This week's survey

In 1989, Governor Tommy Thompson and the Wisconsin legislature established the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program to preserve valuable natural areas and wildlife habitat, protect water quality and fisheries, and expand opportunities for outdoor recreation.

The stewardship fund gives the DNR spending authority to purchase land and easement additions to state properties. Stewardship dollars also support recreational infrastructure on state properties, including campsite, restroom, and trail improvements. 

Most annual stewardship funding takes the form of grants to local governments and nonprofits. Stewardship dollars fund local park infrastructure, boat ramp facilities, recreational trails, and land purchases for parks and nature trails statewide. 

From its inception, the stewardship program has funded not just DNR land acquisition and recreational development, but a family of grant subprograms through which local communities and nonprofits, matching the state investment dollar-for-dollar, have expanded parks and public nature preserves. Stewardship dollars have been invested in every Wisconsin county.

The fund began as a ten-year, $250,000,000 program. The current iteration supports DNR land purchases and capital improvement. 

For the second consecutive budget cycle, Governor Evers has proposed a ten-year funding extension for the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund. Governor Evers is asking for $50 million to extend the program for another ten-years.

During the 2015 budget cycle, Governor Walker proposed freezing the fund. I authored a budget amendment to overturn this freeze and fund the program for another two years.

Last session, my Republican colleagues and I strongly supported reauthorizing the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship for another two-years. While I strongly support the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund, I am not sure there is enough support in the legislature for a ten-year extension. I look forward to working with my colleagues to restore funding for this program.

Please, take a minute to answer this week's survey question regarding extension of the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund. 

Click here for my survey

Survey results

Thank you to everyone who responded to last week's survey question regarding confidence in Wisconsin elections. 

In total, 151 individuals responded with 28.80 percent indicating that they do not have any confidence in Wisconsin elections and 28.14 percent stating that they have complete confidence that Wisconsin elections are being administered and conducted fairly. Additionally, just 4.64 of respondents stated that Wisconsin elections are fair but need additional safeguards to reduce fraud. 

What is more, 11 individuals responded "other." Responses included:

"We are very concerned about voter fraud in Wisconsin and that was especially exposed during this last election. We support in-person voter ID as much as possible. Absentee voting should be reserved solely for shut-ins and those unable to vote in person."

"I believe that if we just voted at polling stations, we would eliminate the majority of fraud and need for recounts."

"I believe Wisconsin elections are fair, but would support additional measures and safeguards to reduce fraud. Before doing so, however, we have to ascertain whether or not fraud actually occurred."

"There is too much early voting in Madison and Milwaukee. Vote harvesting occurred in Dane County by allowing individuals to return their ballots at "Democracy in the Park" events. This is unfair to the rest of the communities in our state that do not have the resources necessary to conduct month's long voting."

COVID-19 legislation

This week, Assembly Republicans announced a package of initiatives to help address the state's public health crisis. The legislation provides the state with more tools to fight the spread of COVID-19 and provide relief to struggling families. This legislative package builds off Governor Evers' most recent proposals, providing emergency funding, and establishes a road map for the state to move through the pandemic. 

The Assembly GOP package includes the following:

• Establish a $100 million fund to respond to the public health emergency
• Double the number of local public health staff working on the COVID-19 response. 
• Offer weekly rapid antigen tests for home use
• Continue the prohibition of co-payments for any COVID-19 tests
• Establish legislative oversight of vaccine distribution plans
• Allow for essential family members/caregivers to visit a loved one in nursing homes in specific circumstances. 
• Re-establish personal electronic computing device grants for schools ($9 million)
• Require teacher instruction from school buildings by end of January, providing exceptions
• Require school board approval of virtual instruction by a two-thirds vote of the board
• Provide payments to parents of $371 (half of the per-pupil aid increase for the year) for students who have had at least fifty percent virtual instruction since September
• Allow health service providers from other states to practice in Wisconsin
• Require the University of Wisconsin System to provide credit to students who assist in the COVID-19 response
• Create business grants for the hospitality industry
• Require the Department of Workforce Development to eliminate the backlog of unemployment insurance claims
• Keeping churches open
• Ensuring employees can return to work without the requirement of a vaccine. 
• Protect health-service providers, individuals and schools with immunity from civil liability related to COVID-19.
• Providing more certainty for businesses by prohibiting arbitrary, targeted, and scientifically unfounded closures of specific types of businesses. 

Our local health departments are doing an excellent job of keeping their respective communities safe. We must continue to provide these entities with the resources necessary to tackle this crisis. While the Assembly package contains a few provisions I support, local health departments, not the legislature, should lead the COVID-19 response efforts. Local units of government better understand the needs of the citizens than elected officials or bureaucrats in Madison. I will work to ensure local health departments have flexibility to make decisions for their own communities. 

New social media account 

As noted, I have joined the new social media platform, Parler. Thank you to everyone who has followed and engaged with me there. For those who have yet to do so, please consider following me at @RepRobBrooks. Like we do with Facebook and Twitter, my staff and I will make it a priority to respond to your comments, questions and concerns, in a timely manner. I look forward to hearing from you. 

Stay up to date

One of the best ways to date with what is happening in Madison is to sign up for the legislature's notification tracking system. This service affords you with the opportunity to track legislative activities in Madison. Upon creation of a free account, you can sign up to receive notification about specific bills of committees as well as legislative activity pertaining to a subject (i.e., health care, education, etc.).