Our future in Wisconsin depends on a clean environment, good education, quality health care, fairer taxes and honest government. I have summarized here many of the measures I have introduced during the current legislative session. 

For each bill which has been assigned a bill number, there is link to the full text of the bill, including a more detailed summary of the legislation, and the bill history indicating where the bill in now in the legislative process.

Viewing the bills requires Adobe Acrobat Reader, which you can download free here.

Protecting Our Environment
Support for Families
Health Care
Education
Consumer Protection
Making Our Tax Laws Fairer
Clean Government and Elections

Protecting Our Environment

Restoring the Independence of the DNR
This bill restores the independence of the DNR by returning to the system under which the 7-member, volunteer citizen board appointed the Secretary of the DNR. Our system of keeping natural resource decisions separate from day-to-day politics was a key reason why Wisconsin had one of the best conservation records in the nation. The great Wisconsin naturalist Aldo Leopold was instrumental in setting up that science-based, resource management system. In 1995 former Governor Thompson and the Republican-controlled Senate and Assembly changed our state’s long-standing system by making the DNR Secretary to an appointed Cabinet post and therefore subject to the whims of politics.
Read the Bill     Bill History

Reestablish the Citizen’s Public Intervenor
This legislation will restore the Public Intervenor, the state’s "citizen advocate" on environmental issues. The Public Intervenor was created by former Republican Governor Warren Knowles in 1967, and was eliminated in 1997 by former Governor Thompson. The Public Intervenor’s role was to help citizens and localities protect Wisconsin’s waters and other environmentally sensitive areas. Citizens concerned about a power plant being sited near their farm or a landfill near their house could contact the Intervenor and have a fighting chance against such projects that are often pushed by large corporations or state agencies.
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Ban the Use of Cyanide in Mining
This bill prohibits the use of cyanide in mining operations. The use of cyanide in mining has led to serious environmental problems in Colorado, Montana, Nevada, South Dakota and Idaho. In February of 2000, a massive spill in Romania devastated much of the Tisza River ecosystem in Hungary and Yugoslavia. We cannot risk any cyanide poisoning our waters or land and we must take steps to ban the use of cyanide in mining now. The state of Montana has already outlawed the use of cyanide after experiencing some 60 cyanide leaks or spills.
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Ban Mining on Public Lands 
This legislation bans metallic mining on state-owned lands such as state parks and wildlife refuges. It would also prohibit the Natural Resources Board from selling state lands for the purpose of allowing mining on those lands. Our state parks should be protected for use by the citizens of this state and by our future generations, not for mining companies.
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Property Tax Exemption for Wetlands
This bill would exempt wetlands from the property tax. Protecting wetlands continues to be one of our state’s most pressing environmental challenges. Only half of Wisconsin’s original 10 million acres of wetlands still exist. Wetlands function as a natural pollution control system, provide critical habitat for waterfowl and other wildlife and help prevent flood damage. A property tax exemption for wetlands is one way to provide an incentive for landowners to protect wetlands.
Read the Bill     Bill History

Protect Public Waters – Restrict Permits for High Capacity Wells    
This legislation will strengthen our laws regarding when it is appropriate to allow high-capacity wells – that is, wells that use more than 100,000 gallons of groundwater each day. Under current law, the DNR may only deny a permit for high-capacity wells if the well adversely affects a public water supply. This legislation creates a new standard for DNR to use when issuing permits for high-capacity wells. It would require the DNR to consider whether the well would harm public rights in the waters of the state. The need for such legislation was highlighted recently by the DNR’s decision to issue a permit to allow Perrier to pump hundreds of thousands of gallons of water each day near Big Spring in Adams County.
Read the Bill     Bill History

Increase Recycled Content of Plastic Containers 
This proposal requires plastic containers to have at least 10% recycled plastic in 2004, 20% in 2006 and 25% in 2008. This proposal will help keep plastic containers out of our landfills and will stimulate the market for recycled plastic.
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Support for Families

