Transcript
President Trump Announces The End Of Mail-In Ballots (Hour 1)
The Todd Allbaugh Show · Mon Aug 18, 2025
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Good afternoon, everybody.
Todd Alma along with Mr. Aaron Zommers on the board.
It is six minutes past the hour of two o'clock on this Monday, August 18th, 2025.
Glad to have you along for the World Headquarters of Civic Media in downtown Madison, where it's a little wet.
Drizzly skies right now, some of the thunderstorms rolled through earlier, and I know checking from the weather radar parts of Wisconsin continue to receive wet weather today and will do so through the afternoon, at least parts of Wisconsin.
Some of those storms may be heavy rain and of course, much of Wisconsin, not most of Wisconsin, does not need that, especially our friends in the UK listing area in southeast Wisconsin.
Continue to keep it here.
We'll monitor the situation.
But, uh, yeah, it's, uh, been a wet weekend.
Stayed inside Aaron's armor as most of the weekend.
As I said, I would.
It was hippie movie and weekend, rummage sale, sleep
on the streets.
That's
it.
Sleepy Christmas in Madison this weekend.
Lots of the student, uh, uh, rent contracts agreements are up for 13th, 14th, 15th of August.
So as I said, I did not venture downtown this weekend.
Did you?
I did not know the most notable thing that happened to me is my roommate who's a Cubs fan was like, suck it.
You guys finally lost and we won.
You were only eight games behind.
I'm like, yeah, eight games.
And you know what?
I'm so sad that we had a record breaking 14 game win streak.
You know, you just can't win them all.
Right.
In case
you missed it, as Zommer's touched on there, the winning streak finally came to an end for the Brewers.
But what a weekend, Friday and Saturday.
Fantastic games.
We're going to hear the calls.
Another another.
Unsung, unknown hero, Andrew Monasterio, there we go, got a brain freeze for a second.
Andrew Monasterio was a three-run, home-run king on Saturday night, got the Brewers the win.
It was fantastic, but yeah, 14 was all the Brewers could muster, as if that's not something.
Long as
Winning Streak and Milwaukee Brewers franchise history.
So that was just a lot of fun.
They lost yesterday.
Maybe should have won it, but they they lost an extra innings yesterday to Cincinnati.
The Reds have not lost a series.
This are have been swept by a series, I should say this year.
Only team, I believe, a major league baseball to accomplish that brewers right now in the first game of a double header on many of our stations across the network or the brewers radio network, brewers down in shy town and take it on the cubbies.
And last check, I did not see a score, although I think my feed is a little bit behind, so I'll update that.
And I will give you the current score here just a minute.
Oh, the Brewers are up!
Brewers are up 1-0 in the bottom of the third.
So there you go.
We'll continue to monitor that.
The Brewers across the over-the-air signal.
We cannot stream them on the app, but over-the-air signal on many of these fine civic media stations.
So Brewers started off a five-game series in Chicago today.
Gonna go a long way as Zabra said brewers up eight right now on the Cubs and trying to make it nine by the end of this first game We shall see busy busy day glad to have you along with us lots to get to in hour number two gonna talk about Oil pipeline going through parts of northern, Wisconsin what that means to people up there and the entire state gonna be talking to some people from clean, Wisconsin in hour number two on that and coming up here at the bottom of this hour
going to be talking with one of the great reporters at Wisconsin Watch, Noe Goldhaver is going to be here.
And this is interesting headline budget deal, i.e.
the state budget deal deals 15 million dollars in earmarks for Robin Voss's district highlighting the politicization of Wisconsin's conservation funding.
So as you know,
One of the things I care a lot about conservation and the Knowles Nelson stewardship fund was not funded in this budget.
I believe for the first time Couldn't couldn't find the money for trillion dollar a surplus couldn't for couldn't find the money four billion sorry That'd be quite something four billion dollar surplus in the state budget and they couldn't find any money for the Knowles Nelson stewardship fund, but somehow
They found $15 million for Robin Voss's district.
