Frederica Freyberg:

What would a Republican-controlled legislative response to the COVID-19 crisis look like? The legislative process can sometimes take weeks or months. That’s a time line that is problematic for both sides. Republicans say they plan to move quickly. As of Friday at noon, no ruling from the State Supreme Court. Wisconsin Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke was able to join us early this afternoon. And, representative, thanks very much for being here.

Jim Steineke:

Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well, so detail for us, please, what the Republican legislative leadership plan to reopen the state looks like.

Jim Steineke:

Yeah. So I appreciate the question. I know that’s one of the questions we’ve been getting a lot, is what is the Republican plan for reopening the state. We’ve really tried to steer clear of that because we don’t think that there should be a Democratic plan. We don’t think there should be a Republican plan. We think that there should be a plan that we work on together that suits all of Wisconsin and that all of us can support. So we didn’t want to do negotiations through the media on any particular ideas other than we think that the plan should be regional and incorporate some of those aspects as far as being able to open in areas where there’s less severe infections. We really just want to sit down with the governor and figure it out together.

Frederica Freyberg:

I want to get to that so-called “Wisconsin plan” in just a moment, but in terms of kind of a regional reopening plan, what about concerns that you just spread the virus as people get out across the state, say, to vacation homes or campsites?

Jim Steineke:

Sure. I mean, we live in a free country, right? So people are going to have freedom of movement no matter when you open, whether it’s the whole state or whether it’s regions of the country. We’re starting to see Democratic governors in other states like Illinois, Michigan and New York who have had much more severe problems with the virus than Wisconsin has, they’re incorporating regional aspects into their plan. We simply can’t afford to allow the entire state to be shut down when there’s very few problems in the vast majority of the counties of the state.

Frederica Freyberg:

If cases were to increase and public health officials say they almost certainly would if you kind of reopen the state, but if cases were to increase, would you call or would you be in favor of reinstating stricter “stay at home” orders at that point?

Jim Steineke:

Yeah. I think any plan going forward should have some sort of a throttle, where you can gradually open the economy up, but then if there are severe cases where the hospital system is overrun, that you can start to throttle that back. That’s the important thing for people to remember. This was never about getting to a point where we have zero infections. It’s really about getting to the point where our hospitals are not overwhelmed. And that’s the case right now in the state. Thankfully, our hospitals are not being overwhelmed with the virus, so it is time in a vast majority of the state to start to reopen. But, again, if there are issues where there becomes a crisis, then we can start to throttle back.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well, Speaker Vos in fact says whenever we reopen, it is not going to be possible to prevent all deaths. Is that just the price to pay here?

Jim Steineke:

Well, yeah. I mean, so this whole idea of a shutdown, of “Safer at Home,” was, again, about slowing the spread. The nature of the virus is you’re not going to stop it. Even in New York, you’re seeing a lot of cases coming out of New York where the people were sheltered at home and still got the virus. So we’re not going to be able to completely stop the spread. But we also can’t wait for it to become — to get down to zero before we start to open up the economy again. It’s just something that our families can’t afford to hang on for the next eight, 12 months before we get a vaccine.

Frederica Freyberg:

So as you described earlier, leadership met with Governor Evers this week and Speaker Vos again said that he was interested in not a Republican plan or a Democratic plan, but a Wisconsin plan. But I read that he said that it doesn’t have to be adversarial. But how adversarial was that lawsuit?

Jim Steineke:

Well, and that’s — I appreciate your bringing up this point, because I’ve heard this before, where Republicans in the Legislature are being accused of being partisan through this process, which is really kind of strange to me, because the only person being — that I would say being partisan in this is the governor in that he is insisting on having full control over this with no input from the Legislature. He is insisting that they have the unilateral ability to impose these restrictions with no legislative oversight. And according to them, they can do this indefinitely. So what we’re saying is, the lawsuit really is about getting us to work together. Not saying we have to have our way. That’s not how the legislative process works. But saying we should all be at the table so the people of Wisconsin through their elected representatives can have a voice in this process. Currently, they don’t.

Frederica Freyberg:

So when you were all at the table this week, how did that go?

Jim Steineke:

Well, I wasn’t there, so it was Speaker Vos and Majority Leader Fitzgerald along with the two Democratic leaders of each house. But I think it went fairly well. I don’t think anybody drew any lines in the sand, said absolutely “no” to anything that was proposed. But that being said, we have to start having more regular communications and more regular negotiations as we go forward, especially as this Supreme Court decision looms over us. If that comes down in the Legislature’s favor, we’re going to have to act quickly. And I think we should be preparing for that by continually having meetings. I know the governor didn’t want to have another meeting until at least next week. I still think we should be meeting on a regular basis, at least every other day to try to come together around a plan that can work for everybody.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. We need to leave it there. Majority Leader Jim Steineke, thank you very much for joining us.

Jim Steineke:

Absolutely. Thanks for having me.