Last week, City Cast Madison got a guest on the podcast who we've wanted to have since we started three years ago — Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers!
Evers sat down with host Bianca Martin to talk about the legacy he hopes to leave behind after he leaves office last year, what he hopes to get done before he goes, and the issues he'll focus on after he retires.
You can watch the interview above, or listen to the podcast below. We've also included a transcript of the interview, edited for clarity. Thanks to the governor for sitting down with us!
Bianca: Today, I'm sitting at the desk of the Governor of Wisconsin, Tony Evers, with the man himself. Governor Evers, welcome to City Cast Madison.
Governor Evers: Can you believe it? Here we are.
Bianca: I'm feeling really special and I know the whole team is. So thank you for making the time.
Governor Evers: I'm good with it. How do you like the office?
Bianca: I honestly was immediately impressed. I'll be honest.
Governor Evers: Yeah. That's pretty cool.
Bianca: I am a big green fan and gold fan. Surprising. Oh my gosh. I did not walk into that. Packers. Go Pack.
Governor Evers: It's a good place.
Bianca: Yeah. Well, you announced this summer that you'll not seek reelection next year, which created what we have now, the first fully open race for Wisconsin's governor in over a decade. Now that we're a few months out from your announcement, how are you feeling about that decision?
Governor Evers: It was good. It was good. Going up to that point in time, there was lots of talk between Kathy and I, and other people. But once I made a decision, it was fine. It was a good decision to make. I've got nine grandkids and I really like to get to know 'em. And it's hard to do. And so that's why we did it. And I've been working in the public sector for 50 some years and it was time. And I feel good about it.
The good thing is there's lots of things left to do in a very short period of time, a year and a couple months. And I'm gonna have fun. I've always had fun in this job.
Bianca: Well this is so fun to be here. And to be clear, you're still the governor of Wisconsin through the end of next year.
Governor Evers: Hell yes. Yes, I am. You're stuck with me.
Bianca: But the race is on for who will succeed you. Looking at the candidates and the running for 2026 and the folks who may still jump in, are you hopeful that there's the next right leader in the pack for Wisconsin?
Governor Evers: Oh, I'm sure there will be. And I'm not endorsing anybody, so I'll say that right up front. But yes, I think the people that are running, and there could be more, are very capable of doing the jobs. So I feel good about that. I'd say that on the Democratic side, I wouldn't necessarily say that on the Republican side, but yeah, there's good Democrats running and there could be more.
Believe it or not, when I ran the first time against Scott Walker, that primary had 20 Democrats at one time. It was unbelievable. And we were kind of going off all over the state, talking 20 and then 19 and 18. It kind of got a little smaller over time, but it's good for democracy.
Bianca: Yeah, I remember that. And there are fewer this time around at the moment.. But who knows who's gonna jump into the race. I was gonna ask if you were ready to share, but understood.
Governor Evers: No, I gotta clarify that right off the bat. Absolutely.
Bianca: What does it take to be a good governor? You're not endorsing, but what are you really looking for?
Governor Evers: Well, you have to have reasons why you do run. And I had plenty. You know, I was following Scott Walker who got rid of teacher unions and all sorts of other things that I found objectionable. So, yeah, you have to have an idea of what you want to accomplish. And clearly we want to make sure that our kids have the best education possible, and that includes our folks that go to the University of Wisconsin system and the tech college system. And so those are kind of the issues for the day, you know, several years ago still are to some extent.
Bianca: And speaking about getting things done and accomplishments, I do wanna talk a little bit about your legacy.
See, one thing that has marked your tenure, whether you've liked it or not, is divided politics, amid historic and, at its worst, dangerous partisanship. Yet you've still managed to get things done. So, you know, while again you have more time to accomplish things before calling it a day. What's an initiative, or measure, or piece of progress during your time in office that you're particularly proud of?
Governor Evers: Well, there's several.
The kind of defining one was fair maps. You know, clearly we talked about that when I ran the first time. And it played out legislatively. You know, the first day I was here, the Republicans had a large majority in both houses and you had a Democratic governor. And it was clear that the maps that we had were gerrymandered and that we could actually do something to change that.
And we did. And as a result of that, there's been compromises in this last budget. But it was just hard work. I mean, one of the things that we did and I think it was in our first couple years, we actually put together a group of nonpartisans and brought them together to, you know, this is a process that should be used. This is how we think it should work. And we followed their recommendations to make this happen. But fair maps was really important. And, you know, Wisconsin's a purple state. We're never gonna be dark blue. We're never gonna be dark red. We're purple and that's a good thing.
I think it gives people conversations. It gets people to be involved with local politics and also state politics. Because we're a purple state. I think it makes it more interesting and, frankly, a better world.
Bianca: Well, we did actually ask listeners for questions ahead of this conversation, like what they wanted to ask you. And something that's come up recently is folks still kind of feeling like the maps have more way to go in terms of fairness, looking at our congressional maps. And there's discussion of possibly creating a body that would be separate from the state government. What do you think about that?
Governor Evers: I support having a body that would be independent. Now, that would be hard to find nowadays, I would suggest. But have an independent body that really runs the process and creates the maps. And we did that with a group of people just so we could try it out. And it worked fine.
Now whether that happens in Wisconsin or not, that's hard to say because the people in the legislature may say: we know better. Or the new governor might say, we know better than this independent body, but there's enough places in this country where there is an independent body. And I support that. And hopefully at some point in time we can get there.
But the congressional maps, I just have [to say] that became a different thing because we couldn't make some changes in that arena because that was taken to the US Supreme Court. They deemed the congressional districts as being okay. I mean, clearly they're not. Clearly they're not. I mean, we're a purple state, and we have two Democrats and more than two Republicans in Washington, DC.
