Swearingen says there’s more work to be done

State Rep. Rob Swearingen (R-Rhinelander) says he doesn’t know what the definition of a career politician really is, and, after 12 years in the state legislature, some people might say that that’s too long, but he disagrees.

Swearingen says there’s plenty more to accomplish and he believes he still is the best candidate to get the job done.

“There was a time where I would say, and I still do say, that I’m not done yet.” he said. “I want to make sure that the Northwoods still has a strong voice in Madison. I have a hard time educating even our own colleagues on our side of the aisle that there’s life north of Highway 64, and it really holds true. So you need to make sure somebody’s down there with the best interests of the Northwoods at heart to make sure that we get our fair share of the pie and our fair share of attention.”

The bottom line is, Swearingen said, he’s that candidate, and, as such, his priorities remain the same.

“Broadband expansion and connectivity is still huge,” he said. “Tourism is still huge. Here’s a shout out to the Wisconsin Department of Tourism. They give us the biggest bang for the least amount of money. Their budget is small. I wish the Department of Tourism’s budget was as big as Michigan or Minnesota, and it’s just not. But they do a good job for us.”

And Swearingen said he’s always aware of our schools.

“When [state Sen.] Mary [Felzkowski] and I were on the rural schools task force 10 years ago, we were able to get some things changed that still help today,” he said. “I enjoy also working with Oneida County economic development. We work really well together, and those relationships need to continue both locally and then all the way down to Madison.”

In addition to those priorities, Swearingen says he’s tackling specifically local concerns, such as dangerous conditions that persist along Highway 51 south of Minocqua. In a recent interview with The Times, Swearingen had tough words for the state Department of Transportation (DOT) about that issue, but he also said constituents need to raise their voices loud and clear about that dangerous stretch of highway.

 “I had a guy stop me from the Hwy. K and Swamp Lake Road area, and his idea was to lower things down to 45,” Swearingen said. “And I thought that it might be a little early on getting towards Minocqua, but typically lowering speed limits starts with the local municipality, maybe then to the county level before it reaches to the state level. So I asked him to email my office for a couple of reasons.”

First, Swearingen said, no one has been in contact with his office as far as complaining about the situation. 

“So we’re not hearing it,” he said. 

But Swearingen says he doesn’t understand why the DOT isn’t listening to local law enforcement officers such as Oneida County sheriff’s captain Tyler Young, who has called the stretch of Hwy. 51 one of the most dangerous of its kind in the state.

“Tyler Young is just hugely respected, and if those guys say that it’s dangerous, it’s a dangerous highway,” he said. “But the DOT is data-driven, and then everything from the DOT is always on a priority list. So whether it’s this stretch of highway that needs to be repaved or whatever the case may be, well, it’s not ready for another 10 years yet, even though clearly it’s beyond where it should be. So, once again, bureaucrats in the DOT.”

Swearingen said he has been in the legislature 12 years and, throughout that time, there always seems to be a competition between the DOT and the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to be the agency people hate the most.

“Whether it’s the DNR with deer issues or the DOT with highway traffic issues —clearly we’re talking about lives,” he said. “So nobody’s really approached me on what we can do, but we do have a legislative liaison I will reach out to and say, ‘we need to take a closer look at this.’”

Given that we’re dealing with the Evers administration, that may move the needle, or not, Swearingen said.

“And so typically the bureaucrats will out-last the legislators that come in on a two-year, four-year basis, but I’d be happy to try to push the envelope,” he said.

Swearingen said the legislature could possibly use its oversight powers — the ability to convene hearings, issue subpoenas, put a spotlight on an issue — to pressure the agency to act.

“In the Assembly we have a transportation committee, and in the Senate, there certainly is one that may be combined with something else, and we did that with the DNR with the deer hearings,” he said. “They started in Madison, and brought them both to Woodruff and Park Falls to get in front of the public. So it can be done.”

More for local governments

Swearingen said one of the biggest accomplishments of the last legislative session was the shared revenue agreement that increased funding for local governments.

“I get that there are some conservatives who think that we shouldn’t have done it, that these municipalities need to tighten their belt, but it is effectively based on sales tax,” he said. “I believe it’s one penny on every dollar back to municipalities. And it works. I think the numbers came out for the Northwoods, and I don’t have them in front of me, but basically every municipality was up some, in a lot of cases it’s up a hundred percent.”

Swearingen praised state Sen Mary Felzkowski (R-Tomahawk) and Rep. Tony Kurtz (R-Wonewoc), saying he couldn’t take credit for the measure, but there was a great deal of satisfaction throughout the Northwoods.

