Welcome, everybody, to Midday Magazine for this Friday, January 17th, 2025.
Have your host, James J. Mailoff here.
In part two at 430, we're going to talk with our friends from the Port Edwards Lines
Club about their fishery coming up on the 25th.
Looking forward to talking to Jim and Dave just a little bit.
Right now we have joining us on the phone line, Wisconsin State Senator Patrick Testin
joining us.
Always good to talk with you, sir.
How have you been?
I'm doing great, James.
It's been a busy first week or first couple of weeks here.
I'm in the new session and we're off to the fast start and we'll come forward to getting
a lot more done over the course of these next few years.
Entering your third term as a state senator, congratulations on that.
How was the inauguration?
It was great.
It's always an exciting day and as I often tell people, I still, I got the chills and
I walked in.
I'm an inauguration day in the capital.
I think that's a good sign because the day that comes, the day that comes, the day that
doesn't occur, that's going to be the high sign from up above that it's time to move
on and what's going to all take the reins, but it's a really, it's a really great occasion
because it's one of these moments where, you know, no one's butting heads, everyone's
excited to start a new session with so many new representatives in both the state assembly
and as well as the state senate.
There's a lot of new members and, you know, with that comes new ideas, new perspectives
and so I've already had the opportunity.
I was down in Milwaukee last week and had a chance to sit down and crack dinner with
my new Democratic colleagues in the state senate, Senator George Ray, who is, she's
one of the younger members of, she's roughly my age and we had a really great conversation
over dinner about just some of the challenges that her district is facing and I share some
of the challenges that we're facing and I'm really hopeful that if I have in dialogues
like that, we can bridge the political divide and come together and really focus on solutions
for our prospective districts.
Senator, a question that I ask a lot of my students and a lot of friends in different
industries and one I was curious about for you, you've been doing this for a while now,
what have you learned going into your third senate run?
I, you know, it's one of the biggest things that I've learned and is that, you know, we
all have, I think all of our hearts are in the right place, everyone's there to serve.
And, you know, regardless of your political ideology, whether you're a Republican, Democrat,
or a political person, served up somewhere in the middle, I think by and large, everyone
that there is there for the exact same reason that they want to make sure that our country,
our state and our communities are great places to live, work and raise a family.
It's just sometimes we have different approaches of how we get there.
And so, you know, my hope is, as it's been in previous sessions, is that I anticipate
the vast majority of the bills that it's signed into law over the course of these next
two years are going to be part of partisan.
And I think the biggest takeaway is that, you know, when we do have heated and contentious
moments on the floor, where we're very far apart on that, you know, regardless of how
we've been shaken out, that we can move past that and realize that even though we may
be on a close and end one day, that there may be issues down the road where we find ourselves
in agreement.
And I think the more that we can take the politics of personality and not take them personal,
I think that in the long run is going to result in better public policy coming forth within
both bodies of the legislature.
What would you say, because certainly you're going to have the things that you, your passions
and there are certainly going to be things that come up in the year that we didn't see
coming or maybe plan for, but what would you say are your key focuses going into this
year and going into your term?
I think a couple of key areas that I'm really going to focus on.
So as the co-vice chair, the finance committee, I'll be in the room alongside the my fellow
co-vice chair and represent Tony Kurtz along with the co-chairs of the finance committee, Mark
Four, and Senator Howard Markline throughout this budget.
We are going to be the ones in the room really negotiating along with leadership in both
houses, including the speaker as well as the Senate Majority Leader.
And I think by and large, many of us are in agreement that we want to continue to push
and pursue significant tax relief.
You know, people I talk to all across the district are still dealing with high prices and
dollars don't stretch as far as they did four or five, six years ago.
And so providing increased or tax, tax cuts is going to get priority.
And then my role as the Senate Vice Chair of the Senate Committee on Health is going to
continue to focus on areas and how we can reduce cost and health care, increase access
and underserved areas.
And for me, that in watch card, those hand in hand will be empowering our health care
providers to operate at the highest level of the scope of practice.
You take a look at what we did last session that finally got signed into all the rural
dentistry scholarship programs through the Mark School of Dentistry that's going to help
students in the dentistry program to go practice and underserved the rural areas.
