Please provide a brief description of your professional background and your legislative district.

After an internship in a district attorney’s office and a brief stint in a small partnership, I have been in private practice since 1974. I am a past president of the State Bar of Wisconsin, the author of the 1983 version of Wisconsin Practice (West), and a former instructor of paralegals at UW-Superior. My practice used to include about 20-25 percent criminal law, but since joining the Wisconsin Assembly, I have had to eliminate anything that involves litigation because of the scheduling problem. I have a concentration in the development of small community drinking water and wastewater systems.

I was elected to the Legislature in 1998 and have been re-elected ever since. I am currently on the Joint Committee on Finance, am the chair of the Committee on Forestry, and was recently appointed as co-chair of the Joint Committee on Information Policy and Technology. I am also on the Joint Legislative Council Special Committee on State-Tribal Relations, the Claims Board, the Group Insurance Board, the Employee Trust Funds Board and the Supreme Court’s State Tribal Justice Forum. In the past, I have also been on Transportation, Education, Veterans’ Affairs, Financial Institutions and the Rules Committees.

How has your legal career/legal studies shaped your experience in the state legislature?

This may surprise people, but the most important advantage of being a lawyer is not the technical expertise, although that is helpful. What is more important is that we are exposed to how law affects real people in real life. For most legislators, lawmaking is theory, or worse, ideology. Lawyers experience law through their clients’ eyes and understand its power to do good or ill. We know the tragedy of poorly crafted laws.

What current pieces of legislation are you working on that might be of interest to the State Bar of Wisconsin?

The most interesting piece of legislation that I am currently working on is a reporting system for the prescription of certain dangerous prescription drugs that are commonly abused through diversion from their intended purposes. This is the most deadly drug problem in the area that I represent. I have worked on it for over three years, balancing the various requirements of a number of different stakeholders. Assembly Bill 227 was referred to the Committee on Public Health and received a public hearing in July. The committee approved the bill and it will move to the Assembly and then Senate for a floor vote this fall when the Legislature commences its next floorperiod on Sept. 15.

In the budget process, I helped shepherd a provision to raise the eligibility for the State Public Defender through the budget process. It passed, but Gov. Doyle used his partial veto to remove it. Following the governor’s veto, I began working with other legislators on legislation to pass a version that the governor will sign. Assembly Bill 395 has been referred to the Committee on Judiciary and Ethics and Senate Bill 263 has been sent to the Committee on Judiciary, Corrections, Insurance and Campaign Finance Reform, and Housing. Both bills are awaiting committee action with hearings expected during the upcoming fall legislative session.

I am working on a number of other bills, but these are the ones of most direct relevance to the State Bar.

What would you identify as the major issues/challenges facing the justice system?

As a member of the Finance Committee, I have been focused on the budget for many months. In Wisconsin, we are all learning to make do with fewer resources in these difficult economic times. We have to make sure that we continue to protect our most vulnerable citizens as we cut the size and cost of our government. We have tried to do that, with civil legal services, public defender and other programs, but we also have to make sure that we can maintain the quality of justice and that is difficult when so many of those who make our system work are not receiving adequate compensation.

Anything else you’d like to add?

As a past president of the State Bar, I have a different perspective than most legislators. I have always believed that advising decision makers is a core function of the State Bar, as the Court did in its integration cases. The State Bar needs to speak with one voice on behalf of the profession and not as an interest group. It has played that role in the past, but when the Sections (which function more as special interest groups) came to dominate the government relations process, it lost that claim to moral authority. It is now a tower of Babel and has far less influence in the Capitol.

Also, as one of the people who developed the “Keller” process on the dues rebate, I think it is important to remember to stay on mission. It is ok to deal with “non-germane” issues, but even those issues should be closely allied to our mission. We have no special expertise to share on other issues and should have the humility to remember that.

Rotunda Report is a new newsletter, issued once every two weeks, from the State Bar of Wisconsin that highlights legislative, judicial and administrative developments that impact the legal profession and the justice system. It is produced by the Bar’s Government Relations Team and is distributed free to attorneys, public officials and others who help shape public policy in Wisconsin. We invite your suggestions to make the Rotunda Report more informative and useful and we encourage you to visit our Web site for the most current information about justice-related issues.

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