Lawrence Foster

Public Safety

Our Government is responsible in providing safety and security for our communities. We depend on adequate public safety and emergency response when situations require it. We cannot allow the root causes of the riots in Kenosha to spread to other communities in Wisconsin. Our ability to provide for adequate public safety is in jeopardy. Crime has been on the rise in just about every community in our state. Our police force in our state has decreased dramatically
from 16000 to 13000, nearly 20% due to retirements and rising number of resignations due to many negative factors affecting law enforcement.

I believe that we need to do more than just pledge our support. We need to re-fund versus defund our police. We need to back our police up legislatively with bills that honor, protect, and provide the necessary resources for the people who serve in law enforcement, as emergency responders, in our prison system, and in our mental health institutions in order to be effective and meet our expectations.

POLICE and LAW ENFORCEMENT
(learn more: https://www.columbiasouthern.edu/blog/blog-articles/2022/february/current-issues-in-law-enforcement/, https://www.wkow.com/news/more-cops-longer-sentences-no-gun-law-changes-gop-candidates-for-governor-focus-on-violent/article_d129f486-d56b-11ec-b698-3793c405a4b7.html)

• Public awareness campaign to elevate law enforcement as a profession and re-establish credibility in our communities
• Support bills that provide resources to teach K-8 and high school students how to interact with police and emergency responders.
• We need to retain highly skilled law enforcement officers:
  • Provide state resources to allow significant pay raises for our protectors that additionally reflects inflation adjustments.
  • Provide and maintain support systems for police officers that experience dramatic life experiences.
  • Education reimbursement for recently licensed police officers and those currently in the pipeline.
  • Tuition and post-secondary fee reimbursement for those in good standing and have been in the police force for a year.
• We need to recruit the best and brightest to restore our forces to necessary levels:
  • Workforce scholarships for Wisconsin students seeking degrees in law enforcement at the Technical and University level.
  • Support for non-traditional candidates for law enforcement who already have an associate’s degree in another discipline.
  • Additional Financial aid for students pursuing law enforcement degrees.
  • Provide bonuses for officers who relocate to Wisconsin and stay on the job for at least three years.
• Provide Resources and Training
  • Make it possible for our law enforcement and first responders to acquire the latest technology.
    • Biometrics: Handheld scanners and facial recognition tools.
    • Body camera monitors.
    • Gunshot Detectors: Sensors and mapping technologies that can detect gunshots within specific high crime areas.
    • Police Drones: Drones that can take photos of crime scenes and patrol communities.
    • Vehicle Pursuit Darts: Foam darts that can be released by police vehicles and attach to a vehicle allowing officers to track their movements with GPS.
  • Data Driven Crime Prevention
    • Provide resources to make our law enforcement and first responders to have cutting-edge technology.
      • Predictive Policing using Artificial Intelligence.
      • Software that uses data analytics. Intelligence-led policing uses data to track trends, assist in investigations, and prevent future incidents.
  • Provide resources to enhance police training in effective and proven policing methods.
• Support bills that allow for prosecution of current law and prevent rogue prosecutors that water down sentences for violent crime. Learn more: https://www.heritage.org/crime-and-justice/heritage-explains/why-crime-surging-new-york-city

FIRE PROTECTION

• Provide state resources to improve community awareness about preventing home and industrial fires.
• Provide state resources to schools to improve fire safety.
• Work with Fire Marshals to determine required resources to perform more safety checks and scans using data analytics and artificial intelligence.
• Provide state resources to increase funding for hazardous material fire responses.
• Suggest a state foundation in order for smaller communities to purchase necessary equipment to more effectively fight fires.

PRISON/CORRECTIONAL SYSTEM

• Support the First Step Act on the State level: https://www.bop.gov/inmates/fsa/overview.jsp.
• Support the latest research to develop a more effective correctional system that embraces rehabilitative/restorative community justice models.
• Support for collaborations between corrections agencies and researchers.
• Support Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
• Work legislatively to change the bail process and prevent a low bail on a crime that should require a higher bail.
• Legislatively work to support initiatives that reduce prison population which will result in reduction in costs in the state budget.
• Legislatively work to support initiatives in alternative education that prevent people under 18 from entering the prison system.

MENTAL HEALTH

• Evaluate the necessary resources to make our mental health institutions more effective in prevention.
• Provide resources to increase the capability to use data analytics and artificial intelligence to identify people with mental health conditions.
• Work with the mental health institutions to determine the required resources in the state budget to treat mental health conditions.

