Progressive Thinking

As Farmers come in as part of Ag Day at the Capitol, they focus on parts of the state budget that hurt rural communities. That includes rural schools, conservation, on-farm research, the Natural Resources board, the spring Conservation Congress, funding for the U.W. Extension, 4H, and farm safety. Many wonder why the governor is doing away with needed services.

MADISON - “It’s very important that we are here today,” the farmer from Independence told me. “In fact, it’s more important that we be here than anywhere else.” Here was in my Capitol office. Local farmers were visiting as part of Ag Day at the Capitol.

The weather that day was dry and warm. It was perfect for getting early spring chores done. Instead, these farmers drove hundreds of miles to meet with their legislators.

They were on a mission to change parts of the state budget that hurt rural communities. The first thing on their mind – in every group that visited – was rural schools.

“What are you going to do about rural schools?” the Buffalo County man asked me. “Our local school has two referenda on the ballot in April – one to fix the furnace and other delayed improvements; another to continue to keep the school open”.

“See this binder?” I showed him a large binder full of pages with red and green Post-It notes. “This is the Cliff Note version of the budget: It’s over 500 pages.”

“Everything in red I’m trying to get rid of. Everything in green is money I’m trying to get for education, the UW and other cuts,” I explained. Red notes far outnumbered green ones. Changes to agriculture and conservation were among the notes I flagged in red.

We talked through the farmers’ problems: managing tillage, conservation, chemical applications and nutrient management – i.e. when to spread manure. Many of the management questions farmers had to answer were assisted by on-farm research.

The flagship system of on-farm research is Discovery Farms. At twenty farms across the state, scientists monitor details like water and nutrient flow, erosion and soil structure, to help farmers develop best practices.

Thousands of farmers and ag support folks visit Discovery Farms to learn first-hand from U.W. Extension staff, scientists and the farmers themselves. The research brings a steady stream of knowledge to help preserve land and protect water for all of us.

Farmers also strongly opposed taking away the power of the citizen Natural Resources and Ag Department boards. “We just got a farmer on the Natural Resources board,” one farmer said. “This takes away our voice,” said another.

We talked about spring Conservation Congress meetings. Folks gather by the hundreds in school gyms around the state. Anglers and hunters use wisdom they’ve gathered over decades to make recommendations related to conservation. For example: should the pan fish limit at the local lake be changed?

The vote goes to the state Conservation Congress board, made up of members elected by their neighbors, and on to the Natural Resources board. Policy is made from the votes of those affected by the decisions. But the governor’s proposal would eliminate the input of the Conservation Congress by taking away the power of the citizen Natural Resources Board.

Many farmers also served on town boards. More than once I heard about the governor’s proposal to take away towns’ ability to hire property assessors. “This just doesn’t make sense,” one farmer told me. “The counties don’t want to take over the assessors, the state hasn’t given money to do this. And we lose our powers.”

We talked through other farmer concerns including funding for U.W. Extension, 4H, and farm safety. The conversation came back to schools and education. “Our schools pay for the independent charter schools in Milwaukee. I don’t think that’s fair,” said one farmer. “My children already spend an hour and a quarter on the bus,” said another.

“You know I was just appointed to the environmental education board,” said a third. “I really don’t understand why the governor is doing away with environmental education. These programs help school kids learn about Wisconsin’s natural resources.

As he got up to leave one of the farmers gestured to my budget binder still sitting on the table. “I like the way you did that,” he said, referring to the red and green tabs.

“It’s a big budget with a lot of bad in it,” I nodded. “You’ve got to eat an elephant one bite at a time.”

This week Sen. Kathleen Vinehout writes about recent visits from constituent citizen lobbyists who came to Madison to discuss a myriad of important concerns. These visits are a critical way for legislators to learn about issues of concern to their constituents.

MADISON - “I’ve never done this before,” the young woman told me. She came to my Capitol office for the first time to talk about issues important to her and her profession. She was one of about two-dozen groups that recently visited.

People imagine a legislator’s job as debating on the Senate floor. But much of my time is spent listening and learning. Here’s a sample of visits from a single day.

