Progressive Thinking

Area sportsmen clash with railroad enforcement on public lands along the Mississippi. Sen. Vinehout writes about the questions she has heard from local residents, enforcement and elected officials on the authority of railroad police. She has authored three bills addressing issues brought forward in her conversations.

LA CROSSE, WI - It was no wonder the Legislative committee chairperson did not want to hold a public hearing on Senate Bill 734, a bill that would return railroad trespassing law to pre-2006, which allowed crossing.

Madison lobbyists lined up against the bill to allow people to cross railroad tracks. The lobbyists represented seven different law enforcement groups, three labor groups, six different railroad groups, the oil industry and the state’s largest business lobby – Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce.

The Railroad Association asked lawmakers to oppose the bill because…“changing this law works against ongoing safety efforts by federal, state and local officials.”

In western Wisconsin, the epicenter of the rail police’s ‘education campaign’ to stop rail track trespassing, the local sentiment was very different. “Utter nonsense,” a local enforcement official said when I asked about the railroad police stopping an elderly angler.

I spoke with law enforcement, county board supervisors, a judge and city council members from around western Wisconsin. The common response was “Ice fishermen crossing the tracks? We have too many real problems.”

I also heard from many local residents who were concerned about losing access to over 200 miles of public lands along the Mississippi River.

Some outdoor enthusiasts told me they already gave up using public lands along the Mississippi. “My son was afraid when we were threatened,” one man told me.” His son went duck hunting last fall. “Now the boy doesn’t want to go hunting again.”

“This [action of the railroad] dissuades people from doing things they have a right to do,” said a trout angler, who is also a retired attorney. He questioned whether the railroad company had authority to write citations.

“Trespass citations are issued by a local authority unless special authority is conferred by the Legislature,” said the angler/retired attorney.

Federal law allows rail police to exist, but individual states must grant authority. Some states, like Minnesota, don’t allow rail police at all. Other states, like Illinois, highly regulate rail police and do give authority to write citations.

Wisconsin law allows limited authority to arrest but the officer must “immediately take the offender before a judge.” I could find no mention in the law of authority granted to issue “tickets” or local citations.

The retired attorney continued, “Say I was an angler and wanted to get to the river. The railroad does not have the authority to cite me for trespassing and they are threatening me. Doesn’t that come under the angler harassment law?”

In response to local concerns, I introduced three bills. The first would abolish the law that grants railroad police authority. By removing a section of the law, Wisconsin would become similar to Minnesota where rail police protect the property of the railroad but do not serve in a law enforcement capacity.

A story by a LaCrosse Tribune reporter was inspiration for the second bill. Under the open records law, the reporter requested from the railroad records of all rail police arrests and citations. The railroad denied the reporter’s request saying that as a private company the railroad did not follow open records laws.

However, if a company acts in a public law enforcement capacity, the public has a right to know what is going on. For this reason, I introduced a bill to apply the open records law to the railroad with regard to the arrests and citations for trespassing made by rail police.

Many people complained about the treatment they received by rail police. Unlike other states, Wisconsin has no avenue for residents to complain about unfair treatment by rail police. For this reason, I wrote a third bill to create a complaint process through the Wisconsin Department of Justice.

I asked the attorneys at the Wisconsin Legislative Council just what authority do railroad police have to write a citation or take other action. These attorneys serve lawmakers and research legal questions. Unfortunately, these folks are scrambling right now to keep up with the Capitol’s version of March Madness as the legislative majority rushes through hundreds of bills. I expect they will provide an answer to my question in a few weeks.

Stay tuned. I’ll keep you posted on what I learn.

Sen. Kathleen Vinehout writes about the frenetic pace at which bills are moving through the legislative process. Members of the public are working hard to get their voices heard on bills that have real impact on their lives, but this speed coupled with lack of information leads to poor legislative decisions.

MADISON - “All your work has made a real difference,” Linda, my staffer, told Mrs. Gifford. She and her husband traveled to Madison to personally deliver letters to every Senator.

“Well, aren’t you nice,” Mrs. Gifford responded. “You just made my day!”

Twenty-eight minutes before the vote on a bill that would make significant changes in high capacity well rules, the Senate Agriculture, Small Business and Tourism committee clerk came to my office and said that bill was removed from the list to be voted out of committee.

As he left our office, he passed Barbara Gifford and her husband Jim who came to ask me to vote against the bill. For the moment, it looked like the Giffords were successful.

