With less than 3 weekends left before this historic election,
 the presidential and U.S. senate race in Wisconsin is tied. What does it all mean? Early voting starts next Tuesday and we continue to encourage our listeners to get out and talk to voters on the doors and by phone to close the deal and overcome the toxic ads demonizing our immigrant and trans neighbors and friends. We also give our unsolicited advice on what Kamala Harris and Tammy Baldwin need to do to win in Wisconsin.

We follow up on a recent Public Service Commission (PSC) public hearing where the PSC tried to ban the media from covering the hearing and the lousy representation of PSC members even attending the public hearing reveals utility capture and their utter failure to represent the public interest.

We continue to sound the alarm bells about the need for hospital and health system regulation, as  Ascension continues its downward spiral. The latest news is that Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers in Milwaukee has switched maternity hospitals from Ascension’s premier Milwaukee hospital to an Aurora hospital. 
Robert closes with hope that the Biden Administration will follow 
through the President’s threat this week to cut off Israeli military aid
 in 30 days if Gaza aid flow does not radically improve. Is Biden 
finally going to have some backbone?

19 days to make a difference

Early voting is now underway, as Trump/Vance and Harris/Walz crisscross Wisconsin and the other battleground states. The first day of Wisconsin early voting saw record turnout of over 100,000 voters this Tuesday. What does it mean for the same day vote? We encourage our listeners to volunteer in Citizen Action’s final voter contact activities on phones and doors talking directly to targeted voters we need to win. Are you with us?

In spite of two “thousand year event” hurricanes less than two weeks apart, and the warmest September on record, the climate change issue is the worst casualty of the 2024 election season. Are voters not interested, or are politicians refusing to talk about it?

The second most ignored issue in the 2024 election is the current hospital and health system crisis ripping a hole in our health care safety net. We discuss how the hospital closure crisis in Eau Claire is also shocking the Madison hospital system, and the latest mega hospital chain merger of Marshfield Clinic Health System & Sanford Health.

We close by welcoming Milwaukee Area Technical College educator Luz Sosa to discuss the discrimination Latinos are experiencing at MATC and how it connects to Act 10 and the gerrymandered Legislature’s chronic under funding of public education.

2024 Election ignores climate & healthcare crisis

We discuss the final stretch of the voting phase of the 2024 election. It all comes down to people like our listeners talking to other voters and helping them make meaning of this election. Sign up to volunteer from home on phones or join us on the doors.

We discuss yet another healthcare merger as minnows, Black River Memorial Hospital and the Krohn Clinic, merge in an effort to survive all the bigger fish in the pond.

Marge Rogenbuck from Lincoln County, Wisconsin joins us to discuss conservative Board Members efforts to privatize the public county nursing home. Marge is a lifelong Lincoln County resident and had both her parents stay at Pine Crest. She tells us why she joined “People For Pine Crest” and is fighting back to protect a vital and excellent public institution in her community.

We close with a very special guest, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley. He is jointed by Milwaukee County Sustainability Director Grant Helle, and Citizen Action Climate Coordinator Kat Klawes, to discuss the incredible new federal investments making it possible for cities, counties, and school districts to address the climate change emergency. As you will see, climate change is on the ballot on November 5th!

What’s at stake

With heavy hearts, we remember Milwaukee leader Jonathan Brostoff, who tragically passed away this week.

We debrief the 2024 Election, looking at the results from the presidential, U.S. Senate and State Legislative elections. What does it all mean and where do we go from here?

We discuss the reality that rural Wisconsin and most of rural America is continuing its realignment with the Republican Party. We are joined by People’s Action Rural Strategist, Kellon Patey, who lives in southeast Ohio, to discuss the pressing need for progressive organizations and donors to seriously invest in long term, permanent organizing and community building in rural places.

Rural Red

Senator Chris Larson joins us to commemorate the life of a major figure in Democratic politics who passed this week, former State Representative and Judge Fred Kessler.  Fred was one of the great political organizers of his generation, and left behind a legacy of young progressive leaders he mentored and helped elect to office.  We next turn to a deep dive into rural organizing with leaders of Grassroots Organizing Western Wisconsin (GROWW). Joining us are Executive Director Jenelle Ludwig Krauss and Organizing Director Bill Hogseth. We discuss a deeper organizing approach to reaching rural voters, and the crisis in affordable housing in rural Wisconsin.  What are the implications for the path forward from the 2024 election?

Old School Organizing

Following a discussion of Trump’s selections for agency appointments and the recent spate of new union organizing in Wisconsin, we dive into a discussion with two guests on immediate climate organizing opportunities progressives should be engaged in now.

