them right now. Joining us on the phone lines, our good friend Wisconsin State Representative
Scott Krueger, Scott, where are you calling us from?
So the quality today I'm in Excelsior Springs, Missouri actually.
Interesting. Interesting. Yeah, it's a new location.
Yeah, I'm at a hotel called the Alms. It's most famous for the 1938 election night,
Harry Truman stayed here the night that he was infinitely thought to lose the time as
Dewey only to wake up the next morning with the headlines reading incorrectly that he had lost
the election. So it's a little famous hotel here in Excelsior Springs, Missouri and the reason
I'm here is I'm at a national conference for state legislatures where the election chairs from
across the country are meeting today talking about election integrity restoring confidence in
election comparing notes across the states talking about best practices how we can help everybody
across the spectrum and across the country understand how safe fair and free our elections are.
So it's a pretty cool conference that the 20 or 30 of us showed up for from around the country
who chair election committees and running elections stuff in our states.
First off, I got to say and I'd love to get into this conversation some time with you.
Most famous political stories. I wonder if the Dewey one is the most famous political story.
It's such a common one. Even kids that I like students I have and like 18, 19 know about that
story. So it's an interesting one. Not to go into it too much, but I mean it just tells
the difference of technology from the until today is that the paper had to be printed the night
before and when everybody went to bed they figured that this was going to happen and that didn't
turn out that way. I'm sure nobody felt worse than Dewey and his people that he was representing
in everything, but I also feel pretty bad if I was the reporter. I don't know how good your
career is going to look after that. It's going to be pretty rough. Speaking of good, oh I'm sorry
Scott. Go ahead. No, I was just agreeing. With speaking of being able to trust our journalists,
trust our news, talking about what you're there for and talking about election and confidence in
our elections, what are some of the bigger things you guys are discussing or you're hearing?
It's really interesting. I just left a session right now where it was just me with Charles Stewart,
the professor from MIT who really dives into not only just the data elections but the psychology
of elections and really talking about there's four things that people really dive into when it
comes to trusting elections and the trustworthiness of elections. I want those four things really boil
down to is that almost everybody that gets surveyed across the country feels that their elections
back home when they put their vote in the box or put it on the screen or however you do it. 90%
of people surveyed say yes, I feel confident and my vote was counted the way it was supposed to
be counted and then as you spread that survey out, if you go statewide, if you go regionally,
if you go nationally and say how confident are you that votes were counted somewhere else?
That they were supposed to be counted. Then that number just dips like precipitously,
right? Because it's not right in front of your face, you didn't see it individually, you didn't
touch the screen yourself. The people's trust in elections isn't their local election.
It's other people's local elections that they don't get to see as much. So I think one of the things
we've got to really work on resonating is building faith and confidence in other people's
elections that you don't see yourself. Because if you have a great experience, you're pulling plays,
you're even more likely to say it's a great election that is run right. If you're, and you know,
the fourth one, obviously, if you're counted at wins, then you know the election is run right,
right? But those two things I think is just showing people that just because it didn't happen
or you saw it, that's what we really boiled it down to today is trying to figure out a way to
resonate that message and broadcast that, yeah, you know, your local elections are running great,
but look over here in this county or look over here in this state. This is what they're doing too.
That's where we've got to work together as legislators to start broadcasting success stories
of our elections more than the problem stories of our elections. The veins, the organs of this
country are democracy and voting and, you know, people, people believing in their vote, believing
that accounts, believing it that is accurate, that is being accounted accurately in all these things.
They're very important things. I will never make light of any of that, no matter who is asking
the questions or anything. But Scott, you and your colleagues there, I wonder if there is certainly
the side of this, what you were covering there and talking about making sure that people are informed.
