The Democratic Voice Podcast
From La Crosse to Madison to D.C., La Crosse County Democratic Party chair William Garcia and WIZM's Rick Solem break down the politics impacting Wisconsinites.
Episodes
The US House recently passed The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, or TOBBA. We break down how the 1,100-page document, passed in the middle of the night, will disproportionally harm working class people while being a wealth transfer to the rich. It cuts Medicaid and SNAP, sends billions more to the military, cuts taxes for the rich, raises taxes on the poor and has little provisions within it like tax breaks for gun silencers and tannin...
The Wisconsin state budget is due at the end of next month. Wisconsin Republicans stripped over 600 of Gov. Tony Evers’ provisions from it.
Things like legalizing recreational marijuana, continuing the child care subsidy, creating a tax bracket for those making over $1 million or funding for water quality — from removing lead or fighting PFAS.
Since this podcast, Evers did meet in person twice with the top t...
Just recently, Donald Trump endorsed Derrick Van Orden for the 2026 US House election in Wisconsin's 3rd District here, which comes at a peculiar time. Trump, if you haven't noticed, isn't all that popular right now — as compared to the past 80 years of presidents. We talk about why that is, how Van Orden has pretended to do town halls and positioned himself on upcoming votes to cut benefits for things like Medicaid.
We...
Democratic Wisconsin state Assembly Rep. Francesca Hong joins to talk about her bill Health School Meals for All, hoping there’s a way to work it into the budget.
The bill would provide breakfast and lunch to all students in all schools — public or private. We discuss the benefits of the bill but also how Republicans will likely withhold it from even getting a public hearing.
While a bill to advance postpartum Med...
We recap the spring elections that saw incredible turnout that saw Democratic wins for Susan Crawford on the Wisconsin Supreme Court and Jill Underly to lead, again, the Department of Public Instruction.
We hit on how Elon Musk's money couldn't buy the Supreme Court seat and how Donald Trump still needs to be linked to all of this.
We also talked about some of the potential cases that the new state Supreme Court would take up...
Legislation was recently introduced by Democratic Wisconsin state Senators Brad Pfaff and Sarah Keyteskiu to help improve housing affordability. One of the highlights from the bill is prohibiting hedge funds from buying single-family homes. Those hedge funds suck up all a majority of housing stock in a particular area, which skyrockets prices.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
We don't know if Elon Musk has ever stepped foot in Wisconsin, but he's spent more money here these past few weeks than most of us will ever make in our lifetime. We discuss the many ways Musk is entrenched in Wisconsin politics from trying to fund Brad Schimel in the race or bash Susan Crawford over the airwaves. We also discuss the potential lawsuit that would affect Tesla sales in the state, depending on how this race goes, plus...
The townhall that wasn't by US House Rep. Derrick Van Orden, and the smug video to troll constituents in La Crosse trying to make it look like he showed up. Van Orden has been scheduling and cancelling town halls in Wisconsin's 3rd District, including in La Crosse and Eau Claire. William Garcia talks about having a ticket to go to the La Crosse event, before it being rescheduled and moved to a secret location. Hours later, Van Orde...
We break down the $4.5 trillion tax cut for the rich that just passed the Republican-controlled US House budget committee along party lines. We discuss how the GOP plans to pay for that off the backs of working class people, calling for “mandatory” cuts for Medicare, Medicaid and food benefits known as SNAP.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you read any stories about Donald Trump and Elon Musk freezing what's called USAID (United States Agency for International Development), you'll understand the impact that it has on people in other countries. We discuss some of those impacts, but also look into the impacts of pulling the U.S. out of foreign relations in this way.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
We break down some of Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers' budget proposals when it comes to education, healthcare, prices and gun reform, as compared to what Republicans in the state are doing to help the working class. We talk about Evers on education funding, free school lunch, background checks, mental health initiatives and medical costs. All things Wisconsin Republicans have called dead on arrival, as they again make it a point to say ...
William Garcia, chair of the La Crosse County and 3rd Congressional District Democratic Party, in the WIZM studio for La Crosse Talk discussing Donald Trump “saving” TikTok and the inauguration, plus the priorities of Democrats and Republicans in Wisconsin state government.
We also took a couple of calls, including one from a listener accusing him of disrespecting President Trump and another on alleged Democratic corrup...
Wisconsin's state Legislature has been at work for a week and Republicans in control have already done some outrageous things to both grab power and spark outrage where it doesn't exist. With a Wisconsin Supreme Court race on the April ballot and control of that court between "conservatives" and "progressives" up for grabs, we start the conversation in North Carolina. There, the GOP-led Supreme Court has refused to certify the Demo...
It's already started, and Donald Trump hasn't even been sworn in yet as president, but Republican chaos is brewing and it's only going to get worse. We talk about how this isn't normal, even though this has been the norm for the past decade — and for those who turned 18 and began voting in 2015, that's all they've lived with. Part of the conversation hovers around two feuding factions in Donald Trump's orbit — all the b...
President-elect Donald Trump made grand promises about grocery promises and is now re-negotiating that deal.
In his Time Person of the Year interview, Trump flip flops on bringing prices down.
“It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up,” Trump said in his Time Magazine “Person of the Year” interview published Thursday, referring to grocery prices. “You know, it’s very hard &helli...
Two weeks later, the dissection of the 2024 election continues. La Crosse County and 3rd Congressional District Democratic Party chair William Garcia breaks down how Wisconsin fit into the mix, both nationally and locally, in the past election.
We break down how Donald Trump’s gains across the nation match up to what we saw in Wisconsin.
We also look at the Derrick Van Orden-Rebecca Cooke race in the 3rd US House District and the T...
Republicans in Wisconsin, again, are putting a confusing question on your fall ballot that could take away your voting rights. Multiple organizations, nonprofits and the Democratic Party are saying vote no on this question:
Voters must be prepared to answer this question on the November 5 ballot ⬇️
❌ Question: “Eligibility to vote. Shall section 1 of article III of the constitution, which deals with suffr...
We take a look at the wild flyers from the Republican Party of Wisconsin on behalf of candidate Ryan Huebsch that are ending up in potential voters' homes attacking Democratic Assembly Rep. Steve Doyle. We also discuss how no debates are happening in Assembly races, as Republicans cite "scheduling conflicts."
See the flyers here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Tom Vilsack, former Democratic governor of Iowa, joined to talk about how Democrats can win back more of the rural vote. And he might know the secret formula, because, back in 1998, Vilsack was the first Democrat to be elected as governor in Iowa in over 30 years — plus he won a second term. Before Vilsack joined (10:20), we opened the pod basically game planning what to talk about with him. And, afterward (21:35), we do a bit of a...
Garren Randolph, Wisconsin Democratic coordinated campaign manager, joins to talk about near every level of government that's on the November ballot, including Donald Trump, the state Assembly and Senate races under new maps, and the US Senate race. Began the podcast on Trump, Project 2025 and Kamala Harris taking the reins from Joe Biden. After that, we got into the competitiveness of state Legislature races with new, fairer maps....
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