Wisconsin state Sen. Pfaff on local government control, taxes, data centers

A bit of a free flowing conversation on local government control, taxes and we worked in data centers with Wisconsin state Sen. Brad Pfaff (D-Onalaska) in studio last week.  We also did a bit of a civics lesson on some of the inner workings of the state Legislature — a conversation that revolved around a bipartisan bill being circulated to make skateboarding legal again. In Wisconsin, it’s illegal to skateboard, rollerskate and toboggan on roads. The bill would make skateboarding legal statewide, then allow local governments to decide how they want to handle that. So, as we discussed kind of the comedy of tobogganing down the road, we did get into other potential things that could be controlled more locally, like sales taxes, minimum wage and allowing voters — not councils or boards — to vote on wheel taxes (which was another bill proposed in the Legislature). We also talked about data centers, the city of La Crosse’s budget shortfall for 2026 and Pfaff discussed how the state needs to do better with funding local governments.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.