Frederica Freyberg:
Meanwhile, that great power held by majority republicans includes brothers from Dodge County at the helm. Representative Jeff Fitzgerald is likely to be picked as assembly speaker, and his brother Senator Scott Fitzgerald, majority leader. We sat down with the senator to talk republican power base.  

Scott Fitzgerald:
You know, the one thing we're looking forward to is working with Governor Walker. Certainly he's going to hit the ground running with a reform budget. And it's similar to what we're seeing from other republican governors throughout the nation who are really shaking things up and saying, listen, we're going to listen to the electorate. So hopefully we can work kind of directly with him up until February, before he announces that document, so we're not surprised to see some of the things that we support in that bill.  

Frederica Freyberg:
Some things like what?

Scott Fitzgerald:
Certainly I think economic development and the job creation stuff is kind of the rhetoric of the campaign trail, but the reality is that there's a couple of departments within state government that have literally run off the tracks, and one is the department of commerce. I think that there's a lot of changes that need to be made. The Doyle administration didn't utilize that agency well. The other is the department of workforce development, which has become the state unemployment office, used to be an agency that developed a vision for our workforce and that has certainly not existed under the Doyle administration. And even some of the quasi-governmental stuff like Forward Wisconsin, which was gutted under the Doyle administration. That used to be a thorn in the side of many of the governors throughout the Midwest, as Wisconsin lured and worked with corporations to develop jobs. So those are some of my ideas that I hope Governor Walker will listen to and hopefully incorporate in his budget.

Frederica Freyberg:
How difficult will that budget be and how difficult will it be to have any new kinds of programs going forward toward job creation in the midst of what we believe will be a lot of tax cuts?  

Scott Fitzgerald:
You know, I'm leery of saying that the elections were a mandate for republicans, because I don't think the public is enamored with the republican party or anything. But I think one thing they did say very clear was, we're going to give you a lot of leeway. We're going to allow you to develop a new structure for government that, you know, when we hear that there's some feathers being ruffled, we're going to be okay with that. If that means taking on the unions, if it means, you know, not necessarily doing the right thing when it comes to the teachers' union, we're going to be okay with that. And if we don't make that type of noise, I think people are going to be upset with the republicans this time.

Frederica Freyberg:
What kinds of examples do you have about ruffling feathers in those areas, with unions or with teachers' unions?

Scott Fitzgerald:
I think it's like many of the campaign commercials listed. Everything's on the table. I don't think there's any part of state government that shouldn't be either whittled down or changed in a dramatic fashion. And I think Scott Walker gets that. I think that's what he ran on. So with control of the senate, control of the assembly and with the republican governor I think we're in the right place at the right time.

Frederica Freyberg:
What about major bills that your caucus would advance?

Scott Fitzgerald:
Senate Bill 1, I hope after talking to a couple of the republican senators will be photo ID to vote. You know, last April in the spring elections we saw incidents and reports around the state of people trying to vote multiple times, multiple locations. We don't have anything formal yet, but certainly just in the November elections we heard the same thing was happening in certain parts of the state. I think the photo ID bill would help stem that, and I think I'm going to get some pretty good agreement from caucus members on launching that as Senate Bill 1.

Frederica Freyberg:
Let's tick through some others that might come up. Reinstatement of the QEO.

Scott Fitzgerald:
Absolutely. I don't think there's any question that it's going to be part of something that the republicans in the senate work on. It was one effective tool that was available to school boards to somehow forecast and manage their own budgets and, you know, unfortunately, it was eliminated in this kind of bogus debate that happened in the finance committee. But absolutely it's on the table.
 
Frederica Freyberg:
Concealed carry?

Scott Fitzgerald:
That will work its way through the process like it always does. There will be multiple bills authored probably in the assembly and the senate and we'll see what the final version looks like.

Frederica Freyberg:
Repealing the smoking ban?

Scott Fitzgerald:
I don't see that happening. It’s something that had been discussed, but a full repeal of the smoking ban, I don't think there's a legislative momentum to go back to where we were.