And so we have to figure that out. There has to be some change there, but an independent body can do that too.
Bianca: We're a Madison focused show, and you've lived in Madison and Dane County for many years. Worked here. We love living here. And one of the biggest issues facing Madison is affordable housing.
Part of your job is working with municipalities to achieve their needs. Madison is growing so fast and the prices for housing is just… it's going off. It's insane. And people are really hurting. Do you have a take on how Madison might work to both promote progress and growth while also trying to keep affordable housing and accessibility something for the people who already live here? And how the state might aid in that effort?
Governor Evers: I’ll start with what you just said, the last thing. We actually got $535 million for housing – affordable housing, workforce housing, that sort of thing. Not in this last budget, but the budget before.
That has made a difference all across the state. That is huge. I mean Kathy and I will be looking for a place to live in a year and a couple months after that. And it is high here. I wanna stay where our grandkids are and they're in this general area, so we'll be staying someplace in the Madison area, but it’s expensive. It’s really expensive.
In Madison, you don't have that much room to create affordable housing, whereas the suburban areas have the ability to do that. But as a statewide issue, which is where I'm concerned, we need more money for that, we need it right now, but we still have some of that money left from a couple budgets ago.
But it's bringing all the people together. Not just the people who construct them, but who’s going to own the facility, all those things. It won’t happen easily, but it has to happen. Affordable housing is one of those dots we have to connect, if we want to have a good life (and) a good economy. It's housing, transportation, education, healthcare, all the things that, frankly, Washington's screwing up right at this very moment as we're talking. Enough food. But housing is a big part of that.
I'll give you a small example, and I know this has nothing to do with Madison. But there was a smaller town in northwest Wisconsin where the three largest employers said, “Let's all kick in some money and they actually built affordable housing in that city.” So there's lots of ways of doing it.
Obviously Madison's a more mature area and you don't have a lot of land left. But at the end of the day, affordable housing has to be part of it because otherwise they will go elsewhere.
Bianca: Yeah, so some private industry helping out, like truly partnerships across the board. It's extremely complex.
We were talking about before this conversation, just the needs that you have to keep yourself safe as governor and kind of the temperature of our country right now. You mentioned stuff that's happening in Washington D.C. We're now in the second longest running federal government shutdown in US history.
It's a scary time socially and politically. And amidst all this uncertainty, do you have anything that's giving you hope right now?
Governor Evers: Yeah. There's all sorts of good things happening. Just today, even though it was very contentious, we actually passed a building program for our correctional institutions here in the state of Wisconsin.
I know that's always controversial. “Too many people in prison.” “Too few people in the prison.” But at the end of the day, the facilities that we need for corrections, they need to be changed. And we actually passed that today. It was not an easy thing to do. There was lots of conversation, lots of anger, but we got it done with the building commission.
So I have great hope for the future. But I spent time this last week thinking about the SNAP program, the food program that is run by the federal government. As of next week, it's gonna go away. Those people that need those cards in order to buy food, they might put 'em down to pay, and the person that’s taking the money might say, "These don’t work anymore.”
I could go on and on about what's going on in Washington, D.C. The good news is I do believe at the local level and at the state level here, we're in a pretty good place. We aren't perfect.
I'll give you a small example. I worked really hard as did a lot of other people to get some state money involved with early childhood programming. We got some. Was it enough? Hell no. But it is a start, and once you have that start, I believe it will continue to grow over time.
It's that kind of frustrations that I know people see. But at the end of the day, we've really tried to do the right thing, and I think we've been pretty successful.
Bianca: Well, before I let you go, as mentioned, we asked our audience what questions they had for you, and the last question today is coming from a retired employee of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
Governor Evers: Uh oh.
Bianca: (Laughs) She wrote us and said, when you were a state superintendent of schools, you spoke at many retirement celebrations, and always asked the question of each retiree, “What's the first thing you're going to do when you are actually retired?” So, Governor Evers, turning the tables here on you. What's the first thing you're going to do when you officially hang up your hat?
Governor Evers: We've gotta buy a house and buy two cars. That's the first thing we have to do. And that is not gonna be easy.
But, I have two things, they’re in my heart and frankly areas that we aren’t doing well in. One is food. The issue of food sovereignty and food security. Whatever I can do to play a role in that, even handing out stuff at a food bank, that’s what I want to do.
And the other is even more difficult, because I don’t think people realize how difficult domestic violence is in this state.
This state, this last year, had 99 people murdered because of domestic violence, and that's men and women. We have to do something. I have no idea what I'm gonna be doing in that arena, but whatever I can do so people get it, you know. I don't think people get it when 99 people are murdered, and that's a high number for a state this size.
I was in Canada a few weeks ago. Large city, 400,000 people. How many murders did they have in one year? Four. And if all of those were domestic violence, I have no idea. None of them might be. How can a city that large across the border have four murders and we have 99 just in domestic violence.
That drives me crazy. I'm going to, I can honestly say I don't know what I can do to help that arena, but whatever I can, I will.
Bianca: Drawing attention to it is a huge first step. And I can't agree with you enough. It's not well enough known or talked about. What meaningful ways to spend your time after you retire. I thought you might say boating or something like that. (Laughs)
Governor Evers: Kathy is good. She tries to stay as healthy as possible and she does her work and I'll do my stuff. And we like to ride a train. One of the things we're gonna do is get on a train and go out to Portland and visit my brother.
Bianca: Incredible.
Governor Evers: So we’ll be doing some fun things too.
Bianca: Wonderful. Well, governor Tony Evers, Thank you so much for your time and your ongoing service to Wisconsin.
Governor Evers: Thank you. So fun.
