Hey Matt Rothschild here, host of the Wisconsin Ford Podcast all across the Civic Media
Radio Network and at civicmedia.us.
For the next several episodes of the Wisconsin Ford Podcast, I'm going to be interviewing
Democratic candidates for governor.
Well now I'm joined by Lieutenant Governor Sarah Rodriguez who's running for governor.
Welcome to the Wisconsin Ford Podcast Lieutenant Governor.
Thank you for having me.
It's a real pleasure to have you right here in the studio and to give you an opportunity
to tell people who are listening to this podcast why you're running for governor.
Why don't we start there?
Great question.
So I have been a nurse for most of my career.
I've been in health care.
It's really honestly what I thought I was going to do.
Politics was not part of the plan but I saw something broken and decided that I wanted
to run for office because I wanted to have a bigger microphone to make sure that Wisconsin
ites had somebody who was going to be looking out for them.
So I've been in the assembly and now I have been Lieutenant Governor working alongside
Governor Evers and I am able to visit all 72 counties.
Every year I've been Lieutenant Governor that's what I've done because I strongly believe
you can't lead if you don't listen.
What I am hearing from people all across the state is that they are doing everything right.
They're one job, two jobs, but they still can't make ends meet.
And whether that is accessible affordable health care, whether that's the cost of housing
which is absolutely out of control, particularly here we're in Madison right now, the cost
of childcare.
And if you can even find it and get yourself off the waiting list, we continue to vote to
increase our own property taxes to be able to fund the operations of our public schools.
That is broken.
And we have to make sure we're raising wages in the state and one of the ways we can
do that is to make sure that our unions have bargaining rights and that will raise wages
for all across the state.
You mentioned you were a nurse, my wife's a pediatric nurse practitioner and I retired
but I wanted to ask you how watching what RFK juniors doing it in Trump's cabinet is
hitting you and hitting the people of Wisconsin and what you could do as governor protect
public health here.
It is heartbreaking to me to see him ruin the DHS ruin the CDC.
I worked for the CDC.
I was an epidemic intelligence service officer there.
I did outbreak investigations nationally, internationally.
It's one of the reasons why I ran for assembly.
I ran for assembly during COVID and it was so frustrating to see the misinformation,
the disinformation coming out of the assembly and the Senate and they did not meet for
eight months when we needed leadership and it's one of the reasons why I ran and the type
of rhetoric that is coming out of the CDC right now is dangerous.
And it's going to hurt real people.
We already have difficulty talking to parents about making sure their kids are immunized
and that is one of the biggest public health successes we have ever had in the history of
health care and for him to come out and lead with conspiracy theories as opposed to facts
and science is so frustrating to me.
So being governor and somebody who is a public health expert, I think I can use that the
governor's office to talk about these things to folks to say, you know, we want to make
sure you're healthy.
We want to make sure we use science and data, make to make decisions and we can work with
other states.
If the CDC is not going to lead, then the states are going to have to lead on these things.
And what would that look like?
I know there are a bunch of states trying to get together who are seeing what terrible things
RFK juniors doing.
How would you coordinate that?
So one of the things that we always relied on for the federal government is guidelines.
So that's guidelines for immunizations, guidelines for clinical care.
And if we're not able to rely on that, we're going to have to work with other states to
create our own guidelines of what it means to have the proper immunization schedule.
What it means to make sure the kids get the preventive care that they need to make sure
that they're safe.
So working with professional organizations, working with other states to create those
guidelines so that we don't have to rely on the federal government if they're not going
to use science in fact as their basis.
How do you talk to people you said you were at the CDC during COVID?
How do you talk to people who, you know, to this day deny that COVID was happening?
I mean, there were people dying in their hospital bed on a ventilator who were still denying
to their last breath that they had COVID.
How do you counter misinformation, health wise, and then politically too?
So, you know, as a nurse, we're always taught that if we pepper people with facts and figures
that that's not the best way to have a conversation.
The best way to have a conversation is to lead with empathy and to be able to have that
conversation to people to say, well, where are you getting this information?
Help me to understand what concerns you about this.
And then asking permission to say, are you okay if I, if I talked to you a little bit
about where I'm coming from and where I get my information from as a nurse,
as somebody who's worked in public health for a long time, talking about how I just got my
shingles vaccine.
So if I'm, you know, know a lot about public health and I know a lot about immunizations,
I am 100% comfortable getting vaccinations for myself and my kids and leading by example.
And then how do you lead with empathy politically when someone doesn't agree with your comes
from a different space?
