'Let The People Speak First' Representative Proposes New Rules

By Melanie Conklin, the Wisconsin Examiner

Aug. 5, 2021

For an ordinary citizen, testifying at a public hearing in an Assembly committee often means a very long wait in a crowded seating area, hoping that the legislators on the committee will not have left for lunch, coffee, backroom talk or started playing Candy Crush on their phones when they speak.

After watching too many members of the public being called on last after other legislators and lobbyists are permitted to speak — and sometimes even being turned away without having the chance to testify — Rep. Dave Considine (D-Baraboo) has a resolution seeking to put the public first.

“As state legislators, it is our duty to listen to our constituents. As committee members, it is our duty to listen to those who testify before us whether they are in our districts or not,” stated Considine in a memo he circulated among members seeking support for his bill. He speaks from experience.

He feels particularly strongly about the matter because of some of the hearings he’s experienced as a member of the Assembly Education Committee, which can be “unusually long,” as he puts it.
Considine retired from teaching after 30 years at a middle school in Baraboo to run for the Assembly. He has also worked as a farmer, and he points out that both of those jobs are not ones where it is easy to get time off when public hearings are scheduled — almost always between 9 – 5 o’clock.

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“Many times, I have seen the citizens we represent, including members of local government, sit in committee hearings for hours on end waiting to make their voices heard, while paid lobbyists and state officials are called to speak right away,” he says.

Given his past professional life he feels particularly pained when teachers and students take time off from school and some of them are never even called on before the chair shuts down the hearing.

His resolution — an amendment to the Assembly rules — would lay out a pecking order for those testifying:

1. The author(s) of the proposal go first to explain why they put it forward and answer questions
2. Members of the public or local government officials go next
3. Registered lobbyists and state government officials, or as Considine puts it “those of us who are being paid to be there” go last.

Trans Athletes Silenced

Democrats have increasingly cried foul around so-called public hearings where only invited guests — often all of whom share the point of view of the Republican committee chairs — have been the only ones permitted to speak.

This has notably been the case on the legislative elections committees, particularly in the Assembly, where hearings featured “experts” advancing conspiracy theories and anecdotes to further the GOP desire to show, without any credible evidence, that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent and to pass measures that make it harder to vote.

But there’s a different example that stands out for Considine. He recalls a hearing on two bills banning transgender athletes from participating in high school and college sports. (The bills have passed the Assembly and moved to the Senate where they have also had a hearing.)
The Assembly hearing, held May 26, kicked off with the bills’ author Rep. Barb Dittrich (R-Oconomowoc) stating slowly with vocal emphasis that, “Today, Wisconsin women’s voices will be heard.”

The irony of her opening statement is that she and the other author — Rep. Janel Brandtjen (R-Menomonee Falls) — took up a half hour, preventing trans women from testifying as they introduced the next group of speakers from groups that supported the legislation, some of them national speakers who were flown in and are pushing similar bills in other states. These included representatives from Save Women’s Sports and the Heritage Foundation. They sat at the front tables taking photos and videos of one another speaking.

The Assembly Committee on Education chair, Rep. Jeremy Thiesfeldt (R-Fond du Lac) told the public that because of the size of the crowd, “we have prepared an overflow room.” It was an hour and a half before regular citizens — several women athletes who spoke in favor of the bills — began their testimony.

The hearing went on for five hours, and Considine says he watched some of the kids — young transgender athletes — sitting and waiting the whole time: “These were the kids that could be affected by the bills and some of them didn’t get to testify at all.”

Giving It Time

This is the third time Considine has introduced such a measure, which has been blocked by Republican leadership in previous sessions. But he’s not giving up.

He says a handful of Democratic lawmakers have signed on as cosponsors, but not very many, and no Republicans. “Sometimes it takes time,” he says, adding that he plans to keep introducing his resolution (assuming Republicans again refuse to consider it in committee, which is a safe bet) because he believes it speaks to how government bodies should function.

“For people with jobs, children, a disability or any number of other commitments, traveling to Madison to wait for hours with no indication of when they might be able to speak is a significant and unfair burden,” says Considine. “We are a government of, by and for the people and we should operate that way.”

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