Swearingen also said a workforce housing package was a significant accomplishment, though he said he wished it had had more impact in the Northwoods.

“I think there are some rumblings that we’re going to get some more housing developments, and I’m hoping that that package helped out the builders or the people that want to put these complexes up,” he said. “You look at downtown Minocqua, for instance. This package would help remodel, let’s say, the upper apartments, the vacant apartments. It would cut the red tape in terms of curb and gutters in some areas. It would save municipalities money. I think that was a big deal for us.”

Swearingen said he was disappointed that he didn’t have the answer for the workforce shortage problem itself.

“And it’s every sector, whether it’s tourism, whether it’s working in a gas station, whether it’s a profession, whether it’s nurses or doctors,” he said. “We have a huge shortage of workers. And it’s bad, and my fear is that it’s going to affect the pillars of the community in terms of health care or the paper mill or the school district.”

If one of those pillars falters, Swearingen said, it could easily take down the other two pillars in the community. 

“And I’ve said it before, the Northwood sells itself,” he said. “If you’re a young doctor coming out of a medical college, you may enjoy coming to the Northwoods, but your spouse may want the arts, or may want shopping. So we may not get that.”

Swearingen did say that the pandemic brought people to the Northwoods and many families stayed, at least short-term.

“I think school enrollments went up, maybe not huge, but they did go up and they stayed,” he said. “And why wouldn’t you?”

For those people and others thinking about relocating, that kind of economic development depends on reliable internet, Swearingen said.

“We’re getting better on internet connectivity, but we’re still not there yet,” he said. 

Generational change and not just demographic numbers has played an important role in our workforce shortage, too, Swearingen believes.

“I think it was my generation because we wanted to give our kids a better life than maybe what we had growing up, well, we must have given them everything,” he said. “Because the youth now isn’t driven. They’re not driven to work.”

And they only want to work on their terms, Swearingen said.

“We’d have kids that were working at my restaurant,” he said. “I don’t care what you’re paying them — $15 or $20 an hour even to wash dishes or whatever — if they wanted to take Friday night off and go to the football game, that’s what they’re going to do.”

And they would work for the day, not for the month or for the future, Swearingen said. 

“I couldn’t find cooks that weren’t on drugs,” he said. “High school kids didn’t want to wash dishes. I had this discussion with some beer distributors recently, and they all said the same thing. I don’t know what happened, but there’s a generation there that money is not a driver.”

And since Covid, Swearingen said, people want to work at home via Zoom and he says the state in particular still allows it to go on.

“So we’ve got state employees [still out of the office],” he said. “It’s all Evers. We’ve got office buildings all over the state that should be sold because they’re half empty or more. And you could call somebody from —pick the agency, Workforce Development or whatever — and if you do get through to them, you can hear the kid or the dog barking in the background, the crying in the background, whatever, because they’re working from home. It’s amazing.”

Economic diversity

Diverse economic development is vital, Swearingen said. Rail is one component of that, but he said that presents its own problems.

“There are only a couple of big players in rail, and there is a Northwood Rail Transit Committee made up of economic development folks from all over the Northwoods, and actually even into the UP (Michigan’s Upper Peninsula) that do meet on a regular basis,” he said. “But we have rail that’s aging. We have the cars themselves. The transport cars are aging. So all those would have to be replaced, the tracks, the ties, and then replace the cars. You have these companies that may or may not actually own the tracks and then therefore may not want to lease to a short line operator in and out of the Northwoods. And the big players provide some lip service.”

Swearingen said someone has to buy the box cars, and the infrastructure must be upgraded, and perhaps there was some federal money for that.

Government ownership of land is another impediment to economic development, Swearingen said.

“The state has enough land, and the county’s got way too much land,” he said.

Swearingen cited the Pelican River easement as an example, a deal that will foreclose about 56,000 acres of land from development forever, though there was a carve-out of about 1,200 acres for the town of Monico, which sits in the middle of the easement project.

“One thing I was happy about was when they came back and at least the town of Monico got its town,” he said. “Initially, they were essentially going to take the whole thing. And I mean, they were going to do it. And so whatever happened behind the scenes, and it got renegotiated, at least Monico got back what they had. But we sure as hell don’t need that amount of money off the tax rolls in Oneida County.”

Swearingen said the governor’s conduct in the Pelican River easement matter was egregious.

“What the governor did, along with the DNR and the Conservation Fund is obscene,” he said. “I mean, they went behind the legislature’s back. He took his federal ink pen and just bought it.”