Well, I think we can apply that same approach to other areas in health care.
So we're already sitting down stakeholders on issues like that to examine ideas to provide
better care.
And then lastly, it continues to be workforce.
Making sure that we're doing what we can to whether it's, it's like the fast-forward grant
program, continue to fund that, which school districts have until roughly mid-debutary
to apply where they can get any work to $5,000 to $100,000 grants to help the vocational
training, programming, equipment to really help train up our future workforce here in
the state and ensure that our employers are building a plan for national generation that
we need.
One of the unique things I think about that too is the incentives for these individuals
when they finish their education to stay in state and continue working here.
Well, exactly.
And that is the key.
So, you know, what's really encouraging is that the youth abusers are called, they retain
the vast majority of their graduates.
However, there's still about 15 to 20% that come in, that come from the state of Wisconsin
or come outside of the state and they get a great education and then they leave.
So anything that we can do to try and cash for them, even though I'm maybe not somewhat
a big number, but when you take a look at the, our employers, not just here in Central
Wisconsin, but around the state, this has been an ongoing problem for nearly a decade.
And some of the demographics, others, we need to encourage more perfection in the workforce
because when you have jobs that just even, you know, seven years ago that were paying
minimum wage or now paying upwards of $15, $16, $17,000 to even $20 an hour, it shows you
that there is a real struggle out there for employers to find good qualified workers.
And oftentimes, as I often tell high school students and middle school students, it is
a gold mine of opportunity out there for you, you even do the bare minimum, like show
up on time.
I'll be able to look and have a conversation with someone in their eyes and not be glued
to your phone, you're already leaps and bounds ahead of some of your peers and just
to really encourage that.
And so, you know, there's work to be done, but as always, I am ever optimistic.
We can tackle these challenges and walk into a gum at the same time and hopefully keep
moving our state in the right direction.
We certainly, and I don't think that there's any, I mean, no crafts by this, but we certainly
have some unpredictability whenever we have a changing of the guard, if you will, when
you have a new president coming in.
And we have all heard the conversations about deportation and some of the immigration talk.
We've also heard from a lot of our ag industry about how that could affect our ag industry
and our workers here, our farmers and some of that.
And we talk about, you know, creating more jobs or creating more education in jobs.
Is this something that's being talked about with you and your colleagues?
Is this something you guys are thinking of and wanting to maybe, I don't want to say
get ahead of because again, you can't, you know, we don't know what's going to happen
yet.
But is this being, is this a conversation you're having behind the scenes in that?
So, there are some conversations being had, you know, this session, I have a privilege
to serve as the agricultural and revenue committee chair and so making sure that our ag economy
remains vibrant is going to be, again, one of my top priorities this session.
And so, we've had some really good conversations with folks from organizations like the Farm
Bureau, Wisconsin Potato and Vegetable Growers Association.
And you know, there is some concern of what could or may happen.
But, you know, I think, by and large, at least from what I have seen and what I have heard
is that, you know, the emphasis is going to be making sure that those who are here illegally
and have committed criminal acts are probably going to get deported.
But I think more importantly is from what we've been hearing is that there's going to be
a push to make sure that we have a pathway for legal citizenship that I don't think it's
any secret that, at the federal level, our immigration process, it's broken.
And my hope is that Congress can work with the President Trump's administration to address
some of these issues, but do it in a manner that's not going to disrupt some of our dairy
farmers because, you know, dairy farmers don't have the luxury of only being able to go
out and milk for a few months a year while the rest, you know, we're dealing with snow
and cold.
We're going to go out there and milk their cows 365, 24 hours a day.
Well, it's a great point and that's the kind of point that we need made for them and
that's the job, right, representing those that, you know, being the voice for those industries
in your state.
And to that point, sir, I want to get into the Senate passing the voter ID resolution
with you.
And just to catch everybody up that have not known too much about this or if maybe haven't
heard the details or just read headlines, assembly Republicans voted to say to advance
a proposal that would enshrine Wisconsin's existing voter identification law into the
state constitution.
And the resolution is to set up the statewide referendum was approved in both houses of
the legislature along party lines.