There's another part of this, too, to me, and I push back on some of the people that are going
back, you know, to two other elections or things like that. I'm talking about current ones and
upcoming ones. There's a part of me that is thankful, and maybe I'm just scraping the barrel here,
thankful that people care. That they're that engaged about this, that they are going out and,
you know, recently, just recently this week, we had in central Wisconsin here had some of our
election workers having open kind of town hall and letting people come in and talk. If you question
our elections that much, go ahead and work with those people. Go ahead and get to work on election
day, volunteer, put your money where your mouth is. I think that there is, while again, I'm scraping
the barrel bit here, there is some encouragement that, hey, people are at least caring. Every year,
we see the amount of people that vote on a given election, even a presidential election, and those
numbers aren't nearly as high as they should be. So I'm curious if there is some of that also in
play here from you and your colleagues that you're seeing this. Yeah, it is. I mean, if you look
historically, and I'm a data geek, I'm election is data numbered geek. I mean, it's Christmas morning,
when I talk about election numbers, I love this kind of stuff, right? But if you look back 25 years,
even in the state of Wisconsin, turnout amongst every category was much lower than it is today,
actually, right? So people are engaged. We can do better. I mean, we're 60, 65% average in
presidential elections for turnout. We can do better, but 20, 25 years ago, when there was
people that just never voted before, now they're all engaged. So yeah, we are having to answer more
questions, having to put on more open houses and more forums and more communications, which is
great. I don't have a problem with it, but I want people to understand that you need to find
somebody that you trust that you know that you personally know and take their word for something
that's happening or actually, like you said, just go work in elections. When we just sit back
and watch what happens on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, obscure news websites and just take those
as the gospel on elections, it is absolutely the wrong thing to do. So that was the third component
of trust. Just find somebody locally who you know that you trust that can tell you the scoop
of what's actually happening on election stuff. And that's why I feel so honored to represent,
you know, such a Wisconsin and a state of Wisconsin and Chair in the, you know, Assembly elections
and campaigns committee. I mean, it just, it all fits in great. That's all I'm doing between
now and election day, even with our committee in Madison. Besides conferences like this that
I'll get to this summer, we're actually still going to have informational hearings in our committee
in Madison over the summer leading up to the election, just so we can keep this spelling myth
or helping people understand things that are actually happening. Or find problems that we can
work to change. And we're working on those right now. Actually, we had a hearing on May 16th,
where we had the DOT of Wisconsin Elections Commission, Department of Health Services,
who all work together to help verify identities for individuals on their driver's license and state
ID cards. Come and talk to us about how individuals who are permanent non-citizen residents of Wisconsin
could possibly take an ID in vote. So we had that as a discussion like how much does it happen?
Does it really a problem? Is it a real thing? So now following that hearing, we're working with
those departments to get all the data that they already have together that they don't compare
somehow some way right now, which was the thing we found out in our hearing is that well,
we don't know. Well, we should know, right? Even if it's not a problem, I just want to be able to
bring back the data to every election clerk in the state of Wisconsin to say, hey, I know you
didn't have a problem. Some people thought it was, I'm going to take the time. We're going to dive
into it. We're going to show you if it's a problem or not by just taking simple data points and
comparing things. So we're just going to dispelled this all through the summer or we're going to
identify problems and fix them. Scott, is there any other big topics you all are discussing at the
conference? Really just getting going. So we've got another six, seven sessions yet to
the day that we're going to get through and spend all day Friday here and in the Saturday morning
discussing with the little interim break this evening to go out and see the Kansas City Royals
over at Coffin Stadium. So I had to throw that in. Oh, you did. Oh, man, that is like top three
stadiums I want to visit. Oh, you just had to throw that in there. Didn't you? I had to, right?
Okay. So that's why I tell these people when they ask me if I want to come to a conference or if I
want to be a speaker somewhere, it's okay. There's two rules I have. One, either I get to a baseball
game or hit a new stadium or two, I got to get to a state capital and see a new state capital.
So where we are just outside of Kansas City, Jefferson City, too far to see the capital.
So, you know, I guess I just can't go to the ballgame tonight.
You don't get a whole lot of, you know, things that look forward to with this gig. I think
that's awesome. I think that is completely understandable to have it a contract. I would do the same.
I would do the very, in fact, I might bow our ears if I ever become a representative. I'm
going to keep just piggyback on what you were doing there. We were speaking, right? Yeah, you got.
The last time was in Indianapolis, right? So the really cool thing about the last election conference
for NCSL was in Indianapolis, where right across from the hotel was the minor league Indianapolis
Indians game and then right across the street the other way it was to take capital. So I got to do
both of them in Indianapolis. Nice. I was speaking with Representative Scott Krug from the assembly
district 72 and Scott recently you were honored with something pretty cool here from our RV organization.
Yeah, that was a surprise, right? So, Mick from Greenway RV and I have been working on a
bill for six years. He's wanted this so bad and he's worked with us to try to help get it across
the finish line on just kind of settling how where dealers and manufacturers intersect in the
state of Wisconsin and more technical stuff for people in the general public but it's important
stuff for people in the industry to be able to transfer their ownership and not lose their
categories and things like that. So over the years of building relationships not only with Mick but
other RV dealers locally statewide and even nationally it's some of these conferences that I go through
like I'm talking about where now they saw the success of the bill that we got through and signed
into law and actually awarded me a national award from the RV dealers. The manufacturer
they should say that say that you know you're the guy nationally that's recognized as being
pop on our issues which is cool because I'm you know on me in my life and I are avid campers.