We'll find out what's popping with Robin Voss at the bottom part of this hour.
Also, a little what's worse for you coming up here in hour number two as well.
So, and of course, your phone calls at 855-752-4842.
855-752-4842.
Oh, and this across the wires this morning.
News Maxi Pad.
Newsmax, you know that the the right wing or now remember Here a while back Fox News paid like 87 or almost a trillion or yeah 807 million almost almost a billion dollars right 800 and some million dollars Fox News paid out in a defamation lawsuit Because they lied about the 2020 election because they claimed it was rigged and all that turned out wasn't true
And this is the thing, when you go into court depositions under oath, where there's penalty of being jailed, if you're proven to be a liar, people tend to tell the truth.
And it turned out that Fox admitted, no, no, no, no, we're an entertainment company.
Hannity had to admit, no, no, no, I made that up just to get ratings.
And it wasn't true.
Well, here now, another right-wing news organization.
News maxi pad.
No, just news max.
I like that news maxi pad because there's a lot of stuff to clean up on that show if you're
not
wrong if you watch it news max is Now having to pay out their own settlement 67 million dollars to settle a lawsuit accusing it of Defaming a voting equipment company by spreading lies about President Donald Trump's 2020 election loss
So there you go.
Once again, when you get people in a court, in depositions, under oath, with penalty of being jailed, they tend to tell the truth.
they'd pay 67 million if they didn't.
But yeah, that turns out to be the case.
But here's where I want to start today.
And this was, I was going to start somewhere else.
There is another very serious story over the weekend in both the Wisconsin State Journal and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on the University of Wisconsin Athletic Department.
And hopefully we can get to that tomorrow because you guys know people that listen to this show, fewer, bigger Badger fans than me.
But it's really, this story is really important and it accuses the former Badger women's basketball coach.
Five former players now have joined the lawsuit against
Coach Mosley for verbal abuse and creating bad mental health conditions.
And also, I believe the former assistant athletic director, Justin Daugherty, is accused in this lawsuit as well.
Really serious stuff.
And we're going to get to that, like I say, tomorrow.
But breaking news here the last hour and a half or so, I want to get to this.
There was a.
press conference this morning in the White House of Washington, DC, the Oval Office, President Donald Trump, along with Vladimir Zelensky, the president of Ukraine.
As you might recall, the last White House meeting between the two did not go great.
Lots of consternation and conflict.
Donald Trump met with Russian president Putin on Friday in Alaska to negotiate the end of the war against Ukraine.
Essentially, it was a big nothing burger.
Really, nothing came out of that meeting except embarrassment and oh by the way, Trump administration officials left classified meeting notes on a HP printer in one of the hotel rooms.
can't make it up.
So there's that.
But really, I mean, it was just an embarrassment for American foreign policy.
It gave Trump a Putin legitimacy.
It was a terrible look to the United States in the world environment.
So anyway,
Trump decided to invite Zelensky to the White House today.
And by the way, other European leaders.
So this time is not just Zelensky.
The other leaders were not in the Oval Office for this dog and pony show.
But I think the UK, Germany, other France, other leaders are here as well.
I watched on CBS.
The special report and I watched the post game shows, we might say, with the CBS pundits afterwards.
And this is not a knock on those people because executives are the ones that control this stuff.
Producers at that level.
And all they focused on was again, largely the nothing burger on Ukraine in this meeting.
The real news that came out of this was what Donald Trump said about elections in the United States of America.
He started off when.
Zelensky was asked, will you commit to holding elections in Ukraine?
And Zelensky said, absolutely.
As soon as we end the war, we'll have elections, free, fair elections, because you can't have a war or you can't have an election that's legitimate if a large portion of your country isn't able to vote because they are being threatened by being killed, which prompted Donald Trump to jump in.