Senate Bill 239 is one of three bills that would alter the way Wisconsin grants permits to drill a high capacity well – a well that pumps 70 or more gallons per minute of groundwater. The bill prevents the DNR from reviewing existing high-cap well permits making them approved forever.

Wisconsin’s Constitution protects our water for the use of all residents. This bill would change things to “first come, first serve” - or, as one farmer described it to me, “the first one with the straw in gets to keep the most water.”

Mrs. Gifford lives in a part of the state where high capacity well operations have shrunk lakes, dried up springs, slowed flowing rivers and reduced drinking water supplies.

Some lawmakers did the hard work of balancing policy between the use of water for industry and agriculture and water supplies for drinking and recreation. Senators Cowles (R-Green Bay) and Miller (D-Monona) each wrote thoughtful bills to make real strides in solving the problem.

But SB 239, which is being rushed through the Legislature, simply gave everything to industry with little thought to the future – or the Wisconsin Constitution.

Even with little notice about the committee vote, Mrs. Gifford and her friends slowed the bill by their public advocacy.

Speed and secrecy dominate Wisconsin’s Capitol these days. The practice to vote bills out of committee the same day of its public hearing has regrettably become routine.

Public input from folks like the Giffords is vital in a democracy. Public input answers the question, “What will this bill do?” Lawmakers often learn a bill will do things the author never intended.

One bill with unintended consequences is Senate Bill 747, which changes the practice of massage therapy, authored by Senator Harsdorf (R-River Falls) and Representative Tittl (R-Manitowoc).

The bill appeared on the official Senate Agriculture, Small Business and Tourism committee calendar just one day before the public hearing. The public hearing and the vote out of committee happened the next day and left dozens of unanswered questions.

The bill would make it a crime – with possible 90 days jail time – for anyone who practiced massage therapy or “bodywork” without a license.

I had only a short time to talk with massage therapists about the bill. After I explained what the bill did, both women I called said “WHAT? Put massage therapists in jail? That makes no sense.” Indeed.

Senate Bill 747 would add a number of activities to the practice of massage therapy. Using elastic supportive tape, kneading soft tissue, stretching, even giving advice for self – would require a license. If you did these things without a license, you might go to jail. No one knew how much this would cost.

“The bill should not be here, before us now because we don’t know the cost,” reminded Senator Erpenbach.

Senator Taylor pleaded with the committee chair to postpone the vote. “We may be able to come up with a solution but we can’t do this with a quick hearing and exec in one day.” Like many Senators, she had two hearings scheduled at the same time and a host of other issues demanding attention.

“I can’t get input [from constituents], Senator Taylor told the committee. “Seriously, I hope we would delay this.”

The bill passed on a party line vote.

Speed and secrecy almost always leads to poor legislation. Public hearings exist to gather the public’s ideas, expertise and values. The result of sharing information between lawmakers and the public is better decisions for everyone.

Wisconsin should follow the lead of Minnesota and make crucial investment in all levels of education. During a recent legislative forum in Chippewa Falls, Rep. Kathy Bernier (R-Chippewa Falls) walked out because of comments made comparing Minnesota and Wisconsin. Sen. Kathleen Vinehout shares why the conversation was important to the overall discussion of school funding.

CHIPPEWA FALLS, WI - “We hired a great inorganic chemistry professor last year,” Mike, a UW-River Falls chemistry professor, told me. “Unfortunately she’s leaving in May for St. Olaf.” I visited St. Olaf in Northfield, Minnesota. They have a great chemistry department.

Mike told me his department used to have 15 professors. They now have 11 – soon to be 10. They plan to replace the person leaving but it’s getting harder to recruit and retain faculty.

The consequences of deep budget cuts to education are disparate but all around us.

Deep budget cuts to the UW system results in fewer course offerings and programs, larger classes and less staff. UW Extension is proposing to remove extension agents from many rural counties. The UW Madison Ag program announced the loss of the only dairy sheep program in the country. Faculty are moving on to greener pastures.

There is a similar story in K-12 education.

I spoke with Katie, an Eau Claire special education teacher who serves on the district’s compensation committee. The committee is working to find money to keep teachers. Katie said, “No raise in seven years is really hard for a lot of families.” Katie worked with an “amazing” special education teacher hired seven years ago who makes less than recently hired teachers.

Like so many other school districts, Eau Claire is considering options for a fall referendum. With declining state aid and rising costs, people across the state have voted to raise property taxes to keep their schools operating.

Alma passed a 38% increase in the school portion of property taxes to pay for a new furnace and keep the lights on.

