Progressive Thinking

Senator Smith reflects on the importance of union jobs and fair wages to building a strong middle class and giving every Wisconsinite the quality of life they deserve.

MADISON - This past weekend, I was proud to stand with United Auto Workers in Hudson, who are among those striking for fair wages and better working conditions. I was inspired and galvanized to be there as workers stood up for long-overdue wage increases, cost of living adjustments and job security.

As corporate profits skyrocket, wages for workers have not kept pace. Auto workers, who accepted a wage freeze during the 2008 financial crisis, have seen their wages drop by more than 20% in the past two decades when adjusted for inflation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. They also gave up cost of living adjustments, which are increasingly important as the cost of living soars.

Meanwhile, CEOs’ salaries are sky-high. General Motors CEO Mary Barra made nearly $29 million in 2022. That’s 362 times the median GM employee’s earnings, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

With the successful conclusion of the writer’s strike, we’ve seen very recent victories in bargaining for a better standard of living. As automation becomes increasingly efficient, the workforce is changing at a rapid rate. It’s important that worker protections keep pace.

In the sixties when I was growing up, union membership was common. I grew up near the Uniroyal Factory, the paper mill was close and Presto was just a couple of miles north. Many of the kids I grew up with had a parent who worked in one of those places.

Their parents could support their families because they earned union wages and benefits. It was an era where working families could depend on an income that sustained a comfortable quality of life.

The union jobs in our community provided our neighbors with a chance to feel secure in their lifestyle and build Eau Claire’s middle class. On union wages, it was possible for a middle-class family to own a cabin up north, to take a couple of weeks off for a family vacation or a week off during deer hunting season. It was common for families to have one parent working outside the home and one inside the home.

This is not necessarily the norm now. These days, it’s increasingly difficult for workers to have that quality of life. Between rising cost of living and stagnating wages, often both parents need to have a job outside the home in order to make ends meet.

Children today deserve the kind of childhood my neighbors had growing up, with parents who are paid fairly for the work they do and have time to devote to their families.

But decreasing rates of union membership make it hard for parents to have that time. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that in 2022, only 11.3 percent of workers were represented by a union. While the overall number of union members went up, the percentage of workers represented by a union went down, as non-union jobs were added at a faster rate than union jobs.

Unionization is about quality of life. By striking for better wages and a higher standard of living, union workers are building back that quality of life we have lost in recent decades. We’ve got to get it back.

Anti-union politicians turned this state upside down and backwards by gutting public sector unions twelve years ago, and their attacks on unions have continued since then. They say they support families, but won’t support the policies that make families thrive. Every worker deserves a good quality of life and the opportunity to make their family prosper.

Work gives us dignity, but only when we are paid fairly for the work we do. We can’t afford to let workers fall by the wayside. Rather than continuing to let corporate profits rise, we should compensate workers for the success they helped create with better working conditions, stronger pay and better benefits. We should stand in solidarity, with fairness and equity our goal.

Senator Smith represents District 31 in the Wisconsin State Senate. The 31st Senate District includes all of Buffalo, Pepin and Trempealeau counties and portions of Pierce, Dunn, Eau Claire, Jackson and St. Croix counties.

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The legislative process should involve deliberation and public hearings on proposals before the body, but it’s easy to manipulate. Sen. Smith writes about the “shell game” Republicans play to divert attention from their true agenda.

MADISON - If you’re not familiar with the phrase “shell game,” it’s a trick as old as the hills. A fast-talking swindler places three shells (or cups) on a table and places a ball underneath one of them.

While they distract you with a lot of talk, they quickly move the shells around, too fast to track. Then they ask you to choose under which shell the ball is hidden. If you pick the correct one, you win the prize.

But often your eye has lost track of the moving shells, the fraudster has already pocketed the ball and there is no longer any chance of winning this rigged game. In many ways, politics can be a shell game. It’s certainly full of a lot of fast talking and a lot of misdirection.

For example, take the recent proposal offered by Republicans to fund refurbishing the publically-owned stadium leased to the Milwaukee Brewers. Keep in mind that the owner of the Brewers is a billionaire and the team itself is worth $1.6 billion.

