Here & Now

Dana Wachs Talks About His Run For Governor

Frederica Freyberg:

A closer look now at the governor’s race and the next in our series of interviews with those who have announced their candidacy. Tonight we meet Eau Claire attorney and state representative Democrat Dana Wachs. Thanks for being here.

Dana Wachs:

Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well I wanted to know what you think sets you apart from the other Democrats running for this office?

Dana Wachs:

Well Frederica, I’ve spent my entire life being an advocate for people in the middle class and people trying to get into the middle class. I’ve spent my life being an advocate in the courtroom for those folks. When I was elected to the Assembly I was absolutely shocked. When you get to Madison, you realize Madison isn’t hearing what the middle class and folks like that are trying to say. Madison hears nothing but what powerful, wealthy special interest groups have to say. Legislation is passed primarily in reaction to campaign contributions down here. And that’s not the Wisconsin way. That’s not the American way. I think being an advocate for the middle class, I think I'm best suited to take our case into that building and make sure that the middle class is being heard.

Frederica Freyberg:

How are you set apart in that way from some of the others in this race?

Dana Wachs:

I’ve been an advocate my whole life. I grew up in western Wisconsin. I'm a firm believer in pragmatic, being a pragmatic progressive. I'm a hunter and fisherman. And I’ve tried cases and represented people all over the state of Wisconsin. You get to know what people are about. What their values are. What their thoughts are and what their needs are. When you’re actually with people and representing them in the court system.

Frederica Freyberg:

On the issues, in your mind, what is the most important thing that Wisconsin needs to do for its education system?

Dana Wachs:

We need to support education. We need to support education as best we can. I tell you. We come from a long tradition of the Wisconsin idea. Where education actually permeated our society both from the capitol through all industry in our society. We all profited from. We all were the benefactors of Wisconsin’s education system. We’re last in the nation in start-ups. You can’t get any worse than last. What we need to do is reincorporate, reinvigorate a Wisconsin idea. We need a new type of Wisconsin idea to get start-ups working. To make sure people have jobs that are paying well. And to utilize what we have, a wonderful capacity in our educational system.

Frederica Freyberg:

Should the Affordable Care Act remain in place? If you were elected governor, would you choose to accept expanded Medicaid?

Dana Wachs:

Absolutely. Just by accepting that, we’re going to have tens of thousands of additional jobs in Wisconsin. And most importantly, we’re going to cover our citizens. Our citizens need this coverage. There’s no excuse. This money should have been taken from the first place. And we need to keep our eye on the ball on what Wisconsin citizens need. We need to have healthcare for our citizens.

Frederica Freyberg:

You talked about education and the Wisconsin idea, but what is the best way to grow good paying jobs?

Dana Wachs:

We need a steady hand on the economic tiller. Scott Walker is going for this Hail Mary pass with this foreign company Foxconn. What we need to do is invest in start-ups, home grown businesses. That's the kind of business community we need. It's diverse. It’s widespread and it’s effective. For instance, in Eau Claire there’s a company called Jamf that’s now a partner with Apple computer. It’s turning our downtown completely around. It's a home grown company that will stay here. And in Madison, you have another example Epic. It’s a home grown company that will stay in Wisconsin and provides thousands of jobs. That's the safe economy. That’s the economy that works for our people. Home grown businesses will stay. They will flourish and they will employ thousands in Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:

On Foxconn though, how difficult is it to turn down the prospect of potentially 13,000 jobs?

Dana Wachs:

Here’s the deal with Foxconn. Number one, they’re rushing this through. Every time in my career, somebody is trying to rush a deal through or rush a settlement through. You hit the brakes and take a hard look at just what exactly is going on. We’re missing things. They’re rushing things through to keep it from people. This business, investing $3 billion in one company with one industry makes that business too big to fail functionally. That company will come back. They’ll say we need to retool for a different type of TV screen. And they’ll ask for another $100 million. And we’ll have to give it to them in that scenario. I think this is a terrible idea. It has terrible environmental implications as well. If we’re putting the blinders on our environmental protections regulations and laws for this company, other companies are going to come in and they’re going to ask for the same thing. This is not the way to do business in Wisconsin. We need to invest in people. The way things are working around here, there really isn’t an investment in people. There really isn’t policy for human beings in Wisconsin. It's mostly political paybacks. That’s what’s going on in Madison. And that’s gotta change.

Frederica Freyberg:

Very briefly with about a half minute left, you’ve just been through the budget cycle and the issues with transportation funding. What in your mind would be a good way to get some kind of sustainable funding for transportation?

Dana Wachs:

Should never have unindexed the gas tax. That was a mistake. Years ago that was a mistake that was made that should never have happened. We’ve got to do adult things, and we have got a billion dollars, a couple billion dollars infrastructure that’s crumbling beneath our tires. This has got to be invested in. We need to be adults and come to the table and deal with this.

Frederica Freyberg:

We need to leave it there. Dana Wachs. Thanks very much.