So when I was in the assembly, I, I flipped a red district blue and I'm the only one in
the governor's field right now on the Democratic side who's, who's been able to do that.
How'd you do that?
So I live in Waukesha County and I was, I am active in my community.
I was my daughter's Girl Scout leader.
I volunteer for the Humane Society.
I show up at the PTO meetings and being involved in the community means that people know who
I am.
And whatever they were trying to paint me as within Waukesha County, the people of Waukesha
knew that that wasn't what Sarah was like.
And having those conversations, knocking on doors, talking to people, those are the kind
of things that I enjoy doing and I'm planning on doing as running for governor.
We're doing listening sessions in all 72 counties all across the state in this primary.
Because I, you know, all politics is local and all those needs are local and we need to
be able to, to listen to folks.
But when I was in the assembly, if I got calls from some of my Republican constituents,
I always called them back, always, personally called them back, did not have a staff member
do it.
I personally called them back to be able to hear and listen to what their concerns were.
And so because I think I, good ideas can come from a whole lot of different places and
it was a way for me to have a discussion with the constituent so that we understood where
each person was coming from.
We didn't always agree at the end of that phone call at all.
But at least we had a general understanding of where we were coming from.
You know, there's a big discussion within the Democratic Party.
Do you try to convince those people who are not identified as Democrats or independents
or the vanishing species of moderate Republicans?
Or do you just try to get the base out?
Where are you on that?
It's not an or, it's an ant, right?
We have to make sure that we are meeting our, our Democrats where they are.
And what I'm hearing from people is that they want somebody who's going to fight for
them.
They want somebody who's going to stand up to Donald Trump.
They want somebody who's going to be strong in the face of what Trump is doing.
And I am willing to do that, to use that bully pulpit of the governor's office to make
sure that Wisconsin values are adhered to and that we are not allowing Trump to come
into the state and do things that we know Wisconsinites don't want.
We also have to make sure we're doing outreach all across the state.
We have a enormous group of people who don't vote at all.
And so how do we make sure we are speaking to their needs, that they know that their voice
matters, and that if they come and they vote, they could, they could change the course
of the election.
When I flipped my district, it was just a little over 1% is what I got.
Every vote matters.
And I will leave no county untouched, no door unknocked.
I am going to be talking to people all across the state, making the argument as to why I
want to be able to lead this state because I want to make an actual difference in people's
lives.
So, and what that looks like is addressing the cost of housing, making sure we have starter
homes in the state.
If the average age for a first time home buyer now is 40 years old, I have a 19 year old
son.
Like I wanted to be able to stay here, build a life here, have a family here.
He's not going to be able to do that if he can't afford a home.
And we're looking at, you know, child care, how do we make this affordable for people?
There are a couple other states that have been able to put out some really good policy
that allows child care to be treated like infrastructure, which it is.
These are the kind of things that I want to do right away as governor to make sure that
we actually make a difference in people's lives in their pocketbooks and in the quality
of life they have here in Wisconsin.
You mentioned starter homes.
Explain that a little bit.
How would you increase the supply of homes, I guess?
So, one of the things, if you look at, you know, Milwaukee, and you say like the average
salary of Milwaukee is around 50, $55,000 a year in terms of what people can afford, you're
looking at homes around $100,000, $150,000, those don't exist really within the state.
And so, how do we align, and this is what I want to be able to do as governor, is have
a statewide strategic plan for housing, because each part of the state is a little different.
We want to align policy, so, you know, what we're doing administratively with policy and
the legislative body, the administrative rules of how you build, and then the funding.
All three of those things need to be aligned.
And right now, those three things are sitting in different buckets.
So, how do we make sure that we're aligning all of those three things, and that's what
I want to do as governor, is to have somebody who is looking at that holistically and working
to make sure we can move that strategic plan forward and building smaller homes.
We have smaller families now, building smaller homes that don't cost as much, and being able
to, you know, work with a lot of these organizations that are doing fantastic work today to be able
to make homes affordable, and make that part of a larger strategic plan.
You mentioned before standing up to Trump, which, you know, I think a lot of us on the progressive
side want to see happen, because we're so scared of Trump and his authoritarianism.
If you were governor, you know, what would you do if Trump says, you know, I want to Wisconsin
National Guard to be mobilized against these protesters or sent to Portland, Oregon,
for God's sake.
Yeah.
I will a channel governor Evers and say, no, that's what he said last time when Trump asked
him to claw back the snap benefits or the food share benefits.
He said, no, no is a complete response.