Despite this, Republicans released a proposal offering nearly $700 million to upgrade the stadium. It sure sounds good that $400 million on that is projected to come from the income tax paid by ballplayers.

But remove the $400 million in revenue from players’ income taxes and Wisconsinites are left on the hook to make up the difference.  That means $400 million not going to pay the state’s financial obligations –revenue for local governments, police, fire protection and more.

The Legislature passed historic changes to our shared revenue formula this year, and authorized cash-strapped Milwaukee County and City of Milwaukee the ability to raise sales taxes.

This deal eats into that progress by forcing taxpayers to ante up for the Brewers beautification project. Despite complaining about “government handouts,” they sure do seem eager to support one.

(Oh – and while you’re distracted by that, the plan also removes the local members from the stadium district board. But don’t pay attention to that.)

Another shell game involves gerrymandering. As I described in last week’s column, the Republicans who have maintained their majority by drawing themselves into safe districts have suddenly discovered the “Iowa Model” of redistricting.

Never mind that there have been considerable innovations since that 2013 model was introduced. Or that nonpartisan groups have spent years gathering public input about our legislative maps and they do not support this proposal.

Using language like “nonpartisan” to distract, Republicans don’t want you to notice that they conveniently and surreptitiously omitted safeguards against politicians manipulating legislative district boundaries to stay in power.

But when a swindler sees that you may be catching onto their act, they get even more desperate.

For several years now, Republicans have rammed through legislation without genuine debate or public input. Their redistricting proposal is the latest and best example. They introduced it on a Tuesday, voted it through the Assembly on Thursday without holding a public hearing or asking for any public feedback.

This is the shell game Republicans have been playing for quite a while. Even when a bill gets a committee hearing, Republican legislators have avoided debate and possible amendments in committee by voting with a paper ballot rather than holding in-person meeting(s).

This is one of the most frustrating parts of my job. The Legislature is a deliberative body. It’s our job to debate and discuss legislation and listen to our constituents’ thoughts about potential laws before us. Reducing public access to this process subverts the very work we are sent to Madison to do.

This process may seem boring, but lulling the voters to sleep makes the Republican shell game even slicker. For the unscrupulous, it’s easy to distract citizens with rhetoric so we don’t even notice when they cast debate aside and pull a fast one without public input.

Keep your eye on the ball and tune out the rhetoric.

Senator Smith represents District 31 in the Wisconsin State Senate. The 31st Senate District includes all of Buffalo, Pepin and Trempealeau counties and portions of Pierce, Dunn, Eau Claire, Jackson and St. Croix counties.

Senator Smith discusses recent developments in the fight for fair maps and how we can approach redistricting with an eye to incorporating public comment and lessons learned from other states.

MADISON - The most common question I get as a state legislator is "Can't you all just work together?" In this terribly divided country we're living in, that's a big ask. But it's abundantly clear that people want their elected officials to work things out together.

Last week we were treated to the perfect illustration of why we aren't working together. The Republican Speaker of the Assembly, Robin Vos (R-Burlington) called a press conference in the middle of a floor session on Tuesday for an important announcement. Of course we were all curious what the import ant announcement might be, so I went to the room to find out. As it turned out, Speaker Vos announced he had come to the realization that Wisconsin needed to adopt a redistricting plan like what Iowa had. He wanted us to know that he had been thinking about this over the weekend.

After over a decade of continual opposition, the Speaker's epiphany was shocking to say the least. Wisconsin has gerrymandered political maps that heavily favor Republicans. Only a reformed system of redistricting where legislators don't approve their own maps would cure this problem, and this isn't it.

The Iowa redistricting law was the standard-bearer back when I joined Representative Spencer Black to introduce redistricting reform in 2009. As the Assembly Committee on Elections Chair at the time, I was there when we held our first and only public hearing on the bill. It's common for legislation to take a couple tries and plenty of public input before it becomes law. But sadly, after Republicans took control of the Governor's office and both houses of the Legislature and approved maps heavily lopsided in favor of Republicans, there was zero chance of redistricting reform.

While Speaker Vos has been conjuring a path to redistricting reform, he was issuing threats to impeach Justice Janet Protasiewicz before she takes any action on the court. Now the Speaker is convening a secret panel of former justices to help justify his decision to start an impeachment proceeding of Justice Protasiewicz, who was elected by an 11% margin (a landslide in Wisconsin politics).

