Assembly Bill 147
Relating to: increasing the amount of the supplement to the federal historic rehabilitation tax credit.
Ayes: 14 - Representatives Kaufert, Bies, Czaja, Kleefisch, Endsley, Born, A. Ott, Swearingen, Ballweg, Billings, Hulsey, Doyle, Ohnstad and Hesselbein.
Noes: 0.
Ayes: 14 - Representatives Kaufert, Bies, Czaja, Kleefisch, Endsley, Born, A. Ott, Swearingen, Ballweg, Billings, Hulsey, Doyle, Ohnstad and Hesselbein.
Noes: 0.
DEAN KAUFERT
Chairperson
Committee on Tourism
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Action on the Senate Message
Senate Bill 178
Relating to: hunting, fishing, and trapping approvals issued to recipients of the purple heart medal.
By Senators Petrowski, Tiffany, Carpenter, Hansen, Lasee, Lazich, Shilling and Schultz; cosponsored by Representatives Petryk, Mursau, Brooks, Endsley, Hesselbein, Kestell, Kleefisch, Kolste, Milroy, Pope, Spiros, Tittl, Weatherston, Bies and Ballweg.
hist7898To committee on Natural Resources and Sporting Heritage. Senate Bill 189
Relating to: a citation procedure applicable to wetland discharge violations, sturgeon spearing license issuance period, electronic methods for reporting natural resource and environmental law violations, publication of class 1 notices, air dispersion modeling requirements, and membership on the Dry Cleaner Environmental Response Council.
By Senator Kedzie; cosponsored by Representatives Mursau, A. Ott, Bies, Ballweg and Brooks.
hist7899To committee on Environment and Forestry. Senate Bill 190
Relating to: the number of wastewater discharge permits required for a publicly owned sewage treatment facility or system.
By Senators Kedzie, Miller, Schultz, Jauch, Cowles, Shilling, T. Cullen, Grothman, Lehman, Vinehout and Hansen; cosponsored by Representatives A. Ott, Danou, Barnes, Berceau, Bernard Schaber, Bernier, Bewley, Bies, Billings, Brooks, Clark, Czaja, Goyke, Hesselbein, Kahl, Kaufert, Kleefisch, Kolste, Krug, LeMahieu, Loudenbeck, Milroy, Mursau, Nerison, Ohnstad, Petryk, Riemer, Ripp, Shankland, Smith, Tauchen, Tittl, Wachs, Jacque and Endsley.
hist7900To committee on Environment and Forestry. _____________
Reference Bureau Corrections
hist7903Assembly Substitute Amendment 1 to Assembly Bill 40 In enrolling, the following correction was made:
1. Page 100, In the “Source and Purpose” column, under the heading “University of Wisconsin”, delete “Self-amoritizing” and substitute “Self-amortizing”.
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hist7904Assembly Amendment 1 to Assembly Bill 77 In enrolling, the following correction was made:
1. Page 1, line 7: delete “three” and substitute “3”.
_____________
hist7905Assembly Substitute Amendment 1 to Assembly Bill 81 In enrolling, the following correction was made:
1. Page 5, line 6: delete “uses of” and substitute “uses”.
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Enrolled Bills
The following Assembly proposals, which have been approved by both the Assembly and Senate, have been enrolled by the Legislative Reference Bureau:
PATRICK E. FULLER
Assembly Chief Clerk
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Communications
June 20, 2013
Patrick Fuller
Assembly Chief Clerk
17 West Main Street, Suite 401
Madison, WI 53703
Dear Chief Clerk Fuller:
On June 19, 2013 I inaccurately recorded my vote for Assembly Amendment 1 to Assembly Amendment 3 to Assembly Substitute Amendment 1 to Assembly Bill 40. I intended to vote “nay” and respectfully request the record is adjusted to reflect this.