Here's what Trump said a little while ago in the Oval Office about elections in the United States of America in 2028.
tried to make a joke out of it.
So when Zelensky said, look, we can't have elections right now because we're in the middle of a war, and a lot of our citizens wouldn't be able to vote.
So it wouldn't be a legitimate election if you can't have everybody this eligible vote.
Trump used the moment to say, oh, wait a minute, hold on.
So what you're saying there, if you're at war, you can't have, so you're saying in three years, if we're into something here, we won't be able to have elections.
Good.
He said good.
And then looked out and said, well, how about the press?
We'll have a heyday with that or something.
Because he felt he had to.
I have been talking about this on this program for months, all the way back into last year's elections.
I believe, Zalmers keep me honest, that I said if this guy gets a second term, he will do everything he can not to have free and fair elections in this country in order to stay in power.
And a lot of people laughed his off instead of you being extreme.
He's just saying things.
He's not really serious.
We've seen this playbook before on other issues.
Donald Trump tries to make a joke about something.
that it becomes kind of serious, that it becomes very serious, and that he doesn't.
The fact that the sitting president of the United States in the Oval Office in front of a nationally televised special report would suggest that he is not committed to holding free and fair elections in 2028 is startling and shocking.
And the fact that he
I've been saying this for a long time that that his goal is to have this set up whether I ran who knows He wants to have some sort of conflict ready to go So that he can say wait a minute all those Democrats who supported Zelensky and You agreed with him that you can't have elections if you're at war.
Well, we can't have elections now Which of course is ludicrous
If you look back at all the wars and conflicts this country has been in, we have been able to maintain and continue elections even during wartime.
Significant to note that other than the Civil War and the attack on Pearl Harbor, none of those wars have been fought on US soil.
We're gonna come back because Trump did not stop there.
In fact, something even more concerning, in my opinion, and it could have an effect right here in Wisconsin in the 2026 election.
Well, here in Trump's own words, don't go anywhere.
It's the Todd Allball Show on the Civic Media.
Ready to know.
Pursuing truth wherever it may lead and having fun doing it.
Welcome back to the title ball show on the Civic Media Ready Network 22 now past the hour of two o'clock on Monday, August 18th.
Coming up after the bottom of the hour, Wisconsin Watch reporter, Noe Goldhaber is in with a great story from Wisconsin Watch today.
Several conservation projects got vetoed by Governor Tony Evers in the last state budget.
because it earmarked certain projects, but it did not fund the Knowles Nelson bipartisan stewardship fund, which of course has been one of the pet projects of former Republican governor Tony or a Republican governor Tommy Thompson and Democratic governor Jim Doyle for years.
But Republicans did not want to fund it.
And Evers, though, did let.
15 million dollars in projects go through earmarks ie pork for Robin Voss We'll discuss that after the bottom of the hour Right now talking about the press conference this morning the presser the gaggle if you will of national media in the Oval Office president Donald Trump Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and Trump ready the news was not really Ukraine
The news coming down that meeting was one Trump trying to make a joke Saying that hey, you know if Ukraine if you're saying Ukraine can't hold elections because they're at war Hey, what if we were at war in 2028?
I guess we wouldn't be able to hold elections and then he said good And then so all let's see what the press does with this Remember Trump's pattern he jokes about it then it's serious then he does it
More concerning to me is what he said next.
Announcing a new executive order.
And remember, before we listen to this, remember, current Wisconsin Republican Party chairperson, chairman Brian Arthur Schimming, made mail in early voting a key foundation of the Wisconsin Republican Party election strategy last time around.
And I applauded him for it.
Hey, I want every eligible United States citizen to vote, and I think it should be made easier to legally vote.
And so I thought, hey, you know what?
That's great, good on shimming and good on Republicans for encouraging more people to vote and for using mail and ballotine, which is 100% legal.
Here now, the current president of the United States, Republican Donald Trump, from the Oval Office this
morning.