We are we live in our camper in the summer down in Delaware more than we live at our house
and we really do live that lifestyle so it's kind of one of the coolest ones that have ever been
given you know individual knowledge because it's national but it's something that we live and do
every day. And it's earned it's something that I think that it speaks to why we have you know
representatives from our area and from every area that's listening you know out there and stuff
us so that people issues that you may not know about in another town or another city but you do
from here so it gets represented it gets talked about it gets out there. Yeah if you look at
you know compare Wisconsin Rapids to Stevens Point and Marshfield for example and you just look
at our industries that we have available in Wisconsin Rapids much more tourism based than Marshfield
or Stevens Point is right so you look up and down East Street up and down Highway 73 what do you
see got RV dealer here you got RV dealer there you got RV it's gonna pair I mean so things in your
community there's the things that you take back to Madison you talk about and if you're really good
at your job those things rise at the top they become bills and if you're really really good at your
job you can convince the governor to sign them in the law so I mean it just it just shows your
effectiveness over the years just to work on things back home and not get caught up in the headlines
and follow all the BS that you hear everywhere else and just do your darn job you know there's
something to be said for that type of approach to this. Scott I wanted to note two things about
your e-updates I know a lot of people look forward to them get caught up on a lot of information
that way you can find those e-updates by following Scott on social media Facebook is a great one
to go to type in Scott Krug and like and subscribe to what he's doing with you are going to be taking
a break from the e-updates I didn't want to let everybody know that just as a side note you're
going to be pretty darn busy coming up here but one of the things you will find out if you are
keeping up on those e-updates and looking into them this law known as the 50 piece rule I wanted
to talk about that a little bit Scott. It's one of the most antiquated state laws I think we have
I you know sometimes I struggle with the purpose of it but I get it I mean so the 50 piece rule
basically says as of a date certain one we're out of legislative session hitting campaigns season
we cannot use state resources to broadcast anything that's getting accomplished which is unfortunate
in the way because like I said with our elections committee we're still ongoing we're still
doing work every day there's still things I want to get out to people but I can't do it through
the e-update anymore according to state law so it's going to be hard to get information I'll
besides doing radio or you know maybe print articles in the paper but our e-update subscriber list
is some 20,000 individuals in the district so it is really a useful tool to help people understand
miss versus fiction and things like that so I struggle with you know the 50 piece rule sometimes
but I also get it it's campaign season some people could take it as being you know campaigning
with state dollars or something like that but it is what it is just a rule that says during
campaign season we can't communicate just that way but we'll find other ways to communicate
the information back to people with it not being a commonly known law I think it's good
important to get out there but I also think it's interesting and do you think that there is a
better way to do this I think we can both see the the essence of the rule but in today's day and
age where we don't go back to the whole newspaper thing we don't have to wait until the next morning
to get our news it's happening every second do you think that there's needs to be an adjustment to
this and we've tried right because we've got in in the state of Wisconsin even under you know
under my committee's oversight we also have the ethics commission right so we've got elections
and ethics in my campaign committee we have a very thorough and good ethics division that if
something came out that was ethically blurring that maybe a legislator could be told okay you can't
do this you can't do that is opposed to saying you just can't do anything so I mean there's
got to be some gray in there besides the blacker white you can do or you can't do it and I think we
can dive into that a little bit say and these are topics that are off the radar that you can't use
but these are topics that you can still communicate back to your constituents because there's still
your constituents from June until November right I mean that's the one struggle that I see with
it is that there's got to be some gray area that there's something that can get back to our constituents
but ethics can oversee and kind of you know bring people out on issues when they do show up so
Scott we we get so many things that we're have going on don't always get to catch up on some stuff
and this is going back to March but the Wisconsin act 12 that provided a significant increase in
state aid and shared revenue to local government and we touch on that for a second yeah this is
probably the most money month of the thing we've done in the last 10 years in legislature and I
and I can't talk enough about it because now I did we find a way to take the dollars that local
municipalities send to Madison and let them keep more of it in every municipality to the state
so we also saw some Milwaukee problems that have been ongoing for like 30 some years or more
like the pension problems in the city of Milwaukee gave Milwaukee the chance to decide what it's
going to be so they can fund critical services while they're supposed to they didn't quite follow
through as much as they should but that's another story but I think locally for every one of our
counties our municipalities this is going to be something that's going to be a game changer because
you can use the shared revenue dollars for certain things whether it's police you know EMS the
fire service you know those critical services but it also be dedicated towards transportation
projects I mean we've given the opportunity to keep more of your local tax money for every
municipality in the state and I think one of the biggest ones actually Adams County saw like a
2000 percent increase in their shared revenue because when the formula was created they were at a