Sincerely,
Amy Sue Vruwink
State Representative
70th Assembly District
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Remarks by the Dalai Lama
to the Wisconsin State Assembly
May 14, 2013
Pursuant to the unanimous consent request made by Representative Stone, the remarks made by His Holiness, The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso of Tibet, to the members of the Assembly on Tuesday, May 14, 2013 (Page 172 of the Assembly Journal) follow:
“According to my own experience, to keep standing up a little bit longer is sometimes uncomfortable. So, better to sit down and listen! Please be seated.
Thank you very much for welcoming me and introducing me. My respected brothers and sisters, I’m deeply honored to speak to the people who are really elected by your own people. People have chosen you with their full trust in you and put hope on your shoulders. So you are truly representative of the people. I’m deeply honored to be standing before you.
America, I think is the greatest democratic country and actually the leading nation of the free world. So sometimes when I hear American economy being a little bit down, I really feel that the free world is losing an effective leading nation. So in spite of some drawbacks, your government is truly a democratic one that is governed by rule of law and freedom of expression. These are, I think, really wonderful aspects of American democracy.
So it is a great honor to speak to the members of the State Assembly. And, I consider myself to be a promoter of democracy since my childhood. As a little child I often saw bullying practiced through the power of the then Tibetan regent and also some high officials. Since an early age, I saw power in the hands of a few people as always dangerous. And the separation of power between judiciary, legislative and executive branches of government, I think is really very sound. So I admire your system.
In 1951 I took temporal power and became the head of state. Immediately starting 1952 I initiated some much needed reforms in Tibet by setting up a reform committee and carried out some reforms, but they were not successful. By then the Chinese authority and influence were already there. They wanted reform in their own way.
Then after I reached India in April of 1959, I at once started some changes within our political system. During the beginning of sixties we started work with elected people’s representative and the process of democratization began in earnest. We made the necessary changes step by step. Then in 2001, the goal of democratically electing the Tibetan political leadership was achieved. My position remained as semi-retired. Ten years have passed since and then in 2011 another cycle of election for leadership came. I felt that my time to retire completely has come and I am retired now from my political leadership position.
I no longer have any political responsibility now. I am not only myself retired, but also the almost four century old tradition of the Dalai Lama automatically becoming the spiritual and temporal head of state, has now officially ended. The 5th Dalai Lama had started this system in the 17th century. I, as the 14th Dalai Lama ending this irrelevant system voluntarily, happily, proudly, I think is my single greatest contribution towards democratization. I think it is a significant contribution and I feel proud. Therefore, as a person who has devoted his whole life’s work for democratization, I feel greatly honored to speak to you.
Since being a refugee for more than fifty years, I had meetings with people from various walks of life including people from different religious faiths and also leaders, politicians, businessmen and beggars; but because of my status as a refugee there is no need for protocol. I love complete informality. I don’t like formality, because since for almost 45 years I always remained on the throne and received people formally. I often had to act like a statue. So I’m fed up with this sort of formality. I don’t like.
I always consider myself as a human being like anybody else. Whether it is a king or a queen or a high Lama or high sort of special leader like the Dalai Lama or even a beggar, we are the same human being. My logic for saying this is that the way we’re all born and die is the same. It’s the same way for the representatives or the speaker or even the president of the United States. The way they’re born, the way they die is the same. No differences whatsoever.
I think it’s the same for homeless people also! The way they’re born, the way they die – same! I don’t think any child being born will wait till after the completion of a ceremony. It will be born when the time is right. And also, you see, at the end of life, the heartbeat ceases automatically, and never wait for any kind of ceremony to be completed. So therefore, there are no formalities involved in the way we are born and the way we all die, no formality. These two events are the two most important events in our lives. So since these two most important events have no relevance to formality, then I think all man made formalities are additional barriers.
I am thinking of a joke here. For me it was rather strange and amusing. When I was in Tibet as the young Dalai Lama, I used to watch cinemas regularly. I remember at one such time, watching a documentary about the Queen of England giving some formal speech with Prince Phillip beside her. We know that wind doesn’t understand formality. So the wind blew up her majesty’s skirt. Prince Phillip normally, I think, should have helped her thwart the predicament. But because of too much formality he remained straight faced. I remember that incident very vividly.
