Frederica Freyberg:

This week we continue our profiles of the candidates for Wisconsin governor. Dennis Fehr is the candidate for the People's Party and owns a painting company in Chippewa Falls. Fehr also attended UW-Stout. His five-point plan aims to make government smarter through measures like reforming the state’s judicial system. Dennis Fehr joins us this week from EauClaire, and thanks very much for doing so.

Dennis Fehr:

Thank you. It’s nice to be here.

Frederica Freyberg:

You certainly are a very young candidate. Why are you running for governor?

Dennis Fehr:

You know, the reason I’m running for governor is primarily because I can see that our current administrations, both the Democrat and Republican party, are really failing to address the problems and issues that we have as a state going forward. Being a younger candidate, we can’t have that. You know, we need to fix the problems now.

Frederica Freyberg:

What do you think are the main problems that you would set out to fix?

Dennis Fehr:

You know, a lot of it is listed out in our five-point plan. Specifically, budgetary issues, as well as social issues. That’s why our plan is so thorough. You know, we have judicial system reform, we have legalization on there. A lot of these issues are directly related to the well-being of our people, but a financially stable state is very important in doing that, which is why we also have points on there such as smart government and tax reform. These things are really going to have– or allow our state to be more fiscally responsible and socially able to provide the things that we need as a state.

Frederica Freyberg:

What experience do you have that would lend itself to being chief executive of a state with a $250 billion economy?

Dennis Fehr:

You know, numbers are numbers, and numbers are one thing I’m very good at. I run a painting company here in EauClaire, Wisconsin, like you said. I do a lot of work with people all over the state. The state is essentially a very large business, and managing people is very similar to what businesses do. I enjoy the business, I enjoy working with people, and I think the state will be the exact same way. What we really need is somebody to come in from the outside and give a different perspective on how things should be run and the forward message going forward in our state, and I think I can do that very well.

Frederica Freyberg:

I want to restate again that your platform includes smart government, tax code reform, legalizing marijuana, lowering the drinking age and judicial reform. And we wondered whether several of these platforms might result from personal experience. Take this, for example. On the smart government platform you say, Everybody hates standing in line at the DMV. If you’ve ever been to the DMV, courthouse or other government facility, you may have noticed many of their systems that manage resources and personnel are prehistorically outdated. Now, with that said, off your web sit on your platform for smart government, you have this really long list of citations for things like driving with no registration and even a couple for underage drinking. In total, court records show that you’ve made nearly $2,000 since 2010 in fines. Are your actions, driving without registration or proof of insurance or seatbelt with this long list some kind of a protest against the system that you think is broken?

Dennis Fehr:

You know, I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily a protest, but one thing I would be really interested to find out is where that $2,000 has been spent. You know, as I can see in Ferguson, we’re seeing the militarization of the police departments. That’s unacceptable. The federal government’s coming in saying we need to purchase insurance, we have to buckle, we can’t– You know, we cannot drink below the ages of 21, and yet I am still here able to be shipped off to Iraq, I can be imprisoned and I can be fined. So I am an adult. And when I was received the ticket for, let's say, underage drinking that was actually, if you read into that description, seven minutes before my 21st birthday, which is a very interesting thing for the courts to take and make an example of. Within that seven minutes did I make some magical epiphany moment where I was now able to drink? No, I don’t think so. But, you know, it does bring a larger issue of is our government spending its money appropriately? Are we spending our resources wisely? Being that we’re facing a lot of budget shortfalls, we’re not able to provide things for the people that we should be able to provide them for, I would say no. That's something that we're definitely going to address. The long list of citations is on there, not necessarily a– Like you say, would be a, you know, a protest, but it is something we need to look at. Are we spending our money appropriately? Are we spending it wisely? I would say not.

Frederica Freyberg:

Very briefly to close, why throw your hat in the ring for governor? Why not aim a little lower, say town board, county supervisor or even state assembly?

Dennis Fehr:

You know, I get asked that question all the time, and the reason for this is that I see that we have such large problems. They can no longer be addressed at only a local or municipality level. We need to go bigger. I know how to run things. I’ve run a business for a long time. I’m an informed citizen. I think starting at the top-down gives that forward message we need for our state.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Dennis Fehr, we leave it there. Thanks very much.

Dennis Fehr:

Thank you very much.