Program Recordings - The League of Women Voters of the La Crosse Area

Home2024-25 LWVLA Program Recordings (Copy)

2025 Legislative Breakfast

The LWVLA hosted a cordial, nonpartisan conversation with our state and national representatives, who are invited to share legislative updates on key issues.

The morning included a moderated Q&A which gave League members - as interested constituents - the opportunity to voice questions or suggestions.

Our La Crosse area delegation includes: Sens. Baldwin and Johnson, Rep. Van Orden, State Sen. Pfaff, State Reps. Billings, Doyle, Johnson, and Pronschinske. All were invited. Rep. Billings and Sen. Pfaff attended as did Gregg Wavrunek for Sen Baldwin and Nick Padesky for Rep. Johnson.

2025 Winter Webinar

Improving Civic Health...and Why It Matters

Program Information:
Mary Beth Collins (JD, MA) Executive Director of the UW-Madison Center for Community and Nonprofit Studies, discusses key indicators of civic health, findings of the Second Civic Health of Wisconsin Report, and the most pressing challenges and most hopeful opportunities at hand for Wisconsin’s civic health.

Civic health is the manner in which communities come together to define and address public problems. Whether the issue is affordable housing, decreased funding for schools, an aging population, failing infrastructure, or racial inequities, the problems are big, complicated and not easily solved. Further, individuals within communities may have different views on, and be affected differently, by the issues. Is the civic health where we live strong enough to help our community do the hard work that needs to be done?

Additional Resources:
The UW-Madison Center for Community and Nonprofit Studies, along with a coalition of nonpartisan organizations, partnered with the National Conference on Citizenship (NCoC) to publish the inaugural report on civic health in Wisconsin in 2020, which provided basic information about the state of Wisconsin’s civic health, and served as a launch for the Civic Health of Wisconsin Initiative, a nonpartisan, coalition-based effort to connect and promote civic health efforts, and gain a better understanding of civic health opportunities and challenges, across Wisconsin communities and the state as a whole.

Program Resources:
UW-Madison Center for Community and Nonprofit Studies
Report: Civic Health in Wisconsin—Connectedness in Context
Civics Deserts: America's Civic Health Challenges
Civic Health Project—Video and White Paper

January Lunch & Learn

United State and Wisconsin Constitutions Under Fire

Program Information:

Emily Lau, staff attorney with the State Democracy Research Initiative at the UW-Madison law school, will speak on efforts to amend both the U.S. and WI state constitutions.

Speaker Information:
Emily Lau is a Staff Attorney with the State Democracy Research Initiative, a non-profit, non-partisan organization at the University of Wisconsin Madison. She joined the Initiative after earning her law degree from Yale Law School. She was also an editor on the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism and a member of the First-Generation Professionals board. Before law school Emily worked in the California Governor’s Office in the Brown and Newsom administrations.

Background Information:
Our US Constitution is a founding document of our democracy and yet the process for changing it is in danger of becoming politicized. From the Congressional Research report cited below “Article V of the U.S. Constitution provides two ways to amend the nation’s fundamental charter. Congress, by a two-thirds vote of both houses, may propose amendments to the states for ratification, a procedure that has been used for all 27 current amendments. Alternatively, on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the states, 34 at present, Article V directs that Congress “shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments…””. This alternative has never been implemented. Yet on January 25, 2022, the Wisconsin legislature voted to support the “Convention of States”, making the current total 19 states in support of this effort. The League of Women Voters (National) is “concerned that there are many unresolved questions about the powers and processes of an Article V Constitutional Convention. The League believes that such a Convention should be called only” if 6 specific conditions are in place which would safeguard this process.

Our Wisconsin Constitution is also under fire. In 2024, there have been 5 state Constitutional Amendments on the ballet. Unlike the regular bills passed by the legislature, the governor cannot veto a proposed constitutional amendment. This indicates that the WI legislature is using the constitutional amendment process to bypass the governor’s veto authority. Legislating through constitutional amendments politicizes our democratic process and corrupts our Constitution. The League of Women Voters of Wisconsin advocated a “NO” vote to all of the 2024 proposed Constitutional Amendments on the ballot.

Additional Resources:

State Democracy Research Initiative:
https://statedemocracy.law.wisc.edu/and https://50constitutions.org/wi

The League of Women Voters:
https://lwvc.org/position/position-constitutional-conventions under-article-v-us-constitution/ and
https://my.lwv.org/wisconsin/constitutional-corner%20wisconsin%E2%80%99s-constitutional-amendment-process

Congressional Research Service:
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RR42589 and
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R44435/5

Other Sources:

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/convention-states-constitution

https://www.commoncause.org/work/stopping-a-dangerous-article-v-convention/

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/the-united-states-unamendable-constitution

https://conventionofstates.com/wisconsin-home

December Lunch & Learn

Because Democracy Is Not a Spectator Sport

Program Information:
The December noon program highlighted the history of voting rights in America up to and including the VRA. Sam Scinta reviewed the consequential Shelby County and Brnovich Supreme Court decisions that have limited aspects of the VRA and will discuss current efforts to restore the VRA.

Our right to vote is the most basic promise of our democracy. In August 2025 we will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). Our democracy is strongest when every voice is heard, which is why the League of Women Voters strongly advocate for measures to make voting more accessible. Since the 2013 Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder gutted the VRA, at least twenty-nine states have passed ninety-four laws that make it harder to vote, with the burden falling hardest on Black voters and other voters of color.