Swearingen said the state simply ignored local officials like Oneida County board chairman Scott Holewinski, not to mention the boards of towns like Sugar Camp and Monico that passed resolutions opposing the easement purchase.

Swearingen said the Stewardship Fund, which provides the funds for most easement purchases, is reviewed every two years, and every two years he and his Republican colleagues try to reduce it.

“I do believe we need some stewardship, but one could certainly argue that there’s enough state land where they have to leave us alone up here,” he said. “Everybody thinks it’s a great idea to take it off the tax rolls in the Northwoods. Well, take it off the tax rolls in Dane County.”

Swearingen said he has been reminding down-state lawmakers for years that there is life north of Highway 64.

“The governor just the other day gave out some grant money, of which the Northwoods got zero,” he said. “There was $50 million available and there were applications from entities in the whole 12th Senate district and the Northwoods, and, with the exception of the Sokaogon Chippewa tribe in Mole Lake, 13 contiguous counties in the north got nothing.”

Cutting spending

Swearingen says the state needs to do a better job in cutting spending.

“In the last session, there was a much bigger effort to audit portions of government,” he said. “And those audits get revealing when it comes to departments like the DNR, which we’re trying to audit fish and game right now because there’s something definitely wrong there.”

To the point, Swearingen said, there’s just a lot of government waste. 

“When I was first elected, I think the state budget was $70 billion, and now we’re at $100 billion,” he said. “It exploded under Evers.”

Legislative Republicans try to cut where they can but the Evers administration makes it hard, Swearingen said.

“We cut because Evers gives out a Christmas tree, especially in terms of the capital budget,” he said. “So we have to be the adults ultimately and cut it back to what we think is manageable.”

And that was the other side of shared revenue, Swearingen said.

“So we were trying to help out these municipalities, but in reality, Republicans are supposed to be the responsible budgeters,” he said. “And so that’s how we got beat up on the shared revenue portion as well. Every budget cycle, each department is supposed to submit what their needs are. And under the Walker administration, he would insist they cut, and come back with a budget that is five or 10 percent less than what it was. And so I think in those years, we were able to keep the budget under control. But of course, under Evers, there was no control at all.”

Ultimately, too, Swearingen said, if the Republicans cut too much, the governor will veto the budget.

“We need a budget that realistically this governor is going to sign,” he said. “And so we’re dealing with divided government. That's what the voters Wisconsin sent us.”

Trying to find that budget balance has led to acrimony in the conservative ranks, Swearingen said.

“There are some mighty frustrated Republicans that got elected before me that are angry at how things have exploded,” he said. “And even though they’re a part of it, there’s always that argument that I’m more conservative than you are on our side of the aisle. That goes on a lot in the Republican Party.”

Legislative priorities

Swearingen said he is setting his priorities for the next legislative session, and he thinks his priorities will be somewhat different from many in the Republican caucus.

“The speaker will bring the caucus together,” he said. “My priority is still broadband connectivity up in the Northwoods, tourism in the Northwoods, rural schools in the Northwoods, and making sure we get our pieces of the pie,” he said. “None of that stops. It’s just ongoing.”

As far as the Republican Party overall, Swearingen said he thinks tax cuts are still going to be number one. 

Swearingen said he will also pay close attention to ongoing rural health care concerns.

“Health care in the marketplace is, we’re doing okay, but I’m concerned that everybody is buying up each other,” he said. “And then I just had somebody call my office the other day that their insurance company no longer is accepted at one of our local hospitals anymore. So that’s a big issue. Now, I’m hoping that’s just a contract dispute, and hopefully that gets solved. But this person that contacted me is in fear of where are they going to get help.”

Swearingen says he has helped out rural hospitals in our area in the last budget because in the Northwoods, if you need a specialty doctor, it’s an issue. 

“Senior citizens, people on fixed income —we'll be watching out for that as well, and the other thing in health care that we need to keep on the front burner is EMTs, these small town volunteer fire departments and emergency medical units,” he said. “They need to keep going and they need the ability to keep going. And the state through requirements keeps pushing and pushing these EMTs, and I understand they have to keep up on their certificates and their training, that type of thing. But sometimes it gets pretty onerous and the state needs to make sure that the funding or some sort of funding is continued to be available for these small departments.”

And God bless the fire departments, Swearingen said, because they do their own fundraising and keep their own ambulances going. 

Swearingen said he is once again applying to the voters for the job of representative for the 34th Assembly district. 

“So I’m hoping that my message continues to resonate,” he said. “I hope they give me another two years in Madison to keep getting things done.”