And we, as a Republican Party, are going to do everything possible that we get rid of mail-in ballots.
We're going to start with an executive order that's being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail-in ballots because they're corrupt.
And you know that we're the only country in the world, I believe, I may be wrong, but just about the only country in the world that uses it.
because of what's happened.
Massive fraud all over the place.
The other thing we want change are the machines.
For all of the money they spend, it's approximately 10 times more expensive than paper ballots.
And paper ballots are very sophisticated with the watermark paper and everything else.
We would get secure elections.
We'd get much faster results.
The machines, I mean, they say, we're going to have the results in two weeks.
With paper ballots, you have the results that night.
Most people almost have, but most people, many countries use paper ballots.
It's the most secure form.
Donald Trump announced that he is going to sign an executive order banning mail-in voting in the United States of America.
He says, quote, you can never have a democracy with mail-in ballots, unquote.
That's false because eliminating mail-in ballots excludes veterans serving overseas, military serving overseas, should say.
The elderly and disabled.
Who can't get there who have to do mail and ballot they can't participate in democracy Trump also says quote with paper ballots you get the results that night unquote false It would take weeks or months to add up all the results and Trump says quote we're the only country country in the world that uses them unquote false 22 countries in this in the world use mail and ballots immediately after he said this
Republican Brian Stile, chair of the House Administration Committee, which oversees federal elections from Wisconsin.
After President Trump said he wants to get rid of mail-in ballots and highly inaccurate, very expensive, and seriously controversial voting machines, on quote, Congressman Stile tweeted, quote,
to address concerns and maintain the integrity of our elections."
Brian Stiles bought in hook, line, and sinker to the corruption of suppressing the vote and stealing America's elections.
I want to get to this last cut here quickly.
Here's Trump on saying ending mail-in ballots is more important to him than redistricting.
Donald Trump admitted it out loud that, hey, if you don't have mail-in ballots, it's going to be pretty hard for Democrats to get elected.
Why?
Because people who vote Democratic tend to use mail-in balloting early voting more.
And that's why the chairperson, the chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party, Brian Arthur Schimming, got smart.
And he said, wait a minute, if we want to compete with Democrats in Wisconsin, we have to up our early mail-in voting.
And he made a real concerted effort to do that, and I applaud him.
Now his own president is calling that practice corrupt and saying that he will sign an executive order to end the practice.
Democracy has never been more at risk, my friends, than now.
Come back, take a couple of your phone calls.
Do not hang up.
We see you on the lines.
Then talk a little bit about what's popping with Robin Voss.
It's the Todd Able Show for the World Headquarters of Civic Media on the Civic Media.
Ready now pursuing truth wherever it may lead and having fun doing it Welcome back the towel ball show on the civic media ready network.
It is Monday, August 18 35 now past the hour of two o'clock live to have you along zombers on the board Gonna find out what's happening with what's popping with Robin Voss here in a minute very interesting news the state level
and was Governor Evers complicit in it.
We will find out from Wisconsin.
Watch it just a minute, but I want to finish this up because this is really important and breaking late this morning, early afternoon, meeting in the Oval Office, Donald Trump with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The premise was this meeting they're having this afternoon with European leaders on trying to find a peace solution in Ukraine.
after Trump's basic grandstanding meeting in Alaska on Friday with Putin.
But the real news, in my opinion, coming out of this meeting was a Donald Trump making seemingly trying to pawn it off as a joke about not having elections in 2028 if the United States were involved in a war like Ukraine is in an actual war.
Zelensky saying, sure, I'm all for elections, but we have to have peace first.
So Trump tried to use that to telegraph that, hey, you know, if we're in a war in 2028, we don't have elections.
And then said, quote, good, unquote.
Then he went on to say, we played the cup before the break.
Trump did.
Then he is going, he's working on and plans to sign an executive order ending mail-in balloting in this country and saying, well, if you don't have mail-in balloting, it makes it pretty hard for Democrats to win.