And I would not allow him to federalize the National Guard against peaceful protesters,
you know, and I would not allow him to move that National Guard into other states.
And what I want to be clear about too is that, you know, there seems to be, when we're
looking, you know, with the news online, some serious abuses that are happening with immigration.
And they may feel like they have immunity from the federal government.
They may feel that there will be no consequences to what they're doing.
But as governor Pritzker has said in Illinois, he can't he can't pardon you for state charges.
So if you break Wisconsin state law with what you're doing, we're going to make sure that
you're held accountable.
So what does that mean?
I mean, you have ice coming into Wisconsin right now and in some counties and cities.
If they're violating people's civil rights, you would have the state police, you'd have
the local police, you'd have the DA's or the attorney general prosecute them.
Yeah.
If they're violating state law, they're violating state law.
And so we want to make sure that we're, you know, that they absolutely apply the Wisconsin
state law and what they're doing.
We know that they're able to do some immigration enforcement.
But violating civil rights is not something that they are allowed to do.
Making sure that they're not masked and they're easily identified.
That's really scary to me.
And I want and I want to say this is personal for me.
My husband is a naturally citizen, he's an immigrant from Mexico.
And when Trump won this second time, I told him to keep his passport card in his wallet.
I'm the lieutenant governor of the state of Wisconsin.
I have an enormous microphone.
If I was worried about that, I cannot imagine how scared families are here in Wisconsin.
And we need to make sure we are standing up for those families.
I mean, according to US Supreme Court, your husband, because of the way he looks, could
be thrown into a van.
Yes.
That is so scary.
I mean, and again, he went to college in Mexico.
His English is perfect, but it's accident, just like I speak Spanish and my Spanish is
a little Midwestern accent at actually.
You know, that's very nervous to me.
I speak Spanish.
My husband, of course, clearly, it's his native language.
My kids speak Spanish.
So what if we're in the grocery store and having a conversation?
And that's totally okay for them to come up to us and arrest us.
It's unacceptable.
Yeah.
It's quite a country we're living in now, and that's how we'd be here.
You ran, you said it in Waukesha, and correctly flipped that district one of the issues you
ran on then was banning Jerry Mandering.
Yeah.
I'm wondering, this was a tough one for a lot of people.
And Governor Newsom, for instance, and the people of California, just go ahead and
Jerry Mandered his silence of the voices of Republicans.
So the broader issue here is that we should have national legislation for fair maps.
We should.
I want to make sure that we have fair maps all across Wisconsin where our voices are
accounted, and we need a permanent process for that.
We can't rely on the Supreme Court, or the whims of what happens when somebody else
has been elected in the state.
What I see Governor Newsom doing is a response to Texas, and it is a temporary response
to Texas.
So basically, if Texas didn't do what they did, California wouldn't have done what they're
doing.
They have a fair map process.
They will go back to that, but we cannot be fighting with one arm tied behind our back.
We can't be the ones that are always following the rules and the norms when others are not.
So that's what I see Governor Newsom doing.
You talk about a permanent fix for Jerry Mandering, is that a legislation or is that a constitutional
amendment?
What do you see?
We can have legislation for a nonpartisan group that would draw those maps.
That is what we could do within the state.
What about the issue of money and politics?
I know Walker destroyed any semblance of having a limit on what super rich people can give
in our elections here in Wisconsin.
They tore down the limits of donations to political parties.
So the sky is the limit.
If you're a rich person, you can give unlimited amounts of parties.
You can give unlimited amounts to independent expenditure groups.
I mean, it's just crazy that the super wealthy have so much influence on our elections.
What would you do as Governor to try to fix that?
So I would love to be able to claw some of that back, put some of the toothpaste back
in the tube, but it has to be unequal footing.
We also have national legislation that makes it really difficult.
Citizens united is something that needs to be overturned.
We have to make sure we're on equal playing fields.
So we can't have, again, the Democrats playing by the rules and not getting in some of these
larger donations and the Republicans having unlimited amounts of money to be able to spend.
So I would love it.
I am not an independent billionaire myself.
And it's challenging to run for office when you're running against people like that that
have unlimited money to be able to do this.
And so trying to put some election reform within the legislative process, I think, is something
that I'd be willing to look at and do.
And I was looking at your website.
I saw a lot of issues you've talked about, you know, healthcare, housing, childcare
and schools.
You had this one sentence that I was curious about.
You said, small business owners are sidelined by culture war politics.
Just was curious about what you meant there.