All the seven billion human beings living on planet earth are all basically the same. We are all the same, mentally, emotionally, physically; and more importantly, everyone wants a happy life and a successful life. And of course, those elected people here, I think, are very much concerned about a successful life, until at least up to the next election. Isn’t it? So therefore, this is our basic right to achieve a happy life, a successful life.
Now, when we examine and analyze the situation, the ultimate source of successful life is not money, not power, but comes from inner value. If you have inner value, that means you have the sense of concern for others’ wellbeing. That automatically means that your life carries more transparency. Because with the sense of love, affection, concern for others’ wellbeing there is no room for cheating other people, telling lies, bullying etc. So you can achieve total transparency. That brings trust. Trust brings genuine friendship. Not a friendship for money, not a friendship for power, but friendship really of humanity.
So, one of my commitments in life is promoting basic human values. Irrespective of whether you are a believer or non-believer, rich or poor, educated or uneducated; everyone wants happy life. Everyone has this potential which we inherit from our mothers. I think even among politicians here, those individuals who have received maximum affection from their mothers when they were young have more inner peace and inner strength.
And those very successful politicians or businessmen or educators, when they lacked affection from their mothers at an early age, or sometimes even abuse; even such successful people have built, deep inside, some kind of sense of insecurity and fear that automatically develops distrust. Distrust distances you from others. As a result, a feeling of loneliness and anxiety will arise.
So therefore, irrespective of whether one is a believer or a non-believer, we really need human values which we received from our mother. So that’s my number one commitment to educate people, whether believer or non-believer, we must utilize our inner values. We are social animals, we come from our mothers’ womb and nurtured by our mothers’ milk. Therefore we have the same potential for affection. We should always think of how to nurture that experience and then extend a more compassionate attitude towards others.
The second commitment – I’m a believer in religion. I’m a Buddhist monk. All major religious traditions have the same potential. All religious traditions talk about love, compassion, tolerance and forgiveness. So, all these major faiths talk the same way. In the field of philosophy, yes, there are big differences. But it doesn’t matter. Differences in philosophy are simply differences in approach. But our main aim is the same; that is to become a sensible human being, a compassionate human being. That should be the same goal for every human being. Therefore, conflict in the name of religion is really a terrible situation. It is really very sad.
On every occasion during the last thirty to forty years I have tried to promote religious harmony. These two things are my lifelong commitments. So I would like to report to you my commitments. And I would like to urge you to keep watching me whether I sincerely carry out these two commitments or not. Please watch me from time to time. If an occasion arises the next time for me to come here and if you have some sort of doubt or some kind of criticism, then please tell me. Please educate me. I promise I will remain fully committed to these two commitments.
Then thirdly, I’m a Tibetan. Previously, because I had both temporal and spiritual responsibilities, I had to work very hard. And now since I’ve already handed over my political responsibilities, so my main sort of, now, responsibility is serving Tibetan community for preservation of Tibetan culture, Tibetan Buddhism, Buddhist culture. So that whenever I meet with a Tibetan I always explain spirituality and Buddhist culture. I usually describe Tibetan Buddhist culture as culture of peace, culture of nonviolence, culture of compassion. That valuable culture is really worthwhile to preserve. So I’m committed for preservation of Tibetan Buddhism, Buddhist culture.
So nowadays, of course, I have no political responsibilities, but these two things, I always educate people, remind them that this is something of a real precious heritage, and also an important aspect of Tibetan identity, including Tibetan language. Just as I notice the Tibetans living in the United States are mostly very happy, I, nevertheless remind them of their special responsibility. Tibetans who are living in free societies have a special responsibility to preserve our valuable and constructive traditions.
So that’s my report. Thank You!”
The Dalai Lama’s remarks were transcribed by Mr. Sherab Phunkyi of the Assembly Sergeant-at-Arms staff.