Which of course if you don't have mail and balloting Makes it also hard for people in nursing homes elderly people use mail and balloting absentee balloting also makes it hard for active duty military Stationed overseas also makes it hard for college students a lot of other folks
855-752-4842, 855-752-4842.
By the way, Trump also said this issue ending mail embaloting is more important than redistricting for both he and the Republican Party.
Let's go quickly if we can, ask our callers who have been patiently waiting to hold, to make it brief as we can, because I want to get to this story on Robin Voss.
We start up in Chippewa Falls area in Eau Claire on WCFW, the tap.
Gene in Eau Claire.
Gene, thanks for calling.
We'll see.
important.
Thank you for sharing.
DJT is the and followers, Republicans are the weapons of mass deception and destruction of our democracy in America.
And people need to wake up and thank you very much.
Great job.
Bye.
Thanks, Gina.
I appreciate it.
855-7524842.
Let's go to Joe listening in in Madison on WMDX.
Joe, thanks for holding.
We'll see you.
Important to note that Trump raised this idea of an end to mail-in balloting after having this conversation with Putin up in Anchorage, claiming that Putin said that questioned the accuracy and security of mail-in ballots.
Note also that Russia allows mail-in balloting.
So pretty comical that his dear pal is offering him instructions on how we should run
our elections.
Who better than Putin to give information on our elections?
Thanks.
Thanks, Joe.
Really important point.
I appreciate that.
At the end, it's absolutely right that Putin did bring this up in Alaska.
And apparently, Trump got his marching orders.
Also important to note, as we did before the break, Wisconsin Congress from Brian Stile, who is the chair of the House Administration Committee, which oversees federal elections, tweeted out after Trump said this,
His agreement his commitment to support President Trump and according to the Tennessee Holler a great publication online US senator Marsha Blackburn From Tennessee tweeted the following quote on us fair elections or the bedrock of our democracy I stand with President Trump and ensuring our elections have integrity on quote and she retweeted his truth social post in which he basically said everything that he said in the press conference to get rid of male imbality
Also important to remember that Wisconsin Republican Party chairman Brian Arthur shimming Committed just last year To doing more mail-in voting saying that was the way forward Be interesting and I invited him on today's show and all sincerity So we give him time have not heard back yet.
Let's go quickly to Charles in Milwaukee at WMD at UK Charles.
Thanks for holding.
Let's say you
Hey
Joe stole my thunder because, yeah, he got that idea from Putin about the mail-in voting.
And all of a sudden, he's running with it.
I don't understand.
I don't understand these other politicians that know that it's not true, that there is no cheating with mail-in voting.
But I guess they're very so scared of him that they'll bend the knees.
whenever it suits them to try to keep the power.
It's all about staying in power and putting other people down.
And I'll never understand that about this country.
Appreciate the call.
Appreciate listening, Charles.
Thank you so very much.
The rest of the folks will try to get to you in hour two right now.
It's 20 minutes before the hour of three o'clock.
Time once again for What's Poppin' with Robin
Voss.
Time once again for our ongoing recurring segment, What's Poppin' with Robin Voss.
Glad to have you along, everybody, and glad to have you along with our great reporters from Wisconsin Watch joining me here at the table in our Madison World Headquarters Studios.
Noe Goldhaber from Wisconsin Watch.
Noe, thanks for standing by a couple of minutes there for breaking news.
How you been?
Gotta hope you been
doing absolutely excellent.
Thank you very much The Brewers are still up last I checked my score of 1-0 the Cubs so if the Brewers can pull this first game off.
I'll be even happier Let's get to this really important story of yours Speaking of breaking news headline
In today's Wisconsin Watch, you can find all of Noe's work and others at WisconsinWatch.org.
That's WisconsinWatch.org.
Headline, budget deals, 15 million in earmarks for Robin Boss's district highlight the politicization of Wisconsin's conservative or conservation funding.