ELECTION INTEGRITY

Our state legislature is responsible to enact laws and regulations to ensure we have honest, fair and accurate elections. Election integrity as an issue is not new. We have experienced several instances when our election integrity has been compromised in our state’s history which is why the state legislature enacted Voter ID laws in 2011. As society and technology changes, we need to adapt our state’s election laws to ensure we have accurate elections in the future. We need to address the issues that were found in elections like 2020 and in years past. We need to refine our laws so that the election issues do not happen again in future elections. The following issues are important when addressing Election Integrity:

• I pledge continued support of our Voter ID election law. It is important that eligible Wisconsin citizens vote in
  our elections at their appropriate voter location with proof of their citizenship.
  • Voter ID was adopted in 2011 which has solved most integrity issues. Since Voter ID has been adopted, Democrats and activist groups have tried on multiple levels to circumvent Voter ID laws. There were many examples of this in 2020 that we need to close the loop holes on.
  • Evaluate the need to make Voter ID and election integrity laws an amendment to the state constitution so that an election doesn’t determine the removal of Voter ID or any other election law passed by the legislature.
• I will support bills that establish a timely audit process of the entire election process from start to finish according to GASS or GAES standards as outlined at the Heritage Foundation. The bill needs to include an outline on how to communicate the completed audit to eliminate election questions and doubt with steps on how to escalate problems that are found in the process. https://www.heritage.org/election-integrity/report/best-practices-and-standards-election-audits
• I will support increased resources for county and city clerks to ensure that they have the tools necessary to process election registrations and ballots.
• We cannot allow work involving elections to be outsourced to other organizations or groups like was seen in multiple cities in 2020. I will continue to support the investigation efforts to address voter fraud and address any issues that allow lapses in election integrity in future elections.
• I will support bills that audit voter logs and remove registrations of inactive voters. I support enacting a process for transferring voter information between County and City clerks in a state database so duplicate voter logs are eliminated.
• I support improvement to election ballot chain of custody from voter locations to where the votes are counted.
• We cannot allow the issues that occurred in other states to happen in Wisconsin. Our votes need to be counted and the count needs to be accurate.
• I will support bills that allow Wisconsin citizens the ability to report issues that arise during elections so that they can be investigated and addressed in a timely manner without filing lawsuits.
• I will not support outside ballot drop boxes because it opens elections to possible fraud and ballot manipulation. Our laws need to be clear on how elections ballots are to be delivered and processed so that municipalities do not use ballot drop off boxes. Election ballots are to be delivered directly to the county and city clerk’s office.
• I will support laws which improve the absentee ballot process. We also need to revise laws that improve the delivery of absentee ballots, especially for those serving in our armed forces. I support a commission to investigate ways to improve the absentee and early voting process so that the votes are counted accurately and confidentially with results released on Election Day.

EDUCATION:

The people in the 52nd district along with the people in Wisconsin value and invest significant amounts of money and time in education.

Education is much more than schooling. It is the whole range of activities by which families and communities transmit to a younger generation, not just knowledge and skills, but ethical and behavioral norms and traditions. It is the handing over of cultural identity.

While in office, I believe it’s important to provide legislative oversight to ensure that our public education needs and our expectations are being met.  I believe it’s vital that parents are the child’s first and foremost educators and have the primary responsibility for education for their child.  Education is an important conversation because it’s important that our education system is instructing our children to high academic standards that reflect our cultural identity as a community, state, and nation.  I will promote bills that offer multiple options with the goal of maintaining a high level of education.  Our state budget allocates a significant portion of our tax money toward education. However, more money does not necessarily equal better performance.  Education is an important issue for all of us that is complex and requires conversation on multiple levels.

PK-12 Education:

• Promote bills that continue to support Title IX in our schools providing gender equality and the promotion of both male and female sports programs based on a person’s gender at birth.  
• Hold District Administrations accountable for the use of state funds to promote learning and skills that lead to educated and productive citizens.  
• Support evaluating and revising our state-wide testing system because our education system is being driven negatively by the tests and broader education opportunities are being missed. Accountability is important but right now, our testing is having a negative impact versus being a positive form of measurement.
• Support curriculum that isn’t activist-driven that promotes being pro-Wisconsin and an American.  A curriculum that educates based on facts and not activist-driven agendas that include elements of Critical Race Theory.
• Promote bills that encourage instruction in American history, Wisconsin history, civics classes, music, and fine art education.
• Support bills that encourage reading and literacy skills in early education starting at the pre-school level.
• Promote bills that provide resources to teachers to assist them in addressing behavioral challenges in the classroom and offer liability protection for them.
• Promote bills that provide resources to improve special needs education and evaluate effective methods for instruction.  Right now, special needs have become a burden on our public education system and it is having negative consequences on students that do not need special education.
• Promote bills that provide resources to reform Alternative education to address the growing number of expulsions and high school dropouts.  
• Promote bills that address limited class sizes and increase staff levels to improve student-to-teacher ratios according to the grade level and type of class.  
• Promote bills that address the root causes of teacher shortages and the need to increase salaries based on inflation incentivizing merit versus tenure and seniority.   
• Promote bills for Wisconsin to be desirable to highly skilled and educated teachers and not leave to other states who are experiencing shortages.   
• Provide incentives for teachers to maintain a high skill level and continued education so that our kids receive a high-level education.