My day started working with my staff to distill the important decisions of the state budget into a PowerPoint for use at Town Hall meetings. Budget choices include what happens to local schools, the UW, health care, local government, public safety, state parks, our environment, agriculture, roads and bridges.

Soon into my budget work, my staff interrupted saying, “There’s a group waiting for you.”

The first group of almost 100 employees and retirees represented a local utility. The group leaders shared several concerns including federal guidelines that called for a reduction in carbon emissions. They worried Wisconsin was not given credit for prior lowered emissions. After the leaders explained utility concerns, I invited employees to speak. Their most important issue was protecting local schools.

“I’m very concerned about the Eau Claire school district,” a man shared. “I want my grandchildren to have a better education than my children, but how can the school do this with so many budget cuts?”

Back at my office I started adding up budget dollars spent on large road construction projects in Southeast Wisconsin. I was adding the third nine-digit number when my staff said, “The Optometrists are here to see you.”

An independent optometrist from Eau Claire told me about her new business and the problem she was having with insurance companies. “They won’t cover simple things I can treat, like pink eye,” she said. “Instead patients are required to go to the large healthcare system. The patient stays there and doesn’t come back to my office.”

She and her fellow optometrists wanted support for a bill to provide, as they called it, ‘patient equity and access to care’. The bill would allow optometric, chiropractic and podiatric (foot doctor) patients to choose their own doctor.

Shortly after this meeting I was visited by a nurse from Eau Claire who talked about creating a new law for independent nurse practitioners. Mid-level providers are a growing field. Research and patients alike support independent practice for nurse practitioners and certified nurse-midwives. But the law is slow to keep up with changes.

She also explained problems with a shortage of nurses and injuries to nurses in the workplace.

My next visitors were quite familiar with the job of citizen lobbyist. The Kwik Trip employees joked with me -“It’s Groundhog Day” - as they told me for what seems like the 6th time about big companies trying to repeal the Unfair Sales Act.

You might think of Kwik Trip as a big company but the La Crosse-based company is small potatoes in a big world. They are firmly behind protecting the mom and pop gas stations from unfair competition.

As the Kwik Trip folks left I hurried to another hearing room where nursing home administrators expressed concerns about budget cuts. “We just can’t continue,” one administrator said. “In 10 years, three nursing homes closed in our area,” said another. “We are competing with Wal-Mart and McDonalds for workers and we have to pay our workers more,” said a third. “Wisconsin must invest in caring for our elders.”

As I got back to my office, an Eau Claire man visited. He was helping the Amish keep their homes. Because of their religious convictions and culture, some Amish don’t follow laws related to plumbing, electricity and smoke alarms. The man shared stories of Amish being evicted in subzero weather. The loss of their home was devastating.

It was now quite late. I turned back to my desk. Waiting for me were finishing touches on health care legislation, the Department of Health Services budget briefing and an invitation to a Constitutional Officers reception.

I didn’t get far on my budget math, but I did benefit from the knowledge gained on issues of concern to my constituent citizen lobbyists.

MADISON - This morning, Gov. Scott Walker, who in 2011 succeeded in slashing collective bargaining rights for most public sector workers, signed a private-sector right-to-work bill that makes Wisconsin the 25th state to adopt the policy and has given new momentum to the business-led movement.

For decades, low wage states across the South and Great Plains have enacted such policies, known as “right to work” even though the right to work has nothing to do with them. They really are simply designed to prevent organized labor from forcing all workers in a shop covered by their collective bargaining agreement to pay union dues or fair share fees.

Also for decades. the higher paid industrial Midwest has resisted. Those days are gone, as Wisconsin follows neighbors Michigan and Indiana. While it may take years before the full effect of the new law becomes apparent here, most expect it to weaken unions and drive down the wages of union employees.

"This freedom-to-work legislation will give workers the freedom to choose whether or not they want to join a union, and employers another compelling reason to consider expanding or moving their business to Wisconsin," Walker said in regard to the signing, even though there is little evidence that either claim is true.

Walker’s real motivation is much more likely about politics than job creation: breaking a dwindling union movement in Wisconsin and boosting his standing as the conservative choice for the Republican presidential nomination next year. In the long run, the new laws throughout the region are intended to help Republicans build a favorable electoral map for 2016, by weakening the labor groups that have traditionally provided muscle and money to Democratic candidates in crucial swing states.

