Gov. Walker To Focus On Wisconsin Workforce In State Of State
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Gov. Scott Walker's seventh State of the State address will include a guest speaker — his wife — and focus on his plans for the final two years of his second term in office, including initiatives to put more people back to work.
Walker was slated to deliver the speech on Tuesday afternoon before a joint meeting of the state Senate and Assembly, which have their largest Republican majorities in decades. He moved the time ahead four hours so he would not conflict with President Barack Obama's farewell address being delivered in Chicago at night.
Walker and first lady Tonette Walker were practicing the speech early Tuesday morning in the Assembly chamber shortly after the building opened to the public. Walker's spokesman Tom Evenson confirmed that Tonette Walker would be speaking, an unusual move for a State of the State speech.
Governors have traditionally invited guests to the address, some of whom stay in the Assembly galleries or sometimes stand before lawmakers next to the podium.
Walker has broken from tradition before, with mixed results. In his first State of the State in 2011, Green Bay Packers president Mark Murphy appeared live on a pair of video screens and promised a Super Bowl win. The Packers went on to win the Super Bowl five days later.
But in 2014, Walker invited 13 newly hired workers to stand alongside him during the speech, to demonstrate that his initiatives to spur employment were successful. One of them turned out to be a registered sex offender and felon whose inclusion embarrassed Walker and led to him saying he was frustrated about the incident.
Walker is expected to tout Wisconsin's low unemployment rate of 4.1 percent, which is the lowest it's been since 2001, but will likely avoid hot-button problems facing the Legislature. Those issues, like how to plug a $1 billion transportation budget gap, will wait for his budget address next month.
Democratic state Rep. Gordon Hintz, of Oshkosh, said he expected Walker to avoid addressing other significant challenges including allegations of abuse and an ongoing criminal investigation at the Lincoln Hills youth prison, complaints of neglect at the veterans home at King, sluggish economic growth compared to neighboring states and cuts in funding for K-12 schools.
Walker has already called a special session of the Legislature to pass a series of bills targeting opioid abuse. He will address the Legislature again next month when he releases the state budget, which will be his blueprint of spending and policy priorities for the next two years.
While Tonette Walker's participation will provide one new twist, Walker has decided against another. He told The Associated Press after completing his practice of the speech Tuesday morning that while he had contemplated wearing sunglasses, or handing them out to lawmakers, he decided against it.
Walker last month wore a pair of sunglasses in a speech before the state Chamber of Commerce to drive home his point that "the state's future's so bright, you gotta wear shades." He has repeated the reference in subsequent speeches and even hinted at it in a Twitter message posted Monday.
Walker said with a smile Tuesday that if he handed sunglasses out to all 132 lawmakers, only the Republicans might have put them on.
Even if that were the case, far more sunglasses would be on than off. Republicans outnumber Democrats 84-48 in the Legislature. It is the largest GOP majority in the Senate since 1971 and in the Assembly since 1957, giving Walker the chance to win approval for his agenda as he eyes running for re-election to a third term in 2018.
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