Battleground Wisconsin

We review this week’s Spring Primary Election results and looking forward to April 3rd General Election. Robert reviews the latest Gov. Walker healthcare scheme which vainly attempts to cover one of his greatest political vulnerabilities. We dive into Attorney General Brad Schimel’s shameful election year call for arming teachers in Wisconsin schools in an effort to fire up gun advocates. Finally we review explosive new research from the ACLU documenting that that hundreds of thousands of Milwaukee Police stops violate basic constitutional rights because they are not based on reasonable cause, and disproportionately subject people of color to stigmatizing and traumatic police encounters.

We welcome Tim Burns, Citizen Action of Wisconsin’s endorsed candidate for State Supreme Court (primary next Tuesday, February 20) to discuss his novel willingness to run on his progressive values and fight for average people against the big corporate interests that are rigging the system. We also talk about the latest mass school shooting in Florida and the GOP’s serial appeasement of gun extremists. We also are joined by Citizen Action Western Wisconsin Organizing Cooperative member Sarah Godlewski who educates us about the referendum to abolish the State Treasurer, a move that would further reduce fiscal accountability in Wisconsin government.

We discuss Gov. Walker’s plan to lure Kimberly-Clark with a Foxconn-style public subsidy. We then dig into what elected Democrats from the region and the some of the Democrat governor candidates are saying and proposing as alternatives. We preview our Democratic Governor candidate forum in Eau Claire this Saturday at 9:30 am that will kick off Citizen Action's endorsement process. We also talk about the new data showing unexpectedly high enrollment in Obamacare. What are the implications for the GOP's sabotage and repeal crusade.

Gov. Walker rightly understands that he and Republicans are in serious political danger heading into his 2018 campaign. In an attempt to cover up political failings, Walker called a special session this week to further punish the working poor and struggling families in Wisconsin. Instead of calling a special session to address the shortage of family supporting jobs in most parts of the state, Walker chose to divide us by scapegoating the poor. Next we discuss a new reports revealing that $1.6 billion of the Foxconn state payout won’t be tied to job creation and that 39% of the water Foxconn takes from Lake Michigan won’t be returned to the lake. Finally we discuss the news that the state’s school choice program now has nearly 400 private schools registered for 2018-19.

Our panel reviews Gov. Walker’s State of the State (SOS) address which reveals a massive re-branding effort heading into the 2018 election. Robert analyzes Walker’s 11th hour conversion on health care designed to address his biggest electoral vulnerability. We welcome AFSCME Council 32’s Mike Horecki to talk about Walker’s belated effort to close Lincoln Hills after 7 years of pressure from workers and advocates to address the destructive impact of his policies. Health Care Co-op Organizer Katie Dunn joins us to promote this Saturday’s Healthcare Jeopardy forum with Democratic candidates for Governor in Milwaukee. We close with Rebecca educating us about a police shooting in Racine that has the community organized and searching for answers.

We start with the electoral wave that hit the west coast of Wisconsin on Tuesday with the surprise victory of Democrat Patty Schachtner in Senate District 10. We welcome Eric Couto, executive director of Wisconsin Progress, to discuss the implications of the SD 10 upset and the critical role of recruiting and training great candidates to run for office. Our panel takes a closer look at the Governor’s race following the release of campaign finance reports and the first public poll. Robert analyzes the junk science in the new Congressional report which absurdly concludes Medicaid is worsening the opioid crisis. Finally we chat with Citizen Action Organizing Cooperative member Sue Anderson who invites our listeners to the Runaway Inequality Book Club discussion this Sunday, January 21. the goal is to better understand the failings of the neoliberal economy.

We discuss the Trump administration’s decision to legalize the imposition of Medicaid work requirements designed to force people off health coverage. We look closer at the historic number of GOP House resignations that are increasing the odds of a Democratic sweep in 2018. The panel analyses the state of Wisconsin’s gubernatorial election with this week’s addition of Madison Mayor Paul Soglin, and Walker's curiously overwrought reaction. We dissect the laughable $7 million WEDC ad campaign recruiting white millennials in Chicago with idyllic images of Madison and Milwaukee. Ironically in the same week Walker blasted Madison as crime ridden socialist wasteland.

We welcome Mark Thomsen, Chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, to discuss the highly partisan and potentially slanderous attack by Senate Leader Fitzgerald and Assembly Speaker Vos on commission administrator Michael Haas. We also talk about the increasingly combative GOP Senate primary between Leah Vukmir and Kevin Nicholson, revealing deepening fault lines within the Republican Party. We review news that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has determined it doesn’t have jurisdiction over wetlands on the initial parcels of Foxconn land; U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan's prediction that Foxconn will sink Walker and Republicans; and a new study finds that Wisconsin is the 10th most moved out of state.

After reviewing the draconian implications of the GOP tax scam bill that was forced through Congress this week, we welcome State Rep. Jonathan Brostoff to educate us on the GOP effort to expand Foxconn’s wetlands exemptions statewide, putting one million acres of wetlands at risk. Republicans are looking to ram the wetlands destruction bill quickly through the Legislature. Robert also tells us about Citizen Action’s 12th annual Health Insurance Cost Ranking Report which examines the cost of healthcare in different parts of the state. The report reveals the damage GOP sabotage of the ACA is causing and why BadgerCare Public Option legislation is so important. We also discuss MacIver Institute’s laughable list of the top ten lies of 2017 that includes Citizen Action for supporting BadgerCare for all. Happy holiday to all our listeners. See you in 2018!

We are joined by former state representative and Citizen Action Board member, Mandela Barnes, to discuss lessons from Tuesday's Alabama Senate election. Robert educates us on this week’s launch of the End Child Poverty campaign that Citizen Action is leading with WISDOM, Kids Forward and Wisconsin Council of Churches. We also discuss: New legislation from Rep. Goyke to cut Wisconsin’s prison population; Wisconsin now has 50 counties in a lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies for "being directly responsible" for the opioid crisis; How legislation to close a corporate tax loophole in WI is being blocked by GOP leadership; and The latest Foxconn news. We also reflect on the 5 year anniversary of the Newton mass shooting of 20 students and 6 educators and how we have failed to pass basic gun restrictions since this incident.