Congratulations ABATE of Wisconsin on 50 years!

by Steve Panten

That was the theme last month as we celebrated 50 years of successful grassroots lobbying. It was a great weekend, and the highlight was a large group ride to the Capitol to remind our elected members of the legislature that the motorcyclists in Wisconsin stand together, with one united voice on issues that affect our rights and freedoms.

I am sure there will be more about that elsewhere in the newsletter and I have a lot of other stuff to cover so I will leave it with just one more comment; I am sorry if you missed it, it was a great time and thank you to everyone that worked so hard to put it together. It was a great weekend!

This month we are going to learn what the legislature is going to look like in Madison and in Washington DC. Did you do everything that you can to help our friends in their election? No matter who wins, we know who we are going to work with for at least the next 2 years. Our ability to work with both sides of the aisle was really tested last year when we did not get any Democrat support for our Consumer Choice bills SB 212 and SB 213. Protecting our right to choose the appropriate engine type for our needs is a decision that should be left up to the individual, and not government policies created by other states or the Federal Government. That is a message that we need to push across the state.

Along with the 50th celebration last month, we also had our Annual Meeting of the membership where new Board members and officers were seated. I was appointed to remain as the Chair of your Legislative Committee. I thank the new board for the confidence that they have in me, so now it’s time get going.

The Committee set the Legislative Agenda for 2025 during that meeting. The motorcyclists in attendance spoke, and next year we are going to work on; consumers choice in selecting an engine type appropriate for our needs when we buy our next new motorcycle, Right to Repair, and Protecting E10 or less.

I am going to start with the last 2 first. We are currently working with Representative Penterman’s office on drafts for those 2 pieces of legislation. His staff member has been good to work with as she understood what we are trying to accomplish, and we had a great discussion on how the bill drafts should look. We already received a draft for the right to repair bill and we are working on finalizing the language. Currently we have a draft numbered LRB-0007/P1. This number is different than what I used in previous articles because this is the version for 2025. We sent the draft back with changes that we felt needed to be made to make it cleaner and easier to pass.

Since manufacturers are starting to say that they are no longer supporting the maintenance and repairs that we need on our motorcycles, this bill is important to ensure we can make the repairs. The language is also going to ensure that your local, independent shop will have the tools and technology to do repairs that we may not want to take on ourselves. The Motorcycle Riders Foundation has partnered with some independent shops to create a group called The Independent Motorcycle Aftermarket (IMA). This is a forum for independent shops to come together to address the needs they may have. This forum will also keep them informed on issues that may affect them specifically. We need to push this with the shops in our area so that independent businesses will have a stronger voice in protecting what they have built. Here is a website to learn more – https://imamembers.org. You are going to hear more about this from us because we need to help the small shops that are there for us. And we need to pass a right to repair bill to keep them open.

Protecting E10 or less is another important issue that we have been talking about for quite a while, and we have been successful so far. The new language that we are looking for in a bill draft will be to ensure that any business that is getting money from the state directly, or from funds allocated from the federal government and distributed through the state to support higher ethanol products, MUST carry E10 or less. This language would protect us from what was introduced last session in AB 454, which would have made it illegal for all new gas stations from selling E10 or less. You don’t believe that they are coming after the only gas legal for us to use? Look at what was introduced last session and recognize that just because we stopped it once, does not mean they won’t try again.

And then we are going to reintroduce our consumer’s choice bill to protect our right to purchase a new motorcycle with an engine that we feel is appropriate for our needs. Not much different from what we tried before but this time we are going to draft one bill, for all vehicles and devices, so we have a stronger voice. We will need to do a better job at getting different organizations fired up to support this. Stay tuned for more on this as we will need to find a champion to work with after the election.

Final thoughts…. November is the start of the holiday season in my world starting it off with Thanksgiving, well, actually with hunting but let’s go with Thanksgiving. Enjoy your time with family and friends and take care of each other.

That’s it.

Steve