Frederica Freyberg:
I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here and Now,” the budget battle moves closer to the floor of the state assembly. In a moment, we’ll talk with Assembly Speaker Mike Sheridan. State Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen says proposed cuts to the justice department are a threat to public safety. He’ll tell us why. The school year is coming to a close, even as district administrators around the state cope with proposed cuts to next year's budget. We'll hear about that later in the program. And on the anniversary of last year's floods, we'll go to Gays Mills and hear how one family is still in recovery mode. But first, the state budget. Next stop, the floor of the Assembly. That's where Speaker Mike Sheridan will oversee the debate scheduled for next week. He joins us now from Milwaukee. Thanks very much for doing so.

Mike Sheridan:
It's nice to be here, Frederica.

Frederica Freyberg:
Well, now, we know that you need 50 votes to approve this budget and at least one of the 52 Democrats has said that he is voting no unless there are changes, and others seem to have issues as expressed in your caucus that went through the day yesterday. How shaky is your hold on passage? 

Mike Sheridan:
Well, we're going to have a lot of debate next week. We’ll be in caucus on Monday and Tuesday, going through the budget. I’m sure that there’s going to be some amendments, we’re trying to hear from everybody in caucus of their concerns. But quite frankly, I’m honestly going to be expecting to pick up some republican votes on this. If you look at the cuts that we’ve made in this — 3.4 percent in cuts across the board — that has never happened in state history. This is, if you look at the spending and the way that we’ve done this, we’re trying to be as responsible as we can. We made sure that we protected education, but there are cuts across the board.   

Frederica Freyberg:
So you expect to pick up some Republican votes. How certain are you of that?

Mike Sheridan:
Well, I’m going to certainly encourage them. We’re gonna present our case and quite frankly, I don’t know how they could vote against the cuts that are in this budget. If you look at what happened in the last 14 years with the Republicans in the assembly, spending went up 73, I think it was 73 to 74 percent. With Democrats in charge, we’ve actually cut spending in this budget. They’re going to argue with you and say, “That’s not true, with the stimulus money that came into the state.” But the fact is, that’s money that was used for all the stimulus projects.

Frederica Freyberg:
What kinds of changes would you anticipate to ensure passage of this budget?

Mike Sheridan:
Well, without getting into any specifics, one of the things — we were in caucus yesterday. I want to make sure that we hear the concerns of each of our caucus members. One of the things we’ve asked them to do is, if they have ideas on how to amend the bill to make it better, that we’ll take those amendments. We’d like to have them in by Monday morning, but we’ll go through it on Monday and Tuesday, and there might be other ideas that come out from that. But I do want to say to people that I think both the chairs of Joint Finance, Mark Pocan and Mark Miller, did a heck of a job on this, and all the members of Joint Finance.

Frederica Freyberg:
One item I know that seems to be a potential sticking point is changing the language in the oil tax to allow it to be passed on to consumers. How politically palatable is that?

Mike Sheridan:
What you have to do is get all the facts in front of you. I think one of the things that Gov. Doyle looked at, take Exxon for example. Exxon last year made $45 billion in profit. So the idea of asking the oil companies to pay their fair share is the right thing to do. But I know that there’s some issues with some of the smaller co-ops. So we’re trying to find the balance there.

Frederica Freyberg:
What about the pass-through to consumers at the pump?

Mike Sheridan:
I think those are the things that we’ll be discussing next week when we get into caucus and just get all the information in front of us and figure out what the right thing is to do.

Frederica Freyberg:
What’s your position on whether or not that language should be changed to allow it to pass through?

Mike Sheridan:
Well, I certainly have ideas and opinions, but once again, I want to hear from my caucus members. I came out of the labor movement, and I was a president of United Auto Workers, and I always like to say to people that, I led the organization and I lead this organization, but you need to hear from the people and get their ideas first.

Frederica Freyberg:
We will be speaking with Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen in just a few moments who, of course, is complaining about cuts to the Justice Department budget. Can he expect any relief out of the Assembly? I know he has spoken with you and thought that perhaps he would see some. Will he?

Mike Sheridan:
Well, we had a very good discussion the other night. We talked on the phone, had a half-hour discussion. One of the things I told him is that I’m just fine with looking to see what the issues are and also talked to my Chair of Joint Finance Mark Pocan. I said, we need to take a look at this and if there are adjustments that need to be made then we’ll go ahead and do that. But one of the things I want to make sure people know, also, is that safety is very important to us, and one of the things that has happened in the last four years it that their budget has been raised 17 percent.

Frederica Freyberg:
We will be speaking with the attorney general, J.B. Van Hollen in a few minutes on another matter. I wanted to ask you as former UAW president of GM in Janesville, what can you tell us about whether that plant will be the pick for small car production? 

Mike Sheridan:
Well, I can tell you that there's been a lot of work that's gone into making sure that that happens for Janesville. I'm not overly optimistic. We're trying to downplay this a little bit. But I can tell you that Gov. Doyle, and I have had numerous conversations. I know that he's been in close contact with the leaders of General Motors. We've got the greatest workforce in the nation. I'd put them up against anybody. I think that's why as much as they said that we were going to be closed, I'm not surprised based on information that I had that we're still in the running for this. And the bottom line is we're on the right side of this bankruptcy. And the other thing is that if we don't get this product, we're still going to be in a situation where we'll be on standby. I think General Motors is going to take off again. We're building great vehicles, and we will have another opportunity here.

Frederica Freyberg:
What is the incentive package Wisconsin is offering GM to put this plant here?

Mike Sheridan:
Well, I can't get into specifics. I can tell you that it's very attractive. It really got the attention of the corporation. And also, you know, it was a joint effort, both city of Janesville and Beloit were involved in that. Rock County added some to that. And the agreement we have here in Janesville, Wisconsin on the local agreement is better than any in the entire United States, and that's a big factor too. That will save them $100 million a year.

Frederica Freyberg:
On this package that Wisconsin would be offering GM, would that be folded into the budget you are now working on or would that be taken out and put in special session?

Mike Sheridan:
Quite frankly, I don't know all of the specifics of how the package that's together now, how that will all work, but I can tell you that we have had discussions about, is there anything that we can do to enhance this package and that's the discussion that the governor's having with the corporation right now. And if there's things that we can do to enhance that, we're going to pull out all the stops. And I think Gov. Doyle has really been a great leader on this.

Frederica Freyberg:
Is this a matter of whatever it takes?

Mike Sheridan:
Whatever it takes. We're not going to have another opportunity at this. The other thing that's encouraging is we have Kenosha there too, that they still are in the mix, and that's very exciting. So if we need to come back in special session, we'll do that. I talked to Rep. Fitzgerald this morning, leader of the Republican Party. When we did this incentive package before, it was when Tommy Thompson was governor and it was bipartisan support, so I would expect that again this time.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right. Speaker Mike Sheridan, thank you for joining us.

Mike Sheridan:
Thank you so much. Have a nice day.

Frederica Freyberg:
You too.