Curve Balls…

by Steve Panten

Sometimes in life, you get thrown a curve ball that presents new challenges and forces a person to make some adjustments. Or in the case of what is happening right now in the world, the curve ball forces the whole world to make some adjustments. We also see these curve balls happen in the world of politics. Just when you think a bill is dead someone comes to the table with a new revelation and next thing we know, we have a new autocycle law. Occasionally, the opposite happens as well. We think that we have what would be considered a “common sense” bill, but we cannot get support to move it.

In my (feels like 100) years of being your Legislative Committee Chair, I have seen this curve ball take me by surprise three times. First was the autocycle bill and then our Vehicle Data Recorder Bill. We had intense Committee Hearings in the Legislature on privacy concerns, but our representatives understood the issue and passed it on to the floor. The Assembly passed the bill unanimously and it was scheduled for a vote in the State Senate, where I was sure that we had the votes needed to pass it. And then the curve ball happened when leadership pulled it from the calendar 24 hours before the vote. With that one action our privacy was derailed, unless the Federal Government stepped in.

The other time that it happened was last month when Gov. Evers vetoed SB 43, the paddlewheel bill. This was not our bill but having the motorcyclists support behind it, sure helped it move through the legislature. We helped push the bill through the committees and garnered up the support to pass it unanimously in the Senate and the Assembly. I have been reporting that our hard work was done and that we expected it to be signed into law, then the Governor vetoed it. Gov. Evers staff responded by saying that they were not sure how this bill would affect the gaming compact. ABATE of Wisconsin was very disappointed that the Governor’s office did not reach out to tribal leaders or to the bill authors to discuss what, if any, impact it would have. I spoke with Senator Jacque and he assured me that his office did meet with tribal leaders and they we not opposed to the bill. Too bad the Governor’s office did not do the same.

Like I said earlier, this was not originally our bill, but we did take a position on it because we have used paddlewheel raffles in the past with great success. Once we learned that they were illegal and continuing to use them would jeopardize our raffle licenses, we decided to cease raising funds from paddlewheels.

I probably know the next question…if it passed unanimously in the legislature, why don’t they vote to override it? There were discussions to see if there was enough support to do this. Some members of the legislature would probably flip their vote to support the Governor, but the biggest roadblock was time. The Leadership in the Assembly set a date for the session to end for the year and there was not enough time for comprehensive discussions about successfully overriding the veto. This means that we will have to start all over next session….in January.

Because this is an election year, the State Legislature has adjourned for the year, except for budget and emergency issues. Representative Considine tried to get an anti-motorcyclist profiling joint resolution drafted and passed before the session ended, but we ran out of time for that as well. We would like to thank the 15 members of the Assembly and the 2 members of the Senate who signed on to this. It was great to see the quick response and support for an issue that we first brought up at our Biker Day in January. This will be something that we will revisit when the next legislative session begins…in January.

Earlier in March, I was contacted by a Lobbyist from the Air Ambulance groups asking for our support on a Federal Bill that would help the Flight for Life type air ambulance services recover fees that are not collectable after the insurance companies pay their portion. Currently, these medical transport companies cannot charge the patient for the difference between the actual cost of the service and what the insurance company pays, causing some of them to not be able to continue service. We have seen restructuring of air ambulance services in this state, so coverage is probably not as timely as is sometimes needed. This is especially an issue in the more rural areas of Wisconsin that rely on air ambulances to move critical patients. While we do not want to get too involved in insurance payment issues, we do feel that this is a valuable service to motorcyclists, as well as for the safety of all residents. The ABATE of Wisconsin Legislative Committee recommended to draft a position paper to send to our Federal Representatives stating that we recognize the importance of this service and we would like the Federal Government to figure out a way to address the shortfall experienced by these companies. We are not going to get involved much more than that because the actual bill that we were asked to support is very comprehensive. The Motorcycle Riders Foundation reviewed the bill and felt that it did not affect motorcyclists, so we are not going to take a position one way or another on the bill, just one part of it.

The State Legislature has adjourned for the year, but our work is not done. There is an important election coming up on April 7th and a special election for Congressional District 7 on May 12th. These elections are important on determining if our friends are or will remain, in Madison and Washington DC. Be informed before you get to the election booth and be sure to take the time to have your vote count You have a choice to help shape the government and that starts with voting motorcycle.

That’s it.

Steve