Now this is something that by now with the 24 hour news cycle and everything, most of
the, you know, talking points have been made by both sides of the party, including yourself.
I will give you time to talk about this particular part of it if you would like, but what I would
like to do is go to where I, when I wanted to prep for this interview and I would say going
back to last Friday or Saturday, but even before this resolution was passed, I was asking my
friends, my family members, just different listeners I could talk to getting a blind
survey, if you will, or a, you know, a poor man survey, if you will, of what, how important
this was to them.
And while I have not, I didn't hear this as a top priority.
What I did here was is why is this, the question of why this is such a top priority?
Why is this the first thing getting done in the new year when you could make the argument
and I don't think it's a hard one to make that we've got a lot bigger issues and accessing
healthcare, healthcare workforce, childcare, we got to keep going.
There's so many things that it feels like the focus in you and your colleagues should
be on this when it seems like it's this.
Why is it the, the focus, why is it your first focus?
So not yours in particular, but the, the, you know, Congress and everything.
Yeah, no, that's a, a great question.
I'm glad you asked.
So on one, based on our third day on the job for this new session, you know, the Senate
came in and we passed and a joint resolution to, which was a, a question, basically, a
constitutional amendment.
So here it was, we have a process by which constitutional amendments get proposed and
then approved.
So a resolution has to pass two consecutive legislatures by both houses, the state centers
as well as the state assembly.
So last session, it was up for first consideration to enshrine voter ID into our state constitution.
And the reason why this was brought up is because we, we face right now, regardless of
where people stand, a, a court that is acting like a, a super legislature, they are legislating
from the bench.
We suspect that it's only a matter of time.
If we had not done this, that there would be a loss of the challenge, the constitutionality
of our voter ID law, which has been on the book, stench 2011.
And while I agree, there are lots of other issues that need to be addressed and I assure
you, James, they are going to be addressed.
This was the only thing that we had ready to go on the hopper for Wednesday because they
had already passed the previous legislature for both houses, they just had to be simply
introduced again.
Thank we are judiciary committee, they met on Tuesday to take public testimony and then
exec it out of committee so it was ready for the floor.
And so this is now going to be on everyone's ballot for the April election where you are
going to have local elections as well as for the Department of Public Instruction and
as well as Supreme Court.
And so if this gets enshrined and approved, voter ID, which again has been on, on state
books, stench 2011, will be enshrined in our state constitution which is an issue that
I think over one way many people support and just making sure that when you go to the polls
that you identify who you are and that's verified, no different than when, you know, with
so many other things that we do in life where you have the proof identification who you
are, whether it's going to do a restaurant to have a old fashioned with your fish crying
up Friday or buying a six pack of Oso beer to you name it.
Buying medications over the counter, even spray paint you got to show an ID.
So I think this is pretty common practice and in fact, you know, it was referenced on
the floor that, you know, previous elections and looked up to the November election that
even individuals like Governor Evers had posted on social media sites such as that voting
is very easy.
Go get your free ID from the DMV and so I'm in agreement with that and as far as happy
to support that and if people have questions, I'm more than happy to answer them, but just
be aware this will be on your ballot on the April election.
And I think you noted something that's important while, again, in the 24 hour news cycle,
it feels like these topics just come up.
This has been going on since 2011.
This has been something that has been in the conversation for quite some time now.
And I do think that you can look at this in a number of different angles, no matter where
you're coming from this on and see some positives to this for both sides, for both parties,
for what's most important people.
I'm not talking about parties.
I'm just talking about people and you need an ID in life.
You do.
And this could help some people actually doing that and getting that.
We also certainly all want fair elections.
There's nobody who's fighting differently on that.
Even as a Chicagoan, I will say that I want fair elections.
I go to go out of, but I do want, there is another part of this too.
And I'm curious how you answer when your constituents or when people ask you some of the things that
I started off with or what the need of this is that we haven't really had a ton of issues
with this in Wisconsin when it comes to voter fraud or some of these things.
How do you answer that?
How do you answer the idea that there are people that worry that this law can make it harder
for some people to vote.
And I'm not talking about making it harder for illegal people to vote.
