There was a lot of drama last week involving Foxconn. The Taiwanese electronics giant said it would shift the focus of the huge plant it's building in Racine County from manufacturing LCD screens -- to research and development. But, after a conversation between President Trump and Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou, the company announced that LCD screen manufacturing at the plant is back on.
In this week's "Capitol Notes" conversation, JR Ross of wispolitics.com says in essence, plans for the plant are back to where they were last summer. Foxconn signalled it would scale back the operation from making large LCD screens for flat screen TVs, to making smaller screens for electronic devices. The company is also talking about locating a research hub at the campus in Mount Pleasant. Ross says we probably won't know for years what the plant is going to be -- and whether Foxconn will make good on its promise to create up to 13,000 jobs.
In another development, the co-chairs of the Joint Finance committee announced the state will have more money to spend than expected in the next budget -- to the tune of $2.4 billion. Ross says his sources tell him that Gov. Evers is preparing a budget that will spend most of that money, on items like education or prison reform. But, the question is, what will Republicans accept and then what will Evers do with his veto pen?
And finally, Ross talked about conservative Supreme Court candidate Brian Hagedorn, who came under fire last week for comments about abortion and homosexuality, that he made on his blog in 2005. Hagedorn is running against Appeals Court Chief Judge Lisa Neubauer in the April 2 election. Neubauer is backed by Democrats. Ross says it remains to be seen how this will play out at the polls. He says Hagedorn's comments could be used in campaign ads, to fire up the liberal base and drive turnout.