So tell us a little bit.
Yeah.
I'm just going to read a couple of the lines here and then let you get into it from your story.
It says, after Republican legislators declined to reauthorize the Knowles Nelson Stewardship Fund in the state budget, Democratic Governor Tony Evers vetoed five natural resources projects criticizing the legislature for choosing, quote, to benefit the politically connected few, unquote, instead of supporting stewardship throughout the state or through the statewide fund.
However, jumping down the next paragraph, you write.
Evers didn't veto other natural resource projects, including two totaling 15 million in Assembly Speaker Robin Voss's district in southeastern Wisconsin-Western Racine.
Asked why Evers spared those projects, his spokesperson, Brick Cutterback, refused.
or probably referred Wisconsin launch without specifics to the agreement between Evers and the legislative leadership that cemented the 111 billion dollar two-year budget.
It's interesting to me that when the governor's office wants something to be known, they're very chatty and Brick Cutterback loves to talk to the press, but when they're asked pointing questions by good reporters, they don't have a lot to say.
Yeah, I mean, I think she
The only two natural resources projects that were in the state budget agreement were both in Voss's district.
So I think that, you know, she directed us to the information that kind of got us our answered our questions, but didn't provide specifics on like what went down on negotiations or why that might have been the case.
I mean, from your, and this is a great reporting, by the way, kudos to you.
Thanks.
You're very welcome.
And I applaud the governor for saying we're not doing a bunch of earmarks here because I said this at the top of the show.
Explain to folks a little bit if you
want
the Noel Nelson stewardship fund first.
Let's set that as the base.
What is that?
And it's been bipartisan.
Yeah, it's been bipartisan and it's been in Wisconsin politics for a long time.
I think it started in 1989.
Um, so like over 30 years that this program has existed in the state and it allows like government funding and bonding to be used to purchase state lands for recreation, um, for stewardship nonprofits to be able to get grants to do that.
And yeah, so it's just, um,
a longstanding and I would say like pulling indicates pretty popular program in the state that allows our state land to be preserved.
And what was it was interesting is in 1989, of course, you're what much younger, Governor Tommy Thompson governor at the time.
And this is a pet project of his.
We've had Tia Nelson on this program, the daughter of former governor and U. S. Senator Gaylord Nelson.
And she has lauded the former Republican governor and said, look, this was really important to Tommy.
This
is really important to Jim Doyle, former Democratic governor, and also Republicans and Democrats in the state legislature.
Yeah, totally.
For did you get any indication in your reporting, Noe, on who killed the funding for Knowles Nelson Stewardship Fund in this budget?
It's unclear.
I don't have a concrete answer on what that might.
looked like.
I do think it is somewhat notable that the two JFC vice chairs are the ones who introduced the legislation to reauthorize Noles Nelson.
So there is a separate bill proposal to reauthorize Noles Nelson and kind of the fall legislative session, even though it didn't come out of the state budget.
So Republicans are saying like it wasn't one of the things that we were able to accomplish through the state budget, but we're still committed to doing it in a maybe different capacity that it's been in the past because of the state Supreme Court decision.
which I get into a little bit in the article.
By the way, we were talking to a Noe Goldhaber from WisconsinWatch on our great work here article in WisconsinWatch.org on the fact that the Noel Nelson Stewardship Fund was not funded in the state budget.
Governor Evers vetoed out earmarks, but yet there's a major earmark specifically for Robin Voss' district.
Get into that a little bit more.
We have a couple of minutes here before the break and then we'll go on.
Sure, so the earmarks and yeah,
exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So there are two different projects in bosses district.
Um, one is the echo Lake dam.
Um, it's a.
dam that's in a 500 year floodplain and I guess a few years ago officials in Burlington were thinking about taking out the dam so it just needs the dam itself needs some upgrades it's also on a lake that you know needs some changes as well and then there's also a dredging project in boss's district as well that received five million dollars so that's still like get rid of sediment that's impacting
I guess like recreation and stuff like that, total of $15 million in the district for these projects.
