Legislative Report

by Steve Panten

The start of December marks the end of a season, election season. As I write this in the middle of November it appears that the election may not be over in certain parts of the country. But in Wisconsin, we know who will represent us beginning in 2019. Congratulations to the winners and thank you to our friends that have been supportive of our issues but will not be representing us moving forward.

No matter who you supported during this past election, who is going to represent us in the State and in Washington DC will be seated in January. I am looking forward to building new relationships and continuing to work with those that supported us in the past. I do not see any reason why we cannot be successful with our issues in this next session. ABATE has always been committed to working with all members of the legislature, whether they were in the majority or not and this should help us moving forward.

Because we have new representatives in Madison, Biker Day at the Capitol 2019 will be another very important one. We must introduce newly elected officials to ABATE of Wisconsin and explain what makes us the motorcycle issues experts. We have a new Governor and may end up with new Leaders of the DOT or other agencies. These are all reasons to mark February 28th on your calendar and find a way to join us in Madison.

I was able to stop in at the Capitol after the elections to talk with a few of the parties involved in our pieces of legislation from last year and got a good feeling moving forward. I think the Event Data Recorder Bill will be a hot topic once the legislature reconvenes. The direction of Autonomous and Connected Vehicles is a very large wildcard. The new governor will pick a new head of the State DOT and once that is done, we will learn how much this administration will be pushing it. The report that I received from the current legislative liaison for the DOT is that they are not moving forward on anything else in regard to this topic. They said that the report from the Governors Steering Committee was being reviewed but that is far as it went (besides the Legislators push for truck platooning). Stay tuned and stay informed. That is how we will be successful on February 28th and moving forward.

We finished our Grassroots Training sessions for this year and I would like to thank everyone for their work in putting these together, and mostly thank you to those that attended. The more members that are informed on the process and what we need, the stronger we are as a group. This year we had 5 training sessions around the state and trained close to 100 members. I am very pleased that so many members attended and hopefully they can carry that information back to their regions and districts.

The Motorcycle Riders Foundation asked the supporting State Motorcycle Rights Organizations (SMRO’s) to help fund their CQ Legislative tracking software. It is a very expensive program to operate every year, and this is a valuable tool for states to use. Not only on does it track on the federal level but it also allows us to easily access what other states are doing, or have done, on issues affecting us in this state. The Board of Directors approved giving them $500 to help offset the cost for the year. Pretty cheap for this since it helps me save a lot of time researching other states laws for things like autocycles and ROW violation bills.

Well this is my last report for 2018. It was a great year for motorcycling free in the state of Wisconsin (and apparently across Nebraska when you are headed to a national motorcycle conference in Colorado. Ask me about it). We have a lot of work to do next year and, although it won’t be easy, I think we are in a good place to be successful. It was a tough year since we lost some friends that have worked hard for this organization, but we have also seen some new faces step up and fill some rather large voids. When I get out to meetings and events around the state, I am very excited to see how many dedicated members there are, and there is no question that is why we are so successful. I have heard people from other states say that Wisconsin is the best Motorcycle Rights Organization in the country and that is because of our members. Thank you. Have a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year and enjoy some time with your biological family as well as with your motorcycle family.

That’s it.

Steve