UNIVERSITY SYSTEM:

• Our university system is a great asset to our state and has kept our population educated at a high level at lower costs compared to most states.  I will promote bills to continue to maintain our University system because it helps drive our economy and attracts many businesses to our state. At the same time, I will hold the university accountable to ensure they are educating students to pursue desired and available employment.
• I support the Tuition increases based on inflation according to what our population can afford.  A full tuition freeze is not sustainable long term, we need to look at sensible solutions that won’t break the bank of college students.
• I will support bills that promote academic freedom in the classroom which promotes viewpoint equality and discourages discrimination against conservative viewpoints.
• I will support bills to promote a sensible student-to-teacher ratio in our university system.
• Support increased private financing through grants so that our population can afford a higher education while not being dependent on the government to provide assistance if they choose to attend higher education.
• Provide tax incentives to businesses that hire University graduates and provide incentives for businesses that offer internships.  
• Promote bills that support tax-free college savings accounts that earn interest.

TECHNICAL COLLEGES, LIFELONG LEARNING, PRIVATE TRAINING, HOME SCHOOL, ETC:

• Increase Universal School choice statewide so that Parents can use allocated funds to choose a school that is best for their child.
• Promote bills that guarantee equal access to school facilities by religious groups.
• Promote bills that allow for lifelong learning  and work-based learning in the private sector to create competition for the traditional four-year university
• Allow tax incentives for businesses that hire from the Technical College system and businesses that offer tuition reimbursement so our workforce is educated with the skills that they need.
• Promote provisions founds in the Student Success Act on the state level.

TAXES and GOVERNMENT SPENDING

According to the Tax Foundation (https://taxfoundation.org/publications/facts-and-figures), Wisconsin is ranked 7 th in the nation for property taxes at 1.63% which is higher than the national average of 1.08%. Comparatively, neighboring Minnesota ranked at 19 has a much lower property tax rate of 1.10%. In order to retain our population and businesses, we must work to right size our taxes and fees lowering the tax burden.

Currently, the state of Wisconsin is collecting record amounts of tax revenue which is resulting in repeated surpluses year after year. In 2021 our state collected $19.6 billion which was 12% higher than the previous year, $319 million more than what was predicted. If conditions remain the same, Wisconsin is expected to collect even higher amounts of tax revenue in 2022.

As a legislator, I will work collaboratively with other legislators to lower the actual tax rates. I will work to get Wisconsin off the top 10 list of the most burdensome property taxed states. We must work to attract and retain people and businesses and not allow a tax rate to be a deciding factor in those
decisions.

I will work with the Joint Finance Committee to ensure our state agencies are using tax money efficiently with minimal waste.

I will work with the Joint Finance Committee to ensure state agencies and programs funding are right-sized according to present needs.

I will support legislation that promotes an efficient Government that serves all people’s needs which is not biased toward or against targeted groups of people.

I will support legislation that limits and audits the use of federal stimulus funds given to municipalities to ensure our federal tax money is not wasted frivolously.

I will support legislation regarding government spending that improves life, liberty, and ability to have more personal responsibility with less dependence on Government.

ENERGY:
As a State Legislator, I will work for viable solutions to help our state tackle several key energy issues. Energy is an important lifeblood of our economy that can be divided into two categories, Transportation and Electricity:

Transportation:

• No matter what we think about electric vehicles, the auto industry is building them and will be selling them. There will be a transition away from internal combustion toward other forms of fuel in the next 15-20 years. In Wisconsin, I will work with lawmakers to promote market incentives to construct Ultra-Fast Charging Stations.
  • We need market solutions for the electric vehicle transition so that our state is strengthened and not weekend by the transition to electric vehicles in the next 15 years.
  • We need business-friendly regulations and tax structures that promote small businesses and startups in the transition.
• Short term:
  • Gas tax holidays to help reduce the cost of the pump.
    • Gas prices will exceed $4.50, $5, $6, or even higher due to poor federal policies. As a state, we must do something to help Wisconsinites, our businesses, our transportation industry, and our tourism industry because energy is an important ingredient for our economic success.