And look, I'm a big pro conservation person.
I don't know the specifics about these projects.
You just laid it out here verbally.
You put it in your great piece.
I'll take representative Voss and anybody else after word.
These might well be good projects to fund.
My interest is.
Why is it that Speaker Voss's projects are the only ones that got approved and not the NOLS Nelson Stewardship Fund, which would have addressed conservation throughout the state?
Yeah, and the article goes into this a little bit, but there's kind of a system of which projects are assessed through NOLS Nelson.
How close is it to a city center?
Because public recreation is an important aspect of that fund.
I'm forgetting all the other criteria, but potential ecological benefits, things of that sort.
So the DNR has a scoring system they use to evaluate different projects across the state and figure out which ones would be the best.
spent money for the state government.
And so that's kind of the process that Knowles Nelson uses.
And obviously, earmarks are a different kind of form of that.
Well, you start this now, and I want to come back to something that I messed up earlier.
It's my fault.
This state Supreme Court decision complicating this reauthorization for the Knowles Nelson.
Explain that.
And if we don't have time to finish it, we'll finish it on the other side.
Go ahead.
OK, for sure.
So the state Supreme Court made a decision not
this previous July but the July before.
There used to be this system where legislators on JFC could anonymously block projects that were approved for Knowles Nelson funding.
There's a big Wisconsin Watch story about that in our past archives.
the state supreme court said that that was like infringing on the approval.
Okay.
That's fine.
Well, well, with my fault, I asked the question too close to the music scene.
Welcome back.
This is really important.
And I think it just shows the fairness in your reporting.
Come back, talk to a golden, uh, no, he go golden neighbor from Wisconsin.
Watch after this, you're listening to a Monday edition of the all ball show on the civic media.
Ready to.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
Welcome back to the title ball show on the civic media ready that work it is eight minutes before the hour of three o'clock The top of the hour news weather sports for you Mike Clemens monitoring the Brewers game at last check They were still ahead of the Cubs down in Chicago the first game of a double header 1-0.
We'll continue to check on that now
now to his armor says fantastic Brewers up on the Cubs to nothing Clemens will be following that for us all the other sports that an hour to a what's worse for you
and then talk about a little pipeline up in the northern Wisconsin of the details on that full hour too.
But right now we're honored to be joined here in studio at the desk by Wisconsin watches.
Noe Goldhaber, a great story in today's Wisconsin watch dot org dial it up on the internet, Wisconsin watch dot org.
Great story here, Noe, on the fact that in the latest state budget, there was a 15 million dollar earmark.
for conservation specifically in Republican Speaker Robin Voss's district.
However, the bipartisan Noel Nelson stewardship fund started in part by former Republican Governor Tommy Thompson.
Zero funding for that.
And the governor vetoed other earmarks or pork, as we used to call it, for other districts on conservation.
But but Voss has stayed in there.
And again, I really applaud you and Wisconsin Watch for doing honest, balanced, fair reporting, because I think this is an important detail.
A state Supreme Court decision complicated the reauthorization of the Knowles Nelson stewardship.
I cut you off there, go on to the break.
Explain that please for our listeners, because this is really important.
Yeah, totally.
So there was a state Supreme Court decision a little over a year ago that basically made it so that the system in which
if Noel's Nelson funding was approved through the DNR.
So like they said, you know, this district or this project will get $1 million.
Legislators on the joint finance committee could block it and get rid of it anonymously.
So they didn't, it wasn't clear even who blocked the project or why.
And the state supreme court ruled against that and said that that was like legislative overreach.
If it was already approved funding through the budget to have that funding out there, that legislators
could not veto and use the anonymous pocket veto in that way.
So yeah.