Speaker: Sam Scinta is a partner in SG Civic Planning, a consulting firm focused on work with local governments and developers across Wisconsin and Minnesota. Prior to that, he served as the publisher of Fulcrum Publishing, a leading independent book publisher, for over 15 years. He received his JD from the University of Denver and worked as a public finance attorney prior to joining Fulcrum. In 2015, Sam founded IM Education, Inc., a nonprofit focusing on critical thinking and civil discourse within education. He is a lecturer in the Servant Leadership Program at Viterbo University, where he teaches a class on Civics and the Common Good, and the Political Science Department at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse. In 2021, in partnership with Viterbo University’s Reinhart Institute for Ethics in Leadership, Sam created Rebuilding American Civics, a program designed to provide civics education and creating a space for civil discourse for community members; this program launched a new series, Civics and Cinema, in the fall of 2024. he has served on several boards in the Western Wisconsin region.

Additional Resources:

Center for Public Integrity, “A 50-state look at how states are shutting people out of our democracy”, October 6, 2022.

https://publicintegrity.org/politics/elections/who-counts/who-counts-in-voting/

LWV US: Impact on Issues 2022-2024“Citizen’s Right to Vote” https://www.lwv.org/impact-issues (p 23-32)

LWV US, “Fighting Voter Suppression”,

https://www.lwv.org/voting-rights/fighting-voter-suppression

November Lunch & Learn
Project Proven: Helping Formerly Incarcerated People
Find Their Path Back into the Community

Program Information:
Project Proven is a program serving the La Crosse area that assists people who have been incarcerated to transition from prison or jail to community life. Project Proven is a service of Western Technical College and serves hundreds of people each year. Their goal is to reduce recidivism by assisting justice-involved people to transition to the community through career and educational opportunities.

Speakers:
Colin Walsh, Project Proven Manager at Western Technical College
Colin serves as the manager for Project Proven, a program at Western Technical College that assists justice-involved individuals with both their personal and professional goals. Colin coordinates jail programming at La Crosse, Monroe, Trempealeau, and Jackson County jails and works with individuals as they transition back into the community upon release. Prior to working at Western, Colin worked in the La Crosse County Jail for 11 years, so he brings a unique perspective to the program.

Dillon Mader, Instructor, Project Proven & Learner Support and Transition at Western Technical College
Dillon is an Instructor at Western Technical College who bridges correctional, campus, and community spaces. Dillon primarily serves currently and formerly incarcerated learners and other first-generation students, teaching courses in reading and writing, employment, and community resources, among others. In addition to his work at Western, Dillon serves on the La Crosse County Board.

October Lunch & Learn
Pay-to-Play Politics: A Call to Action

Program Information:
“Pay-to-play” politics undermines peace and civic engagement in the US. Judy Nagel and Howard Hauser discuss current opportunities to get involved in addressing the flood of money in politics and local, state, and national elections. American Promise is a national initiative to amend the US constitution to combat corruption, end elite and foreign money control of our elections, and secure the free speech and representation of all Americans. They discuss efforts in Wisconsin to reduce the influence of big money in politics through the For Our Freedom Amendment. Voters have a right to know who is making large campaign contributions to influence elections.

American Promise-WI

Speakers:
Howard Hauser is a co-founder and partner at Market Masters LLC. They guide, coach, and train owners, presidents, and CEOs of $10+ million B2B companies to take their companies to the next level and beyond. They teach their proprietary system developed over 40 years of fixing, running, and growing companies into market leaders.Howard has been a Rotarian for over 17 years, and is a past president of two clubs including his current club, the Rotary Club of Green Bay.

Judy Nagel retired from her position as a Financial Advisor at Wells Fargo. She serves on the Wisconsin statewide committee for American Promise, focusing on campaign finance reform. She is active with the Green Bay Rotary Club, Vision Greater Green Bay, Leader Ethics, and numerous other statewide and local organizations.

Program Resources:
LWV US advocates for the DISCLOSE Act in Congress. The DISCLOSE Act (S. 443) requires organizations and politicians to disclose donations over $10,000 during an election cycle. The proposed Wisconsin Senate Joint Resolutionn urges support for a constitutional amendment to provide states with authority to regulate campaign financing.

LWV Position:
Campaign Finance/Money in Politics

Elections should be about the voters, not big money interests. It’s time to limit SuperPACs and secret donors to protect representative democracy.
Reducing the influence of big money in our politics makes our elections fairer. Voters have the right to know who is raising money for which political candidates, how much money they are raising, and how that money is being spent. Our elections should be free from corruption and undue influence and should work so that everyday Americans can run for office, even if they aren't well connected to wealthy special interests.

We fight to reform money in politics in Congress, with state legislatures, with the executive branch, and, where appropriate, the courts. We are deeply committed to reforming our nation's campaign finance system to ensure the public's right to know, combat corruption and undue influence, and enable candidates to compete more equitably in public office, and allow maximum citizen participation in the political process.

~from "Making Democracy Work" @ https://www.lwv.org/making-democracy-work

More on the LWV "Money in Politics" Position

September Lunch & Learn

The Electoral College
Its History and Relevance in Modern Elections

Program Information:
The Electoral College is in the news as candidates decide where to spend their time and resources in this election season. We know it is important but how did it start? Why is it controversial? How else could we elect our president? Will it guide us through another peaceful transfer of power?

Speaker:
Joan Schwarz is a retired attorney and Civics Education and Gender Law lecturer at UW Whitewater, and currently serves as Secretary of the Board of the LWVWI, Chair of the State Impartial Justice and Redistricting Committee, and is a member of the state Legislative Committee with a focus on redistricting, court integrity, reproductive justice and the ERA.