Speaker Vos is using an outdated version of the bill from 2013 for a reason. The bill I authored in 2021 would draw maps and approve them in the most nonpartisan way allowed under current law. If the Speaker and other Republicans cared about redistricting, they could have made a good-faith effort to reach out to those of us who have been working on this issue for years. If they had done so, they would've known that in response to public input and other states' innovations, we are seeking to further update the bill in preparation for 2030. My co-author, Representative Deb Andraca (D-Whitefish B ay) and I are engaging good-government stakeholders to create a new Wisconsin model of redistricting modeled from all the other states that have passe d redistricting reform.

Those constituents who ask why we can't work together might be best answered by pointing out that the powerful majority party isn't interested in what the minority party has to offer. There have been no public hearings and no inclusion or consideration of ideas from anyone else. We used to hold in-person executive sessions during the committee process, a time to introduce amendments and learn about the motivation each senator had for attempting t o fix or change a bill. Now committee chairs send members a paper ballot fo r us to vote either yes or no on bills they choose are worthy in their mind to move forward. You may wonder why we can't work together, but we aren't even given a chance to work together in committee. We hardly know each other.

What you are seeing in the news these days is a direct result of unaccountable legislators who are gerrymandered into power with no concern that they must answer to you. The Speaker's ultimatum - adopt his unvetted bill continuing his Party's control or he will impeach Justice Janet Protasiewicz - leaves Wisconsin in a "Vos-tage" situation.

Senator Smith represents District 31 in the Wisconsin State Senate. The 31st Senate District includes all of Buffalo, Pepin and Trempealeau counties and portions of Pierce, Dunn, Eau Claire, Jackson and St. Croix counties.

Republican politicians in Madison are ready once again to ignore the will of the People and impeach duly-elected Justice Protasiewicz to maintain their grip on power.

MADISON - Impeachment proceedings have become commonplace in our country's political landscape nowadays. I think we all can assume the founders of our country knew human nature – they know people and politicians can be flawed and impeachment was the check they needed to prevent individuals from abusing power. What our founders failed to imagine was the cheap and weaponized way that impeachment would be used to topple democracy and our institution of government.

Early Americans fought so hard to create our democratic republic and furnish it with the kind of protections they thought would best protect the liberty and the voice of the American public. It’s unlikely that they envisioned that impeachment could be used to undo the results of fair and free elections.

We are witnessing the denigration of our democracy with talk of impeaching Justice Janet Protasiewicz. It’s simple: voters overwhelmingly turned out in April to elect a justice who they believed would reaffirm the right for women to choose to have an abortion. Speaker Robin Vos and Republicans are using impeachment to deny women the ruling they need and deserve.

Robin Vos understands that both his Party and the Republican agenda are aging rapidly. Conservatives’ ability to use tricks and tradecraft to serve their fringe ideologies is fading against the inevitability of the People’s will, and so their sleight of hand grows more risky and more desperate.

Removing duly-elected Justice Protasiewicz would be a coup. Justice Protasiewicz was elected by an 11% landslide. As defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, a coup is a “sudden, violent seizure of power from a government.” Justice Protasiewicz has only been serving for 1 month and hasn’t even taken any action yet – sudden is certainly the case. The violence in this agenda may be a little harder to see, but the January 6^th insurrection showed just how far Republicans will go for a political win.

When a political party does not have the People's will on their side, their last resort is to use any and all means to stretch the law. Republicans have determined that their best strategy is to have the Assembly impeach Justice Protasiewicz, then have Senate Republican Leader Devin LeMahieu refuse to hold a hearing. This would leave our Supreme Court in a 3-3 limbo, neutralizing one of the three branches meant to impose checks and balances that protect the People.

Republicans don’t care if they break Wisconsin for the rest of us. They would rather burn it all to the ground than relinquish control.

Republicans are finally paying the piper, and now they’re running scared to grasp at whatever ephemeral strands of power they can grab. Those who have been defrauding Wisconsin’s voters fear that proper oversight will curtail the extrajudicial powers they have accumulated.

The ball, as always, is in the majority’s court. They have the opportunity to run up the score – until they inevitably lose the game when voters show up again next fall.

