POSITIVE

Stewardship Program - The best thing that happened for the environment this session was the money in the budget for the Stewardship Program. I supported the $460 million included in the budget for buying and preserving nature areas and improving state parks.

Recycling - The State’s recycling program got a brief reprieve from disappearing thanks to additional money to fund the program. I will continue to fight for full funding.

NEGATIVE

Independent DNR Secretary - Despite overwhelming public support to return to the state’s position that the DNR Secretary be appointed by the Natural Resources Board rather than the Governor, there is no movement on changing this back to a more independent process.

Public Intervenor - Again, a publicly supported state Public Intervenor, will not see the light of day. The Governor took away the position’s powers and seems reluctant to change his view.

POSITIVE

Smaller class sizes - The Legislature expanded the SAGE program that allows for smaller class sizes in target schools from kindergarten to third grade.

An additional $46.9 million was added in the budget. I will work to have this program fully funded next session to provide all children in Wisconsin with smaller class sizes.

Tuition freeze passed for 2000-01 and Regent flexibility denied - After years of large increases in UW tuition, the legislature passed a tuition freeze for the 2000-01 school year at the UW system. Also, the idea of giving the Board of Regents the sole responsibility for setting tuition levels was dismissed. I will continue to be an active advocate for affordable tuition in Wisconsin.

NEGATIVE

Special Education Funding - One of the biggest disappointments in state government has been our lack of support to public schools for special education funding. While our target has always been to support this funding at a 63% level, we only provide local districts with closer to the low 30% levels.

POSITIVE

HMO Appeal Bill - I was proud to be the lead Democratic sponsor in the Assembly for a bill which allows for an independent appeal process for decisions made by HMO’s. While we still have much farther to go, including allowing individuals the right to sue their HMO’s, this bill allows for patient’s to have a say in their medical decision making.

NEGATIVE

Prescription Drugs - Due to Assembly Republican inaction, we were not able to seriously address a way to help seniors pay for pharmaceutical drugs. It seems some find no problem with seniors spending a huge portion of their limited incomes on drugs and the potential that they will not properly take the drugs they need. I strongly supp rted the most aggressive plan offered. This is an embarrassment in the legislature.

Universal Health Care - There were no serious efforts to provide universal health coverage at the state level.

POSITIVE

Corporate Tax Cuts Rejected - Wisconsin has the second highest personal property tax rate in the nation, yet the second lowest corporate tax burden. Despite this, the Governor and Assembly Republican leadership proposed several corporate tax cuts. The largest was a $100 million annual single sales factor tax break which would have benefited only 2 percent of all corporations in Wisconsin. While this corporate give-a-way passed in the Assembly (which I fought against on the floor of the Assembly), it died in the Senate.

Property Tax Rent Credit restored - Despite the Governor’s opposition to this working class tax break, the public prevailed and the credit was restored.

NEGATIVE

Property Tax Rent Credit vanished for this past tax year - While the legislature restored the PTRC for this tax year, the Governor vetoed it from the budget for last year. This cost many state taxpayers upwards of $200 of lost revenue at a time of huge state surpluses.

POSITIVE

Retirement Bills Pass - Two retirement bills that I strongly supported added $4 billion to improve state pensions for 390,000 state and local government workers.

NEGATIVE

Domestic Partnership - While for the first time a truly positive bill to create a statewide domestic partnership statute was introduced, it was not even allowed a hearing in the Republican-controlled assembly. I will reintroduce these civil rights bills in the next session.

Campaign Finance goes nowhere - Unfortunately there was no legislative will to pass meaningful (or for that matter even minor) campaign finance reform legislation. Several bills that I authored or co-sponsored to get us towards real reform died during the session.

As always, you can reach me at (phone) 266-8570, (e-mail) mark.pocan@legis.state.wi.us <mailto:mark.pocan@legis.state.wi.us>, or you may write to P.O. Box 8953 Madison, WI 53708.

-State Representative Mark Pocan