Frederica Freyberg:

But first, Republicans and Democrats caucused this week at the state capitol and emerged with some new leadership. Former Democratic minority leader Chris Larson was replaced by La Crosse senator, Jennifer Shilling. Over on the Republican side of the aisle, Senator Mary Lazich of New Berlin became the first woman president in state senate history, taking the post from Mike Ellis who didn't run for re-election. Senator Lazich joins us now by phone. Thanks very much for doing so.

Mary Lazich:

Thank you for asking, Frederica.

Frederica Freyberg:

We wanted to know, how will your new role help shape the policy direction of the senate?

Mary Lazich:

Well, coming from the assembly many years ago and having formed a strong relationship with the members of our caucus, I’m looking forward to an outstanding session. I think we have a lot of freshmen here that come with experience, Devin LeMahieu comes with county board experience. Howard Marklien, Steve Nass come directly from the assembly. Roger Roth was in the assembly. And of course, welcome back to Van Wanggard. If we have a great freshmen class that hits the ground running and is ready to get things done.

Frederica Freyberg:

Do you feel that the election delivered a kind of mandate for the Republican majority?

Mary Lazich:

Well, it certainly, you know, certainly gave us a message that the public is by and large pleased with what we’re doing, pleased with the direction of Governor Walker, and want us to continue on that course, continue with job creation, continue with economic development, continue particularly the work force development effort to connect people to jobs, budget, balancing our budget. People are appreciative of the tax cuts that we did and very appreciative that government continues to function in Wisconsin and functions at a good level. People get good services. They get some tax reductions. And they get a balanced budget. We did a fantastic job balancing our budget, and we want to continue those efforts.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now, you were the author of the abortion ultrasound law, among other provisions in that law. Should we expect more bills aimed at curbing abortions or birth control?

Mary Lazich:

Well, I expect we will certainly have discussions about those issues, but nothing is agendized at this time. We’ve got a lot of things to do, we’ve got a lot of caucus members. My job is to be very attentive to our caucus members and to work with them to forward their agendas. That’s my priority this session is being attentive to our caucus members. But will that issue come up? Will we take a look at it? Probably somewhere along the line.

Frederica Freyberg:

Right out of the chutes, what might be the senate’s number one priority?

Mary Lazich:

Well, the budget, of course, always comes up quick. The economic development, job creation and the budget. That’s been at the top of our plate recent years, and that will continue to be at the top of our plate, those items. The GAB audit is out there. That’s going to rise to the surface. We look to that to inform us on our decision-making. That, along with the 7th circuit court decision, and in addition to that case law over the last 10, 12 years. There’s been quite a bit of case law. So that will be a lot of work and research and putting that together to work on our statutes. Our Chapter 11 and campaign statute is almost impossible to read and not user-friendly for someone to run for office. And I think Chapter 11 should be written at an understandable level that lay persons in society can read that and have a comfort level that running for election will not be such a daunting legal loophole for them to jump through, that the public is more participatory and that we have more candidates running and a lot of fresh faces willing to run. Right now the statute is written in a gotcha fashion. You just can’t figure out right or wrong. And no matter how hard some people try to do due diligence with their paperwork, they get caught up in some silly fiasco that makes them– just makes them very uncomfortable the first time they want to run for something. And we shouldn’t have that. It should be user-friendly.

Frederica Freyberg:

Let me jump in and get back to kind of the heavy lift of the state budget coming up very quickly here. What are your priorities there, where to cut, where to spend?

Mary Lazich:

Again, we look to– The governor will produce a budget. And when he gets that over to us, then we look at what he has. We listen to the members of our caucus, the members in the assembly caucus, and we make a determination based on the members’ input as to where we’re going to go with the budget as it is. Given the makeup of the legislature, given the governor knows the folks in the assembly and in the senate pretty well, I think that we’ll get a document that– We’ll get a good document to start with. But the legislature generally tweaks it. It goes through the legislative fiscal bureau analysis and process and people have input. There’s likely to be some changes, as there were last session. But by and large I think we will have a good product. I think it will move along and certainly meet its deadline and hopefully earlier if we can.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Senator Mary Lazich, thanks very much.

Mary Lazich:

Thank you.