So
joint finance, correct me if I'm wrong, but the Republican members of the joint finance committee are using that decision and saying.
that that that precluded them from including the funding for Knowles Nelson in this budget or do I have that wrong?
I mostly correct.
I think they were saying that they're supportive of Knowles Nelson and what it's done across the state, but that it's kind of given them trust issues because there's less oversight now from legislators over where that's funding is going to be dispersed because the mechanism that that previously was under.
I guess it's
illegal.
And of course, I would say to my former party, that's the way it was before and we didn't have a problem with it.
So I don't understand their apprehension now, but I know you're not here to defend them, but that's just my take to them.
And in fairness, Republicans, at least many of them on joint finance have said to your point earlier that they want to look at separate funding and a separate bill for Noel Nelson this fall.
Yeah.
Representative Kurtz and Senator Tustin have introduced legislation to reauthorize Nelson.
So, yeah, it's something that even though it didn't happen in the state budget, which has been the precedent for the last 30 plus years, they've, you know, being Republicans in the majority party have said, you know, we want to do this.
We just are going to address it later.
What it looked like to me from the outsider, doesn't work as a building anymore.
What it looks like to the average person is that this was kind of, hey, Robin, from the governor, what's it going to take to let you pass this?
Why don't I give you $15 million for your district?
It looks like a payoff or at least an approval from the governor in order to get an agreement on this budget.
Yeah, I mean, it's hard to say what exactly or why it was.
those funds were included.
It definitely was asked to both Lawson's office and the governors, but I don't have any greater answer as to why only those funds were included and not others.
As a former political who ran elections, I can tell you, when you get these kind of details, it is not surprising nor unexpected that the governor would not run for a third term when you find out things like this.
Let's go to this finally here.
Some of the people in your story are calling the current situation of no funding for Knowles Nelson currently, quote,
unprecedented.
Yeah.
So the funding expires at the end of next June.
So there's still a little bit of time.
And I think that was part of the reason they also said that they weren't going to reauthorize it in this budget.
They have time to address it in the fall if they choose to pass.
budget, but yeah, so they have, we haven't come out of a budget cycle previously without reauthorizing Knowles Nelson when it's funding was set to expire.
So it is uncharted territory and because, you know, nonprofits, local governments are trying to plan projects and Knowles Nelson is a big funding piece in that project.
they don't know whether to be able to plan and rely on that funding because it's not set in stone that that's something that's going to be renewed come the fall.
So I think, yeah, I think for like planning purposes and conservation projects in the state, it's kind of has jumbled the landscape a little bit.
Yeah, no doubt.
And like we said, private business and some of these things do affect private business or in public.
the uncertainty.
It was so difficult for people who actually are trying to work on conservation projects, whether it's a boat dock or a scrape for a water project, whatever it is.
So we'll continue to be watching that.
Noe, what did I not ask you in a minute that we have left that's important about this story?
It's like the classic journalist ending question.
I feel like we hit all of the main points of the story.
I think it is important to note that like they do have time.
This is going to be a major issue that legislators are going to look to towards in the fall.
And also that as people are running for reelection in the next cycle, it's going to be, did you vote to reauthorize Nelson?
So I think this is definitely like an issue that we're going to see continuing.
And yeah.
I think that's a great point because people thought well all the excitement is over the capital now that the budget is passed We got some ahead and politically here after Labor Day when people actually come back to the building
Right.
Definitely.
Again, congrats.
Great reporting at WisconsinWatch.org.
That's WisconsinWatch.org.
Noe Goldhaber.
Thank you very much for your
reporting.
Thank you so much for having me.
Our pleasure.
Thanks for coming in.
Always great to have you folks here and encourage everyone to go to WisconsinWatch.org to look at Noe's work and everyone else's as well.
Come on back for hour number two, a little what's worse for you on the other side.
And then some talking about northern Wisconsin's pipeline, what crude oil may be going through or what it means to Wisconsin.
Don't go anywhere.
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