Other school districts’ referenda aren’t successful. Prescott just lost a referendum to cover operating costs. They now face $1.5 million in additional cuts – over 10% of the district budget. Local people worry more teachers will leave for Minnesota – a state making significant investments in education.

At a recent Chippewa Valley legislative forum with local school officials, one of my colleagues abruptly left the event upset about a school board member’s comments that Minnesota was doing better financially than Wisconsin.

Specifically the board member mentioned Minnesota’s $1 billion budget surplus, funding for education and the big difference between the two states with regard to the prison population. The two states have a similar population and crime rate but Wisconsin incarcerates more than double the number of individuals.

My legislative colleague thought it unfair to compare. But is it?

According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, in Wisconsin 87% of children with at least one parent lacking a high school education are likely to be living in poverty. In Minnesota, 32% of children live in poverty while 39% of Wisconsin children live in poverty.

Among the risks of poverty is lack of education achievement, which can negatively affect life opportunities. Studies show that low education attainment and low incomes can increase the risk of incarceration. Minnesota incarcerates fewer individuals while Wisconsin spends more on prisons than on the UW system.

It is wiser to invest in breaking the cycle of poverty.

Poor children need resources – books, teacher time, health care, and food – things that cost money, which brings us back to school funding.

At the forum, we discussed needed changes to the school funding formula. I reminded everyone that State Superintendent Tony Evers submitted in his budget a proposal to change the formula called Fair Funding for Our Future.

Mr. Evers described his proposal as containing “a number of provisions to fix the funding formula by investing in all students, protecting rural and declining enrollment districts, making adjustments in the aid formula to account for poverty, providing property tax relief and increasing general school aid.”

This is the third time he introduced this proposal. It is the third time Governor Walker and the Majority in the Legislature chose not to pass it.

Education budget cuts end up costing us more. As state funds shift from education to safety (prisons and law enforcement), it becomes harder to break out of the cycle.

But break out of it we must. The investments we make in a child’s future don’t just help one family. The investments help all of us.

Good people can make a difference to bills moving swiftly through the legislature, like AB 554 where overwhelming constituent contact in legislative offices stopped action on a GOP proposal to allow an out-of-state corporation to buy and operate public water utilities. Sen. Kathleen Vinehout writes about the speed with which bills are moving through the Legislature and how people’s action has made a difference.

MADISON - “What can we, as ordinary citizens, do to keep the legislature and the governor from passing/signing house bill 554? It scares the heck out of me,” wrote Claudia from Eau Claire.

“I know that Kathleen will vote against this terrible bill, but no doubt against the odds,” Sarah wrote from Eau Claire.

The “terrible” bill was AB 554, a bill that would allow out-of-state private corporations to buy public water and sewer utilities. The bill would eliminate a required public referendum to approve the sale.

There is good news for all the folks who wrote asking me to oppose the bill.

Recently the Senate was set to vote on final passage of the bill. However, when time came for the vote, Majority Leader Fitzgerald asked that Assembly Bill 554 be returned to committee – a way to stop the bill.

He later told WisPolitics news service the bill was, “not going anywhere.”

Assembly Bill 554 caused many people to contact elected representatives. My office received 41 calls or letters in just two days. People also attended town hall meetings and researched what their legislators said about the issue.

“What was very telling about this privatization of public services is the New Jersey law passed just a few days ago,” wrote Telford from western Wisconsin. He attended a town hall meeting held by his senator and heard comments supporting the bill. He looked up the bill and found not only had the bill just passed in New Jersey but, in his words, “In the article are the same pro talking points my Senator used in the…listening session.”

WisPolitics described the efforts to get votes for the bill: “Senate Republicans had been working on an amendment to get members comfortable with the bill, but couldn’t reach a consensus.”

Good for Telford and everyone else who paid attention. You made a difference.

Speed and secrecy have plagued the Capitol in the last few months. Bills just introduced are rushed to committee hearings. Complete re-write of bills – called substitute amendments – are introduced just before a public hearing and those who came to testify wondered if their concern was addressed or not. Substitute amendments introduced just before a vote left lawmakers with no time to study the new bill before voting. An Assembly higher education committee voted on bills that had no public hearing. Some bills were voted out of committee just minutes after they had their first public hearing. Some Assembly bills voted on by the full Senate did not have a Senate committee vote.

In one day, 30 committees held public hearings. At least 254 bills passed the full Senate and/or the Assembly in just three days. To put this perspective, only 127 bills were enacted into law during the previous 13 months of this current two-year Legislative Session.

