Zac Schultz:
The last two budgets that Governor Evers has introduced have included a lot of proposals that are more of his vision, his priorities or what he's campaigned on, but that everyone knew were not gonna get passed by the Republican legislature. Do you think this time around he'd be better off creating and proposing a budget that he knew was more likely to be passed? Or is it okay if his first draft of the budget includes things that he knows that you don't agree with but he wants to put them out there to the public?

Devin LeMahieu:
I think a better question, not to correct your questioning, but I think a better question is, is the governor willing to actually negotiate with us during this budget cycle? You know, if he wants to put out a budget with his political priorities, that's fine, but we'll do what we've done in the past to start from base and go forward. But, you know, if the governor is willing to work with us and negotiate, you know, I think we can accomplish some of the things that he wants to accomplish while still doing important tax relief, investing in education, expanding school choice, and then there's a lot of great things we can get done and hopefully the governor's willing to sit down and we can start working on that.

Zac Schultz:
When does that process start? Because obviously the governor has a staff of budget writers as well. Is that when it gets to joint finance or should that be happening earlier in the process?

Devin LeMahieu:
I think it should be happening earlier. The good thing is the governor has already reached out and we're working on scheduling a meeting. So, you know, that's a nice start to the process. So hopefully we can have regular meetings and that way I can get feedback from my caucus on the direction we want to go and see if us in the assembly and the governor can work out a plan.

Zac Schultz:
The last two years, everyone's been kind of looking towards that next election with Republicans in some cases explicitly saying, "We're hoping a Republican governor is who we're working with next." Since Governor Evers is the governor for the next four years, do you think that changes the relationship? Do you think this will be a more productive two years than the last two years?

Devin LeMahieu:
You know, I hope so. I really do hope so. You know, I was only majority leader for two of the four years of Governor Evers' term and I know there was some mistrust from the first session with recording in meetings and things like that, but I'm hopeful that, you know, the electorate elected us and elected him. So obviously there's some who, people in the state, who voted for Republican legislators and a Democrat for governor. So we need to try work together, find some solutions, while still making sure we're being responsible in our budgeting.

Zac Schultz:
One of the things that Governor Evers has stressed is getting his appointees through the full Senate process. You talked about the meeting being set up. What other communications need to happen for that to happen?

Devin LeMahieu:
We're going to treat appointments through the normal committee process. Send them to the standing committees. They'll vet them, the committee chairs will vet them. But I think we've seen some of the appointments lately have seemed, from the governor, seem to be more politically charged. I don't know if that was going into an election cycle that that happens, but we can't have, you know, environmental extremists being appointed to the DNR board. We need a good DNR secretary because of the vast impact that the DNR has in the state of Wisconsin. So, you know, if we're going to confirm some of these appointments, they need to be people who are qualified and serious in these positions and not just political operatives doing the will of, you know, environmental extremists or other types of people.

Zac Schultz:
There were a number of appointees for the last four years that made it out of committee but never received a full vote on the floor. What is the process that needs to happen if they make it through committee to actually either get that up or down vote when it comes to final approval?

Devin LeMahieu:
You know, a lot of those appointments was just timing, the end of session. That happened at the end of Governor Walker's session as well where we had a bunch of appointees to various committees that didn't quite make it through the entire process. But, you know, it's our job in the Senate to have oversight over these appointments. We're gonna take that job seriously and vet the governor's appointments.