So what I meant there is that, you know, Republicans are focusing on the wrong things, right?
They're kind of throwing out all of these culture wars, all of these buzzwords and they're
ignoring small business owners.
Small business owners need help.
Small business owners need to make sure that we continue to have the subsidies on the
Affordable Care Act marketplace.
That's where oftentimes independent people get their health insurance.
And so we're going to be increasing their health insurance, 100%, 200% in the state of Wisconsin.
That is going to be unaffordable for business owners.
We want to make sure that they have the employees that they need.
We need to make sure that we're looking at, you know, worker training and having that
pipeline of folks in the state.
We know that within many of our rural spaces, younger people are leaving.
And we're an aging state.
And so we need to make policy decisions that keep young people here and that we, they are
able to live all across the state of Wisconsin.
So we can have equal economic opportunity across the state.
That includes broadband access for our businesses.
I was just up in Forrest County yesterday, one of my listening sessions.
And this came up, which was, it's not just individuals who need access, but businesses
need to be able to access the internet.
And they were telling me about 50% of Forrest County does not have any internet access at
all.
That's unbelievable.
It is.
It's like a utility.
It's like electricity or like indoor plumbing.
Like this is something's necessary for business.
It's necessary for life.
And as governor, you could push that through.
We could.
We could make sure that broadband is a priority all across the state and make sure that it's
affordable.
That was one of the things they talked about as well is even if you, you know, lay some
of the fiber.
You lay it down if the monthly fees are unaffordable, people aren't going to pay for it.
So we're going to, we have to look at that more broadly to make sure it's an affordable
space.
And this is a bipartisan issue too.
I mean, it should be.
Yeah.
It should be a bipartisan issue.
Yes.
I was on the broadband committee when I was in the assembly.
And I actually didn't vote for one of the bills in the committee because it didn't serve
rural Wisconsin well.
I want to remind you, I was representing Waukesha and part of Milwaukee County.
We don't have issues with broadband access.
Not a lot of issues with broadband access might be unaffordable, but access within Waukesha
County, Milwaukee County.
But because these bills did not represent rural Wisconsin well, I didn't vote for them.
And it was frustrating to me to see my Republican colleagues who do represent rural Wisconsin voting
for bills that actually didn't help their constituents.
So just to get back to that question, the culture worst thing, you, you're alluding to the
fact that Republicans are distracting small business owners with cultural issues that
have nothing to do with.
But they're everyday needs.
I know.
And what they need.
Yeah.
As governor, would you, if the Republicans were to hold, still hold both the state, Senate
and the state assembly, which is possible, less likely than it used to be?
Yeah.
But you consider vetoing a budget in its entirety?
I know there were people who were school, public school advocates and others who were urging
governor Evers to veto the whole thing because there wasn't enough spending on public education.
Yeah.
Yes.
I would consider that has to be a card that the governor is willing to play if, if, if the
legislature thinks you're unwilling to play that card, then there's no room for negotiation.
So you have to be able to be willing to play that card to actually veto a budget.
And this is the, and I, I would say, I'm going to put it out there for the universe.
We are going to flip the state Senate.
The state assembly is absolutely doable, absolutely.
We have to keep the seats.
We have flip five more.
Four of them were within a percentage point when Trump was on the ballot.
And if we had results like we saw last Tuesday, we are going to flip both chambers.
And we could have a trifecta that we have not seen in over a decade.
But you need somebody who's going to, needs to be ready on day one to get stuff done.
So what would that mean?
Let's play out that fantasy, which may be closer to reality than a lot of people might realize.
Day one, you've got the state assembly, you've got the state Senate, what's your top priority?
My top priority is going to be three things.
It's going to be making sure we pass appropriate housing legislation to start working on those
starter homes and doing the strategic plan that we pass legislation for child care to
make sure that that's affordable for folks.
The other one that I wanted to say for health care as well, we can expand Medicaid, we
can expand Medicaid for 12 months postpartum, we are only one of two states that hasn't
done that.
Which is crazy.
That is shameful.
When we have to restore union bargaining rights, because we know that that lifts wages
for all.
And so making sure that we are able to, that workers are able to negotiate with employers
on pay, compensation, safety, these are the things that we've always had in the state
of Wisconsin.
We've always been a progressive state, particularly run labor rights.
And that was taken away during the Walker administration.
And so restoring those rights is an absolute priority.
You know, one thing I thought Democrats failed to do when they did have a trifecta was,
you know, repeal that 1849 statute on abortion.
Yeah.
You know, it's ambiguous.
