Here & Now

Kathleen Vinehout On Run For Governor, Controversial Letter

Frederica Freyberg:

A look ahead tonight to the 2018 election and continuing interviews with candidates running in the democratic primary for governor. Tonight we talk with Kathleen Vinehout, a dairy farmer and former professor. She was elected to the state senate in 2006. She ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2012. Senator Vinehout, thanks for being here.

Kathleen Vinehout:

My pleasure.

Frederica Freyberg:

What sets you apart from the other democrats in this crowded field?

Kathleen Vinehout:

I have a very different background as you just mentioned. I come to politics later in my career. I worked in health care. I spent ten years as a university professor teaching health care and health administration. I then became a full-time dairy farmer and found myself without health insurance when our family had to make a difficult decision to either sell the cows or drop the health insurance. It was that experience that led me to say I know how to fix this. I’ve studied this. I’ve researched it. I’ve made written proposals. But we need to help farmers and small business people find a way to get affordable health care. It was that that brought me to the Senate. In my first six months, I worked with Senator Miller and Senator Erpenbach on a plan that covered everybody called “Healthy Wisconsin.” That didn’t pass the Assembly. But I then put together another group of bills that did pass that the State Journal said was the biggest change in a decade in health care. Since then I’ve spent a great deal of time on the Audit Committee studying how programs work. How to fix them and understanding state finances. I don’t think anybody else has that background.

Frederica Freyberg:

So even as you launch your campaign, though, this week, the Republican party is blasting you for writing a character reference letter for a former capitol employee convicted of child pornography. What about that?

Kathleen Vinehout:

David was the staff for my committee. I sent a lot of time with him and I was asked by a judge to write a character reference. He did something that I was appalled and shocked at. No one knew. My mother taught me that you should hate the sin, but not shun the sinner. I did something I don’t think anybody would object to. The letter is published on the Cap Times website. People can read it and see it and see what I wrote. It was a professional recommendation just based on his professional experience with me.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Let’s move along to the issues. What do you think is the most important thing that Wisconsin needs to do for its education system?

Kathleen Vinehout:

We need to change the funding formula. People have been talking about it for years. It could have been done with the same amount of money that’s in the budget now, the same amount of money the governor spent. There was great opportunity to really fix the problem with schools. Instead, the governor put a great deal of money outside the formula, which is going to make the system more unfair going forward. This is a solvable problem. It’s a problem that I showed how to solve in four different alternatives I've written over the last budget — four budget cycles to say, “Hey, this is a very important problem. We need to fix it. Here’s a way to do it.” Unfortunately, those ideas weren’t picked up and the inequities in the system will continue for next two years.

Frederica Freyberg:

Should the ACA remain in place? Would you accept expanded Medicaid in Wisconsin?

Kathleen Vinehout:

Absolutely. Absolutely. And take the money that the federal government would help us cover the people that we’re covering now and use it for addiction and community-based mental health treatment. Something that Minnesota did years and years ago and is responsible in part for the fact that Minnesota has half the number of people incarcerated than Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:

How would you grow good-paying jobs in Wisconsin?

Kathleen Vinehout:

Well, first of all, I would make sure that not one single company got $3 billion but that every company had the opportunity to grow. We have a state that’s filled with entrepreneurs. People that want to get started in their business and maybe have a very small barrier, like they need a little cash to get started. We could do a very different job in economic development. Also by investing in our communities, the very things that are suffering as the governor spends all this money on this one single company.

Frederica Freyberg:

How would you fund Wisconsin’s roads and highways?

Kathleen Vinehout:

I would do it in a number of different ways. There was a study that was done by the governor’s own Secretary of Transportation that came up with 24 different ways. One of the pieces that I didn’t know until I read his 600-page budget was that Wisconsin owns 624 miles of freight rail line. And 80% of the cost of maintaining that is paid for by taxpayers and borrowed and the freight rail line spent not a single dollar to the state paying for that rail. Wouldn’t solve the whole problem. It’s a no-brainer that needs to be done.

Frederica Freyberg:

Why do you think you could unseat Scott Walker?

Kathleen Vinehout:

Because I believe in putting people first. I believe in policies that really lift up our people. And that’s not what we’ve had. It’s very different from what we’ve had in the last eight — well, six years, six and a half. We have a governor that puts really wealthy Taiwanese billionaires first, not the people of the state of Wisconsin and people want to get back to that.

Frederica Freyberg:

We leave it there. Kathleen Vinehout, thanks very much.

Kathleen Vinehout:

My pleasure.