• • Diesel Prices affect our supply chain and agriculture. Promote state incentives and grants so that small trucking businesses and farmers can afford more efficient trucks and tractors.
  • Promote bills that improve distribution supply chains to reduce costs to the consumer.
• Long term:
  • Transitioning to Electric cars will reduce gas tax revenue which we collect from a 30-cent excise tax at the gas pump.
  • I will work for state alternatives for the gas exercise tax to pay for roads and highways because electric vehicles will reduce gas and diesel consumption in the next 10 years.

Electricity:

Electric production isn’t on the top of the agenda of most people unless the lights go out or it doesn’t meet our needs. Recently, climate activists have shaped our energy future which will soon become unsustainable because of rolling blackouts. There is a planned closure of several coal power electric generators – including the ones at Columbia, Sheboygan, and Racine.

We need legislative leadership to get ahead of a potential energy crisis. In Wisconsin, we enjoy four seasons which makes our state unique and attractive to many. We need to recognize that our climate in Wisconsin means it can get bitterly cold in the winter with many sequential cloudy days. We average 180-190 days of sun a year with a limited amount of peek sun each day. (learn more: https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/Wisconsin/annual-days-of-
sunshine.php)

Developing our farmland, obstructing our views of the natural landscape, and killing bird populations are not a path to a sustainable and enjoyable future. We need solutions that work for us to make life easier and not harder because it fits a climate activist agenda.

• Learn about Wisconsin electricity facts here:
  • https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=WI
  • https://psc.wi.gov/Documents/OEI/WisconsinEnergyStatistics/Final_Wisconsin%20Energy%20Statistics%20book%202017pdf%20v5_0.pdf
• Our electric companies are privately owned entities. Their policy is influenced by what we legislate.
  • I will hold the electric companies accountable to ensure we are being provided reliable electricity and we do not experience rolling blackouts in our state.
• I will promote bills that encourage the development of multiple sources of power generation such as nuclear power. Diversity is key to a healthy electric grid.
  • Nuclear technology has been developed significantly since the 1950s when it was invented. It is clean and reliable, and there are new technologies that significantly reduce nuclear waste. Learn more:
    • https://www.energy.gov/ne/nuclear-reactor-technologies
  • I will promote bills that encourage the development of small nuclear reactors such as the one being proposed in the La Crosse area because it will have significant benefits to many of our communities and have several applications around the state.
  • Within the confines of federal law, I will promote bills that allow the re-processing of nuclear waste from current nuclear reactors to reduce harmful effects.
• The 52 nd district is home to one of the largest wind farms in the state. Harnessing the wind is a viable way to produce electricity. It’s important to recognize its limitations and drawbacks. We cannot rely on it 100% for electric production.
  • Our local and state economy sees many benefits from wind farm development.
    Learn more:
    • https://www.energy.gov/eere/wind/advantages-and-challenges-wind-
      energy
    • https://windexchange.energy.gov/projects/economic-impacts
  • I will work to promote bills that allow the construction of wildlife-friendly wind farms with material that is recyclable that reduces the negative impacts on the environment. Learn more:
    • https://offgridworld.com/bladeless-bird-friendly-wind-turbine/
    • https://woods.stanford.edu/research/funding-opportunities/realizing-environmental-innovation-program/bird-safe-wind-turbines
  • I will promote bills that encourage our wind energy to be tapped into locally because most of the electricity produced is transferred to larger population centers, some of it going outside our state.

UNIVERSAL SCHOOL CHOICE

I believe it’s important that Parents are the child’s first and foremost educators and have the primary responsibility for education for their child.

I believe that we need to expand school choice to every parent in the state regardless of income level or background. We need to ensure our tax dollars are being used to provide a quality education in a school that parents believe is best for their children. When schools compete for funding, quality will improve in education system because it’ll no longer become a given on where children attend.

In the previous legislative session several bills were introduced and vetoed by Governor Evers which included:
AB 963: https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2021/proposals/ab963
AB 970: https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2021/related/proposals/ab970

I will work with other members of the legislature to reintroduce those bills or bills with similar provisions to expand parent’s education freedom for their children.

Pro-Life Statement
I imagine a Wisconsin where abortion ceases to exist, not because elected officials or court decisions make it illegal, but because the life of an unborn child is sacred – where the father of that child is at their mother’s side to raise their children as a family – and where anyone feeling lost, confused, desperate, or vulnerable in their pregnancy has a community foundation of empathy, guidance, charitable support, and public services. Only then will we evolve into a society with documented moral clarity on abortion.

The constitution does not grant a right to abortion. And on Friday, the Supreme Court returned the consideration of abortion to the states. I will support legislation in Wisconsin to make abortion illegal, specific exceptions. Knowing that our neighboring states will likely offer legal abortion, it is critical that compassionate support is available to Wisconsinites who may see abortion as their best or only option; that they understand the intrinsic value in motherhood and the empow