Family Leave to Attend Children’s School Activities
This bill would expand Wisconsin’s Family and Medical Leave law to allow parents to take time off from work so they can actively participate in their child’s education or school activities. It would allow working parents to use up to 16 hours of vacation or sick leave each year to attend activities at their child’s school, preschool or day care center. Parental involvement in our children's’ schools is key to their educational success.
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Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit 
This legislation would help offset the income tax burden of Wisconsin’s working families by giving parents a credit for child and dependent care expenses. This legislation will provide a tax credit of up to $720 per family for expenses for two or more dependents (and $360 for one child or dependent). This is a tax break for those who need it most– working families who are working hard to make a living while caring for young children, a disabled spouse or an elderly parent.
Read the Bill     Bill History

Health Care

Helping Smokers Quit
This legislation will require insurance companies, including HMOs, to cover medical treatments to stop smoking. Research indicates that smokers receiving treatment are twice as likely to quit as those who try to quit on their own. Smoking costs the state about $2 billion each year in lost productivity and health care costs. It makes sense to remove the financial barriers that prevent smokers from getting the treatment they need to quit.
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Community Options Program
This bill would transfer money saved from reduced use of nursing homes for community-based care available through the Community Options Program (COP). I have been a strong backer of the Community Options Program since first elected to the Legislature. COP supports elderly and disabled people who need assistance to remain in their homes. This transfer is needed to keep a steady stream of funding going into COP. There are more than 8,000 people on the waiting list for COP services statewide, and passage of this legislation would help cut down that list.
Read the Bill     Bill History

Health Insurance for Child Care Workers
To enable more childcare workers to continue in the field despite low wages, this proposal would provide eligible childcare workers with health insurance through the state Badger Care program.  Badger Care is the state’s health plan for working families whose incomes are less than 185% of the federal poverty level.   Under this bill, childcare workers are not required to be parents to qualify for BadgerCare.  Our society needs to do more to support those in the child care field, and this is one change we can make that would benefit many child care providers in Wisconsin.
Read the Bill     Bill History

Education

Childcare Training Incentive
To encourage childcare professionals to complete their education and remain in the childcare field, this bill creates a student loan forgiveness program.  Childcare workers with a college degree in early childhood education would be reimbursed for 10% of the outstanding amount of their loans, up to a maximum of $1,000, after they have been continuously employed full time in this state for at least 12 months as a child care worker.  They would continue to be reimbursed after each additional 12–month period of full–time childcare employment, up to a maximum of five assistance payments.
Read the Bill     Bill History

Improving the Safety of Our Schools
This bill would authorize schools to spend above the state-imposed revenue caps to pay for school security measures needed to keep students, teachers and school personnel safe. An incident at a Madison high school in which a teacher was threatened at gunpoint underscores the need to improve the safety of our schools. I am proposing to authorize schools to spend the money needed to implement school security plans. This legislation is needed because the strict (state-imposed) spending limits on schools limit the funds available to implement security measures.
Read the Bill     Bill History

Consumer Protection

Penalties for Bad Phone Service
Under current law, phone companies that provide poor service face only a slap on the wrist.  When Wisconsin suffered a rash of service problems from Ameritech a couple years ago, other states were able to levy much stiffer penalties -- $34 million in Illinois and $122 million in Ohio -- than the mere $2.2 million Wisconsin imposed.  For a company with annual revenues of $1.3 billion, that’s virtually no punishment.  The penalty for a phone company that turns its back on customers should be in line with the harm caused to Wisconsin consumers and businesses.  This proposal would allow the Public Service Commission to impose penalties as high as 25% of the value of the regulated portion of a phone company.  Current Wisconsin law limits such penalties to 1%.
Read the Bill     Bill History