That obviously is wrong.
I hope I took care of that already.
But people that it's hard for them to vote that are already American citizens.
How do you respond to that?
Yeah.
So I mean, my response to that is you just have to take a look at the voting trends here
in the state.
So just a few months ago, we had one of the highest voter turnouts in 80th history.
In fact, in even places like the city of Milwaukee, 85% of the registered voters showed up to
vote.
And that was one of the arguments that we heard from some of my colleagues who represent
the city of Milwaukee event.
This is going to suppress the minority vote, which clearly that's not the case because
85% of the city of Milwaukee, they showed up to the polls.
And when you take a look too, and we heard this that this might even impact rural areas
where people don't have the ability.
There are townships, James here in central Wisconsin places like the town of Rome, where
90 over 95% of registered voters had voted early in the November election.
And put this in perspective, to vote early as in P, if you do it by mail, not only you
have to have a photo ID, you have to submit and send in a copy, a printed copy of your
ID to cast your ballot.
So we have set up a process.
Now, Grant, I was in the legislature when voter art is officially enacted, but they set
up a pathway at that time for people.
They need to get a government issued ID.
It's very simple.
It's very straightforward.
It is free to you.
Go to the DMV and I hope to get your vote ID.
So it is not that difficult.
And I would also argue that there is some sense of responsibility.
We all know, or at least we all should know, because I hear from everyone during the
height of campaign season, that everyone is sick and tired of the phone call, the text,
the commercials, the radio ads, the mailers, the social media posts, everyone gets bombarded.
We know when elections are coming.
So people are really serious about voting.
It is not that difficult to take some semblance of responsibility to go through the process
to make sure that you have the right documentation of voter ID.
And then from there, voting is a breach.
We have same-day voter registration.
It is very easy to do.
And again, it has been highlighted by folks on both sides of the aisle in the lead-up
to any major election that voting is an easy way to lay out the process, lay out information
to provide resources to people.
And so for me, for my standpoint, this law has been on the books for nearly 15 years
now.
I don't know of too many people who have ever had an issue, and it's been well-documented
now that statewide, the number of people who have run into not being able to cast their
ballot, it is a statistical anomaly as far top two, it has occurred.
I think that on another silver lining of this, too, one way or the other, this could also
help us see maybe some issues for voters that we didn't even know, or maybe how we can
help people be able to vote, make it more accessible.
I think there's a lot of other things that can come from this, too.
So there's plenty to talk about here, and I'm sure we will continue to talk about it in
future conversations.
The last minute or so we have, left, sir.
I wanted to ask you have any on-the-job series events coming up?
Well, I was actually supposed to have one on Monday.
I was going to be working with Ellis construction base here in Stevens Point, and we were going
to be on the job site over in the mall, however, and I'm not, I didn't lose a lot, because
of the health, what was those weeks, we had the reschedules, so they didn't allow the
workers to go out on the site that day, so we're actually trying to move up our, the
job series that's going to be held at the strike zone, the bowling alley in Tomah, so we're
trying to see if we can be moved up, the two, four on the January, maybe not so soon.
Okay, you're breaking up quite a bit on us here, sir, sorry about that, but we are wrapping
up anyway.
So we're looking forward to hearing about the on-the-job series, going to a bowling alley,
so there's a lot of fun.
I hope you're able to move that up a little bit.
If people have follow-up questions, want to reach you, how can they reach you?
If anyone wants to get a hold of me, go to my office, our number is 608-266-3123, drop
us an email at sen.my last name, testin at legis.wi.gov, follow us on social media, and
as always, if you see me out and about, feel free to stop me, pull me aside, and like I tell
everyone, you need to meet with me, I'm like an old school doctor, I make house calls.
We caught a break there, that was completely clear.
All of that, that was hurt, that was great, that was awesome.
Always good talking with you, sir, have a great weekend, safe travels out there, we'll talk
again next month.
I appreciate you, James.
Senator, Wisconsin State Senator Petra Testin joining us, appreciate the time from him as
always, we got a great conversation coming up for you.
Right here, I'm midday magazine, and 97-5 FM 13-20 AM, WFHR, we are locally grown radio.