low point and it was locked in back in 1990 so Adams County has been behind the ball and getting
some of the dollars that they send to Madison back so we got a 2000 percent increase for our county
government in Adams County which being on the Adams County board was a God sent in a way but it's
also been a something to try to help people understand you know now that we have more local money
we've got to make responsible local decisions on these boards and how we're going to use it
so we stuck ours all into the Sheriff's Department which I thought was the best way to do it in
Adams County but everybody will do it a little bit different but now everybody's got at least a
little bit more opportunity to fund similar critical services. We're Scott as we're wrapping up
here I did want to send a shout out to a local grade school that joined you in Madison recently
Grove Elementary came and visited the Capitol. Yeah I mean that's the one thing like there's
anything on my calendar any year when I'm sorry to the rest of the schools but schools coming to
the Capitol I don't care what's on my calendar it's changing right because that's my origin story
right like a fourth grade field trip in from Grove School to Madison was where it all started for me
so I mean just getting a chance to go back every year when they do come to talk to the kids from
Grove and say hey you know what I was exactly where you were I'm like I tell you how long ago was
but I was exactly where you were I saw exactly the same things you're seeing and that's why I want
to be here and that's that story resonates a lot more with kids from Grove when I tell it you know
say tell to a lot of schools that come through because I want them to know how relatable we are
how realistic it could be for them to do this but when I tell that story to Grove School kids and
Grove School parents you can you can see the eyes widen a little bit more and you can see a little
more excitement in it so I mean that is my my ultimate favorite thing every every year is when
the fourth grade is from Grove you to chance to come to the Capitol. And not for nothing you know you
and I have talked about this before I think that you know it matters accountability matters and
our politicians are not you know they need to have accountability and they need to be a question
on things but at the same time when we have generation after generation of parents just sitting
there and yelling at their TV screen or their radio complaining about politicians and little kids
grow up and hear that how often are they going to be likely to get into politics these things matter
we need good representatives we need good politicians democracy needs this our country needs this so
these things really do matter in those stories if that resonates with one kid are we going to
in the future Scott Krueger out there worth it you know yeah and I mean if you just you you
quit that out what's going on in Congress right now where you see mass retirements throughout the
entire country of Congress people you know Republicans and Democrats who on their on their
announcements you say you know what this just isn't worth it anymore this is just too crazy this is
too stupid I am not going to put my life through this anymore I'm not going to make my family go
through this anymore I mean every single announcement they all blatantly just come on say I know
almost leave because of it anyways but now it is the thing that wasn't being said being said all
out right yeah listen to quite a lot we're coming ourself people yeah trying to figure out a work
with your reps or you like new ones but don't tear them down to the point where they just
say forget this well it's a different world out there right now your brewers are in action tonight
in Detroit brewers are five games up over the cubs in first place it's got to feel pretty good
well the season so far be like I tell you in April and May as I don't talk about them tell
they're close to close to the break in their out the few games now we can start talking brewers
I don't feel like I'm in jinx or but they've got really cool young kids they enjoy joy or tease
I mean yeah the guys like and just you can't say enough about all these these kids in this team I
still think they're wearing the thumbs up they're wearing the thumbs up pitching wise they can't
get starters to go more into couple meetings the game apparently but they're gonna pay the price
for that if they don't pick up a couple starters here at the at the deadline but they're doing
all right I will say that they're they're not alone there a lot of teams going through that right
now I wouldn't even know who to say has a great starting pitching or great lie you know a bullpen
right now with the way it is the all the injuries at the baseball is experienced I'm a huge fan
of the South relic I just I'll just I could just watch a game with him just out in the outfield just
put the camera on him and let me watch his fielding and Bryce Terang is another one that has
been a lot of fun to watch and everything it's a fun team but I gotta say Pat Murphy is my favorite
thing about that team right now I I just look forward to his press conferences and everything I
love the way he's handling me I said I said a little bit last month right and I'm glad we get
some chance to talk about this time it's just he reminds me so much of Lou Brown Cleveland Indians
from major league you just say the ham and egg are the like I didn't expect to be here I don't know
what I'm really do I'm gonna figure it out let's go kick their butts you know yeah yeah so
so quick and essential of that and it's just so cool and I you know last thing on brewers and
if anybody get a chance to follow the brewers at all don't watch one I mean at least make sure that
you get on brewers radio at some point this year it's probably one of the last years and you
get a chance to your Bob Euker you haven't had a chance to listen to a Euker game in a few years
you gotta you gotta do that you gotta take advantage of that gem before you retire so yeah
a legend legend uh a goat in this state at at that microphone and in one of our favorites always
I'm catching every inning I can of Euker every bit I can Scott great conversation as always
if people have follow questions one of the more how can they reach you yeah anytime
don't like texture call anytime seven one five three two three three two nine three
appreciate the time Scott thanks for joining us you take care and safe travels out there
absolutely take care and see you soon see you soon