Former Citizen Action organizer, Kevin Kane, now with Green Homeowners United, joins us to highlight where we are in Wisconsin with the Inflation Reduction Act and ARPA implementation and what opportunities exist for organizing in Wisconsin. Kevin also strongly encourages homeowners to immediately take advantage of available federal resources.

We close the show welcoming Citizen Action member and former Wausau alderman, Tom Killian, to discuss two Open Records workshops this Saturday, November 23rd in Wausau that are open to the public. One workshop, led by Bill Lueters, will provide residents and grassroots groups with insights into obtaining records from the government. The second session features Stephan Lester, who will provide information from public records about dioxin and pentachlorophenol contamination in the Thomas Street neighborhood on Wausau’s southwest side that were acquired through years of citizen research.

Climate organizing opportunities

Before we welcome our two guests, Matt and Robert discuss the state of Wisconsin’s long term revenue crisis. This week we learned that Wisconsinites pay less of their income in taxes than ever in the history of the state and Wisconsin is 35th in the nation in taxation. It may look bleak for pub;ic education with State Assembly Speaker Robin Vos promising sweeping tax cuts and Governor Tony Evers promoting the plunging tax rate that produced a decade of under funding for our schools, universities, and municipalities, and no new major investments in vital needs such as child care and home care. The public is tired of this race to the bottom, where Wisconsin copies the revenue policies of deep red states, and fails our kids, working people, and long term economic prosperity.

Chris Gooding joins us to discuss the adjunct faculty union organizing drive at Marquette University where over 70% are signed on union authorization cards. MU is shamefully violating both workers rights and Catholic social teachings, claiming religious exemption from recognizing the adjunct faculty union.

We take a deep dive with CUB’s Tom Content on the We Energies rate increases approved by the Public Service Commission (PSC) and the capture of Wisconsin’s regulatory agency by the big for profit utilities. What can be done to restore government in the public interest?

Listen to the show.

March on Marquette’s Campus in support of Union – We will be doing a march on Friday, December 6th at noon. Any sympathetic community members are encouraged to attend. Starting location TBD (we have to hold a meeting on Monday about the action first). https://ucwwisconsin.org/

Citizen Utility Board Wisconsin

Thanksgiving Special Interviews

As we prepare for Trump 2.0 Robert and Matt project some of the most important federal and Wisconsin battles of early 2025. From collective bargaining rights to health care to climate change, there will be a number of pivotal battles that we can win if enough good progressives get off the sidelines and get directlly involved. Plus, what are the implications of the big Act 10 court decision? And what is going on with the seeming division between WEAC and the Wisconsin Democratic Party in the Department of Public Instruction race?

Predicting 2025

We start with discussion of the murder of the CEO of UnitedHealth. We talk about at the immediate public response, connect to the unaddressed healthcare crisis, and the proliferation of guns in America.

In Wisconsin, we focus on the upcoming state budget battle and how Gov. Tony Evers has real power in the budget because it is the only bill that Republicans and the governor have to agree on, pass and sign in the next two years. We talk about the new opportunities that exist with 37 new state legislators and closer partisan margins in both the Senate and Assembly.

We are joined by Citizen Action member Jill Sexter from Wausau who organized a candlelight vigil outside of Wausau City Council to bring awareness to the fact that an unhoused man, Garrick Dixon, who tragically died in one of Wausau’s parks due to exposure last month.

We close by highlighting the excellent and successful community organizing in western Wisconsin by Grassroots Organizing Western Wisconsin (GROWW) that led to a huge win in Pierce County resulting in restrictions on large corporate farms in The town of Maiden Rock, Wisconsin.

Organizing for change

We open with a discussion of the latest horrific school shooting, this time, it’s in our backyard.

We also discuss the significance of the latest Enbridge oil pipeline spill, Attorney General Josh Kaul announces a $1.7 million settlement with a sleazy Milwaukee landlord, and we preview next year’s state budget fight.

We welcome Danny Akenson, a field organizer with GROWW to hear more about their community organizing in Western Wisconsin and their recent victory against corporate farms (CAFOs).

GROWWING Organizing

Battleground Wisconsin is Citizen Action of Wisconsin’s weekly podcast that features the latest political news from the front lines in the embattled state of Wisconsin. 

The show features:
·         Robert Kraig, Executive Director, Citizen Action of Wisconsin
·         Matt Brusky, Deputy Director, Citizen Action of Wisconsin
.         Claire Zautke, Health Care for All Director

This track is not available anymore.

Other tracks from Battleground Wisconsin