These bills needed public scrutiny. Some took away local powers – like the bill that would not allow counties to issue identification cards. Another took away local powers to protect tenants or set up historic districts. Bills eliminated natural resource protections including many changes to water and shoreland rules. Another repealed the state’s moratorium on new nuclear power plants. Some bills were aimed at elections, such as taking away special registration deputies and new on-line voter registration.

It’s no wonder people worry there is nothing they can do to slow things down. But there is – and people are acting in ways that make a real difference.

Recently two protests brought many first timers to the Capitol. A few weeks ago, Native American Wisconsinites protested the digging up of Native burial grounds. Shortly after the protest, the Assembly Speaker announced he had no plans to move the bill.

More recently, 20,000 Latinos and supporters descended on the Capitol opposing an anti-immigrant bill passed by the Assembly and the bill taking away counties’ ability to issue ID cards. The second bill is headed to the governor. But the first bill faces an uncertain future in the Senate.

So, whatever you do – write, call, attend a town hall, research a bill and tell the world – do it. In the words of Margaret Mead, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Sen. Kathleen Vinehout is working on a bill to restore the ability of people to cross railroad lines to access public lands. Laws meant to protect energy providers from protesters are being felt by folks who cross over land to access public areas, such as fisherman along the Mississippi River. A new Republican bill (AB 547) could make matters worse.

LA CROSSE, WI - One of the best spots to ice fish is south of Alma just down the dugway from Carrol Iberg’s rural home.

Down there “ice fishing is really good,” Mr. Iberg told me. He fished five days a week and caught mostly pan fish, and a few northern and bass.

To get to one of the most accessible ice fishing areas around, just south of the power plant, you have to cross the railroad tracks.

The rail is owned by BNSF. The company is exerting its authority to enforce a trespassing law by hiring railroad “police” to guard the track.

Mr. Iberg did not think much of a black Tahoe parked along the highway when he went fishing. However, he was surprised when a uniformed “state trooper-looking” person with a gun on his hip threatened him. The rail “police” said Mr. Iberg was trespassing on railroad property by crossing the tracks to get to his fishing hole.

“What bothers me about this,” he said to me. “It’s something I’ve done all my life.”

I asked how long he has fished here. “Approximately 68 years. And I’m 75. My Dad took me and my brother here forever.” He asked me if I thought he had an “adverse possession” claim on the land – like farmers who farmed the same land for 20 years even though the land technically belonged to a neighbor.

I am not sure about the “adverse possession” claim, but threatening Mr. Iberg for ice fishing is going too far.

Rail lines run all along the Mighty Mississippi on Wisconsin’s west coast. For generations, anglers, birders, hikers, hunters and other outdoors enthusiasts crossed the tracks to get to publically owned – and otherwise inaccessible – land.

Long ago, when the rail line was built, people say all kinds of easements and agreements were put in place to assure locals kept access to the lands on the other side of the tracks.

Now the railroad is acting to cut off access to 230 miles of Mississippi River backwater and public lands by enforcing a 2005 law that eliminated the right of the public to cross the tracks.

A bill written by Representative Nerison, and others including myself, would return the law to its pre-2005 language. Rep. Nerison, in testimony at a recent hearing, told lawmakers the bill would restore public access to over 100 state-owned properties.

George Meyer, representing the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation, testified public properties accessible only by crossing rail lines include state, county and national forests, US Fish and Wildlife refuges, hatcheries, boat access areas, state parks and “scores of other public properties owned by local units of government.“

The railroad lobbyist testified, “safety is the primary reason, but not the only reason we oppose the bill…it also creates opportunities for the many groups who protest crude by rail and other hazardous goods moved by rail.”

Concerns about protesters evidently led power, gas and transmission companies to lobby for another law to penalize trespassers; including prison time.

I told Mr. Iberg he should know Assembly Bill 547 would make trespassing on power company land a felony – with a $10,000 fine and maximum imprisonment of six years.

“How can they enforce this?” He asked. “When they built the power plant... They pleaded with us to sign on to allow them to put a turnaround [in the public land]… they wanted us to say it was OK to put in the [coal train] turnaround. They were still going to let us fish [inside the circular track.]”

During Senate debate, I explained the Alma power plant is very close to prime ice fishing public land. Inadvertent trespassing on power plant land should not land ice anglers in prison. But it wasn’t until I spoke with Mr. Iberg that I realized the power company built ON public land and prime fishing holes were INSIDE the power company’s circular tracks.

“What happened to America the Land of the Free?” I asked Mr. Iberg. “Exactly” he said. “There’s no use in living by a river if you can’t use it.”

That would be OUR River, and OUR public lands. Or it used to be.