The Breakfast Club

Peter and I were on the radio this morning!  

Gary Hartl - Burger King Breakfast Club Host

As I mentioned in my “Antigo – First Impressions” post, the host, Gary Hartl invited us back to be on his Burger King Breakfast Club Show.  

Prepping for the Air

We arrived this morning as he was setting up.  We chatted for a bit, my sense was that he was getting background to ask questions.  At one point we asked him how many people regularly listened and he said that he didn’t know but that whenever he made a mistake it seemed that everyone in the town would correct him the next time they met. We had mentioned to several people that we would be on the show.  One person asked us to say “hi” for them.  We read out the list to Gary and he knew, and could give us context for, everyone.

4-H Feature

4H Advisor and kids

Then the 4-H members and an adult advisor showed up.  One of them had been on the show several times before, and the advisor was on the show last Monday at the start of 4-H week.  They were poised, prepared, informative and are learning skills that will last a lifetime.  We have 4-H clubs in San Mateo County too; I know at least one family at our church whose children were in one.

Listening Tour "Show Time"

After they were finished and during a commercial break, Gary invited us to sit by the microphone.  Then I noticed that he had printed out all and highlighted some sections of our blog posts and was really prepared for the interview.  His hosting technique puts guests at ease right away and we were able to mention that we would be at the gun show this afternoon in case anyone wanted to drop by to talk.  Peter expertly reviewed the wonderful reception that everyone we met in Antigo had given us.

Local State Assemblywoman

Then, after another commercial break he called up Assemblywoman Mary Felzkowski, who had arrived while our interview was in progress.  She is a regular First-Friday-of-the-Month guest.  The budget cycle in Madison has been completed and she has a bit of time; now only part-time in the legislature while she maintains her full time insurance agency and assists her husband with his catering business on weekends.  She explained some of her legislative efforts, including working on a “Romeo and Juliet” law that could remove permanent registration as sex offenders from kids that were young and did something stupid.

She also is on the JBC (State Joint Budget Committee); Wisconsin is unusual and possibly unique in that the budget is not prepared by each of the departments operating separately but by a single committee that has members of the Senate and the Assembly. As a member of that committee she (as she explained to us later) is among the most powerful legislators in the State.  She has worked to particularly represent rural areas in the drafting of the state budget.  The Assemblywoman explained that the Foxconn deal will benefit rural Wisconsin; they need steel to build the factory, wood from local lumbering to build all the houses for the workers, and supply chain products from the whole state.  She is earnest and sincere and as her part of the show ends we asked her if she had a few minutes to talk with us; she readily agreed.

One-on-One with Northern Wisconsin Assemblywoman
We started talking quietly at the next table while Gary finished up the show.  With three guests the time went quickly.  As we were talking I overheard Gary telling his listeners how they can find our blog.  We might get some local comments; what an amazing lucky break we got in meeting him!

Assemblywoman Felzkowski told us that she is not a politician, had no interest in politics and only ran for office because a group came into her office and asked her to.  She was reluctant so another legislator from a different area who also ran an insurance agency called her up and assured her that it was only a part time job.  Ultimately, and after the strong encouragement of her college age children and her ex-husband, she agreed to run.  Her ex was active in the campaign and made all of the signs.  She had never run for anything before although had been president of nearly every civic and insurance-related organization in Tomahawk, her hometown.
 
She is now in her third 2-year term having arrived after Scott Walker became Governor. She has decided to run for 5 terms and stop, having no ambitions for higher office, although she won’t absolutely rule out additional service if the situation demands it.  She explained that her test is that if she says, “we tried that and it didn’t work” when something is proposed she will know that her ability to think of solutions has been impacted and she should leave.  She did this when she was President of the Chamber of Commerce: “Stale thinking serves nobody,” she summarized.  Wisconsin does not have term limits.  She understood that her first term was just to get her feet on the ground and learn enough to become effective later on.  She is quite proud of the progress they have made since her arrival.  Of the 99 Assembly members there were 58 Republicans before the 2012 election.  2012 added 2,  2014 added 3 and 2016 added one.  That means that the Republicans added 6 to their majority in the last three elections and now have almost two thirds of the assembly members.

We explored the problems that arise when legislators do not work together.  She told us that the Democrats do not want to look at facts and issues, but rather engage in personal attacks.  She also described a bill on which the Democrats worked with the Republicans to craft a solution and then held a press conference to condemn the Republicans for the bill.  “What’s with that?  You were involved in the bill.  Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.”  “There is no point cooperating with the Democrats when all they do is undercut the job we are doing.”

There is a difference with local people, though.  She works on things locally with Democrats all the time.  They disagree, but can still be friends.  When I asked how this might be scalable to work statewide, she told us about Democrats who had worked with Republicans and then were “primaried out” by more liberal Democrats in their own district or were stripped of their committee assignments.  The implication seemed to be that scaling the local respect that office holders have for each other to Madison was not possible.

We talked about dissent and disagreement at the national level.  She told us about how the country came together after every major disaster, using September 11th as an example.  But then that faded.  She stated that there are a lot of disasters now; the hurricanes and the Las Vegas massacre for example.  She said that God is getting tired of how we are acting and may be prepared to act to resolve it for us.

Assemblywoman Felzkowski also mentioned that the pendulum swings in American Politics.  It had been at a far left apex, and now, perhaps was swinging too far toward the right.  She speculated that it will swing back, again too far.

We talked about Las Vegas and the reaction of politicians that it may be time to ban the “bump stock.”  (This is the conversion kit that turns a semi-automatic rifle, such as the AR-15 into an automatic firing one.)  She said that she has no objection to that because, among other reasons, if there was no “conversion kit” people could do it anyhow, it just took a bit more effort.  Her main objection to banning the bump stock was that people would think that this was “doing something about it” and just wash their hands of the problem when the real issue is mental health or the shooter, not the guns.

She was proud of Wisconsin’s achievements in the last few years.  When Scott Walker took office the state was 48th in “business friendliness” and it is now 5th.  Wisconsin is now a “right to work state,” and this was controversial.  It means that even if there is a union at any given employer the employee can choose to earn the same pay and benefits and not join the union.  The controversy is that this substantially weakens unions and reduces their bargaining power.  In her home town there are several union companies and when they became “open shop,” another term for “right to work” the sky did not fall and wages were not reduced.

She was very critical of President Obama in that he could have solved many problems and did not, and his demeanor was offensive.

Our overall impression of Assemblywoman Felzkowski was that she was very sincere, a bit intense (I think she would like that description) and really working hard to help her constituents and other Wisconsinites.  As the conversation ended she went to her car to get a copy of The Blue Book, published by the legislature every two years.  It has a lot of information about government in the State of Wisconsin.  As she has a trunkful of copies for constituents, she gave it to us and invited us to give her a call any time.

-- David