So the political ambitions of Scott Walker and his big business donors once again trump the interests of the people of Wisconsin, who still face a lagging economy and a $2.2 billion state budget deficit. Only time will tell how the events of the last two weeks will affect Walker's electability.

MADISON - The Republican controlled Wisconsin State Assembly passed the so-called 'Right to Work' bill this morning. Governor Scott Walker is expected to sign the bill into law next Monday.

The passage of this bill is another step in the conspiracy of multinational corporations and right wing billionaires to rig the economy against average working people. The bill undermines the fundamental freedom of workers to band together, and have a voice in the decisions made by the CEOs of large multinational corporations. When added to the other elements of the conspiracy, encouraging the outsourcing of jobs, driving down the value of the minimum wage, devastating public employee unions, and gutting our generational investments in our schools and colleges, it will accelerate a race to the bottom by shrinking the middle class. It will make it harder and harder for millions of working families shutout of opportunity to work their way up the economic ladder and claim their piece of the American dream.

The heroes in this rigged legislative process are the thousands of average workers who over the past two weeks came to their State Capitol from all over Wisconsin to do that most American of things, exercise their first amendment rights as citizens. The culprits are a conservative majority that is so ideological that they cannot even hear the voices of their own constituents, and are willing to act on fraudulent facts made up out of whole cloth by the special interests they serve. The complete absence of workers coming to the Capitol to support this legislation is a powerful proof that this bill is about the demands of Corporate CEOs to drive down wages and benefits, and has nothing to do with the interests of average working families.

Although the radical brand of conservative who has seized control of the machinery of our government celebrate a present victory, they are actually sowing the seeds of their ultimate defeat. In due time their deliberate rigging of the economy to shrink and shut off the middle class will become an undeniable fact, and will inspire a wave of outrage which big money politics and gerrymandered legislative districts cannot not contain. The conservative “divide and conquer” path to power will not work once the consequences of their manipulation of the economy are fully felt and understood across Wisconsin. Once the vehicle of our economy is driven off a cliff, the wreckage will be visible for all to see. It is a shame that we must re-learn the harsh lessons of the past that when workers have no power in the economy multinational corporations will drive their wages and benefits into the ground. Once this harsh lesson is learned again, the action of today will not stand.

Sen. Kathleen Vinehout is circulating a bill that would create a Wisconsin based Health Insurance Marketplace. Hard-working Wisconsin families will lose health insurance if the Supreme Court rules in favor of the plaintiffs in 'King vs Burwell', a case that challenges whether citizens who buy insurance through the federally facilitated health exchange are eligible for premium assistance.

MADISON - On Wednesday, I unveiled a plan to create a state-based Health Insurance Marketplace as United States Supreme Court Justices opened arguments on a case that could strip Wisconsinites of their health insurance premium tax credits.

Hard-working Wisconsin families will lose health insurance premium credits if the Supreme Court rules in favor of the plaintiffs, and Wisconsin can avert this crisis by creating its own state-based Marketplace.

The U.S. Supreme Court took up a case (King vs Burwell) that challenges whether citizens who buy insurance through the federally facilitated health exchange are eligible for premium assistance. Nearly 90% of the over 200,000 Wisconsinites who signed up for insurance through the federal exchange are receiving assistance.

Over $58 million going to our hard-working families is at risk. "On average, the benefit to Wisconsin families is about $300 a month in credits to cover about 70% of their premium" according to Misra, A. & T. Tsai in  “Health Insurance Marketplace 2015: Average Premiums after Advance Premium Tax Credits through January 30 in 37 states using the HealthCare.gov platform”. ASPE Research Brief. Department of Health and Human Services. Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, February 9, 2015, p. 5..”

The bill captures those aspects of Wisconsin’s health care industry that are unique to our state and builds off work already in progress by Wisconsin health plans and providers to create a balance between health quality, costs and access.

The Badger Health Benefit Marketplace is a one-stop shop for small businesses and people who buy insurance on their own. This will give folks a truly competitive market for health insurance and help drive down health costs for everyone.