If Republicans use procedural hijinks to subvert the will of Wisconsin voters for yet another election cycle, Republicans will pay the price at the ballot box again in 2024. Despite what the numbers in the Wisconsin Legislature may tell you, Republicans’ agenda is supported by a deep minority of voters.

It’s not too late for those elected to represent the People to do so. Now is the time to demonstrate that their priorities align with those of their constituents.

Ball’s in their court.

Senator Smith represents District 31 in the Wisconsin State Senate. The 31st Senate District includes all of Buffalo, Pepin and Trempealeau counties and portions of Pierce, Dunn, Eau Claire, Jackson and St. Croix counties.

Sen. Smith writes about how Legislative Republicans chose to cut the UW System’s budget by $32 million, leaving universities almost half a billion dollars short.

MADISON - Ever hear the term gaslighting? It’s an odd term, but the practice has become too common in politics these days. It comes from a play written by Patrick Hamilton called “Gaslight.” In the play, a husband manipulates his wife into thinking she is having a mental breakdown by gradually changing the intensity of the gaslamps in their home.

A contemporary example is the rhetoric surrounding our college campuses. Republicans claim college students are being indoctrinated by liberal educators and institutions. It’s the latest futile effort to make our younger generations second-guess their educational experience.

This has been a coordinated effort by the Republican Party in every state across the nation. Republicans have come to realize they have nothing left to offer young voters. Republicans haven’t quite given up yet, but their last chance is to gaslight our next generation, or at the very least discredit their thoughts and opinions. Their hardline opposition to abortion and innate desire to cut government into nothing is too entrenched within their ranks. The philosophical divide between outdated conservative principles doesn’t jive with new and progressive desire for change favored by most in our next generation.

College students have turned out in droves in recent elections, overcoming continual attempts by Republicans to suppress their vote over the past 13 years. Republicans shortened the early voting period, passed a voter ID law that doesn’t allow certain college IDs and gerrymandered campuses to limit students’ ability to elect candidates of their choice.

Republicans aren’t shy about it either. At a recent Republican National Convention event, Cleta Mitchell from the Bradley Foundation said, “What is this young people effort that they do? They basically put the polling place next to the student dorm so they just have to roll out of bed, vote, and go back to bed.”

The Republicans’ next best strategy to prevent college students from voting is to gaslight them into thinking they are being brainwashed by our educators and universities. It’s how they’ve justified their devastating cuts to the UW System and endless attempts to depress voter turnout in college communities.

As a father, I’ve learned to listen to our younger generation. Young people want to shape our society and make their own decisions. After all, they will be the ones who inherit the world we build today. Our job as the current leaders of our society is to give them every best chance to succeed by listening to them now.

Republicans can do better by listening and appealing to young voters. If we choose to listen, there’s so much to learn about how a bright-eyed generation perceives the world our older generations created. These fresh perspectives can help us understand that our society and institutions unfairly favor certain races over others, or that gender identity and sexual orientation are more complex than what many people thought. We will understand how hard it is for young people to flourish in our current economy.

Underlying all of these ailments to our society, we will understand that our cardinal sin has been ignoring problems until they become crises. It’s not indoctrination that’s driving the conversation in education. It’s a different perspective and a new, clear view of our current problems. We should encourage young people choosing to address rather than ignore the problems in our society.

I didn’t have the opportunity to go to college; I learned my trade as a window cleaner from my dad and developed it into a successful business. It’s ironic that I’m now the only State Senator in Wisconsin to represent two four-year UW schools. Like so many in our state, I have great respect for the “Wisconsin Idea” that education should influence people’s lives beyond the boundaries of the classroom. I learned by listening to everyone, separating the facts from the BS, making more than my fair share of mistakes and volunteering every bit of my free time to supporting our community’s schools.

I call it like I see it. Right now, I see Republicans giving up on our next generation and telling young people that they can’t think for themselves. It doesn’t take a college education to see through this last-ditch effort to keep a generation down.

Senator Smith represents District 31 in the Wisconsin State Senate. The 31st Senate District includes all of Buffalo, Pepin and Trempealeau counties and portions of Pierce, Dunn, Eau Claire, Jackson and St. Croix counties.