The Supreme Court and the State Supreme Court has ruled, or is ruling for abortion rights.
But why have such a dangerous thing still on the book?
Right.
Take it off.
I think Democrats might want to look at some of these statutes that are pretty retrograde
and this is a problem.
Don't disagree.
I, you know, I think we have to look, I'm a nurse by background.
I strongly believe that health care decisions should be between a person and their provider.
And that government has no business being in the middle of that.
And I've been clear that I want to make sure we enshrine row into the state.
That's what we need to do to make sure that people are safe.
And because we know what happens when we don't, when we have abortion restrictions, people
die.
Women die when we have abortion restrictions.
And we have to make sure that people can get the health care that they need.
And I know Planned Parenthood, Wisconsin has been on and off as to whether it's able
to offer abortion care right now, you know, since the adoption decision came back, it's
been on and off.
And that's no way to give women in Wisconsin any sense of reliability and surgery.
Reliability, stability.
I was speaking to OBGYN residents who have been planning to stay in Wisconsin and then
decided to leave.
And we already have a shortage of OBGYNs prior to the adoption decision.
We have a shortage of OBGYNs within the state of Wisconsin.
And they want to be able to practice in a safe environment.
And so they were planning on leaving.
And so that's why I want to make sure that we have the type of legislation that protects
people that allows them to get the health care that they need when they need it.
And it will allow us to recruit additional providers into the state.
I want to ask a different question.
My colleague, Todd Albaugh here at Civic Media talks about in champions, the two-year
college system in Wisconsin, which seems to be on the chopping block right now.
What's your position on whether we should maintain the two-year colleges of Wisconsin?
I think we need to look at that holistically and see if we can be able to look at our
technical college systems and make that a more seamless transition from the technical
college system into the university system.
I think there's a place for that within Wisconsin.
We have a fantastic technical college system.
But what I hear from folks is that they don't always, the credits don't always transfer
as cleanly as we would like them to be able to do into the university system as they
had within the two-year college system.
Once again, this is personal for me.
The UW-Walkershot campus closed.
My son's girlfriend was going there and was able to take classes for cheaper.
And because her parents don't have a ton of money to be able to spend on college, and
that it is a real problem that we have to have an affordable way for people to be able
to get the education that they need and to be able to advance their careers.
So we're not prepared to say we should just give up on those two-year colleges.
Not prepared to give up on the two-year colleges, but I think we need to be creative and innovative
in how we're using the resources that we have in the state.
And that technical college system, I think, is a way to look at that more broadly.
Is there a point you want to make or a question I didn't ask?
Did you want to answer before we say goodbye?
You know, I would just say that, A, I'm looking for people's support.
I'm excited and hopeful for the state of Wisconsin.
I want to make sure that people know that, yes, I'm a nurse, but I've also been an executive
in private industry.
I was the healthcare executive.
I was a...
What was that company?
I tried to look.
You said it was a Fortune 100 company.
It was Honeywell.
It was Honeywell.
Yeah.
So I helped lead one of their healthcare technology arms and remote patient monitoring.
And I learned a ton in that industry, but it was like a coat that didn't quite fit.
And then I moved after that job to be a vice president with an advocate of rare working
on population health management, integrated care management.
And that was a better fit for me, because I got to take care of my community a little bit
more.
But, you know, I've ran large budgets.
I've managed large teams.
And I am ready on day one, because I have the executive experience.
I also have the elected experience.
These are...
It is a different animal to work with elected people than to work with, you know, professionals
across an organization.
So having both of those experiences, I think makes me well suited to be able to take
on this role.
And if the listener wants to support your campaign, what would he or she have to do?
Just go to...
You can just Google Sarah Rodriguez, Wisconsin.
No, my website will come up.
They can go ahead and donate online.
They can sign up to volunteer.
We're already have volunteers all across the state.
We've been able to get endorsements in all 72 counties across the state of Wisconsin,
because I want to be a governor for all.
And that's just really important to me, but yeah, just go to my website.
Well, Lieutenant Governor, it's been a real pleasure speaking with you and good luck
on the campaign trail.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate it.
Well, that's going to have to be it for this episode of the Wisconsin Ford podcast
on the Civic Media Radio Network.
I'm Matt Rothschild.
I want to thank you for listening.
I also want to thank my engineer and producer, Dom Lee, who's always great to work with.
And I want to thank Sage Wilde of Civic Media for giving me this platform.
I'll be back in just a day or two with another Democratic candidate for governor.
So stay tuned for that.