Planning Our Energy Needs for the Future
This legislation would allow the state to return to our policy of using the least cost advance planning process to determine how future energy needs can be met. Under this process, the state’s utility regulator, the Public Service Commission, would work with interested parties to develop a long-term plan for power plant construction, transmission capacity, renewable energy and conservation. The plan was based on projecting future energy needs and meeting those needs at the least cost to ratepayers and with the least impact to our environment.
Read the Bill     Bill History 

Making Our Tax Laws Fairer

Eliminating Corporate Tax Loopholes
This proposal would close a loophole that multi-state corporations use to escape paying Wisconsin corporate taxes. These big corporations set up paper subsidiaries in other states that do not collect corporate income taxes, and then concoct transactions with them to deduct from their Wisconsin income until they owe little or no state income tax. By eliminating these deductions, this legislation would stop wealthy corporations from unfairly shifting the tax burden to hard working families and small businesses, who pay more when these corporations exploit this loophole.

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Property Tax Relief 
This measure creates a Homeowners Tax Credit to substantially reduce taxes for homeowners and renters by eliminating school taxes on the first $60,000 assessed value of the taxpayer’s primary residence.  The proposal would also provide a 33% increase for renters in their property tax rent credit.  It is funded by targeting the existing school levy credit to homeowners instead of corporations and out of state property owners and by closing a number of corporate tax loopholes such as the tax exemptions for luxury stadium boxes and for ATMs.
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Eliminate Sales Tax on Medicine 
This legislation will exempt all medicine from the state sales tax. Current law exempts prescription drugs, but requires that sales tax be paid on nonprescription medication. Removing the sales tax on nonprescription medication will bring welcome tax relief to families and to senior citizens who spend a disproportionate amount of their income on medication. . 
Read the Bill     Bill History

Repeal the Automatic Increases in the State Gas Tax 
This bill repeals the so-called gas tax "indexing" which automatically increases our gas tax on April 1 of every year. Since 1985, this automatic tax increase mechanism has raised the gas tax by 8.3 cents, costing taxpayers over $200 million a year. I believe any proposal to increase the state gas tax should come before the Legislature for a vote.
Read the Bill     Bill History

Clean Government and Elections

Independent Redistricting
As Legislatures in other states try to increase their partisan control by redrawing political boundaries, this plan would put citizens, not politicians, in charge of Wisconsin’s legislative and congressional redistricting after every census. Last year, the Wisconsin Legislature wasted over $2,000,000 on lawyers hired by each party who fought over redistricting plans. In the end, the court ignored the partisan legal advice and drew the new districts on its own. Under this proposal, the nonpartisan Legislative Council would develop a new redistricting system, looking to states such as Iowa that use independent citizen commissions to avoid costly and counterproductive battles over redistricting.

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Regulate Special Interest Committees 
This proposal would treat contributions from special interest committees also known as "conduits" the same as PAC contributions, which are strictly regulated under state law. Conduits were formed to circumvent our campaign finance reporting laws, and this bill would ensure that all contributions to candidates, legislative committees or political parties are properly reported. 
Read the Bill     Bill History

Lobbyists to Report all Contacts to State Agencies 
This bill would close a large gap in our lobbyist reporting law. Current law requires lobbyists to report all contacts to legislators. However, the law does not require lobbyists to report contacts to state agencies, which are responsible for enforcing state laws, awarding contracts and issuing permits. Attempts to influence state agency decisions should be reported and available for review by the public. This legislation would correct the gap in our state law. 
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Full Disclosure of Campaign Spending by Special Interests
This bill requires special interest groups to report all campaign-related expenditures to the state Elections Board. Right now those groups spend unlimited amounts of money on campaign advertisements, but have no obligation to report their expenditures to the state. Interest groups get around our campaign finance reporting laws by not specifically advertising for or against candidates, but rather frame ads in terms of the candidate's position on issues. This practice of undisclosed "issue advocacy" undermines our democracy and takes control of campaign away from candidates, as well as state election regulators, and must be stopped to restore faith in our democratic system.
Read the Bill     Bill History