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CASA Stories
Senator Dave Hansen
"This was an easy one," state Sen. Dave Hansen says. Explaining why he went to bat for Wisconsin Court Appointed Special Advocates during this session's budget deliberations, the Democrat from Green Bay frames his support for CASA in the context of his core beliefs.
He fought to include $150,000 for CASA in the base budget because, he says, "it's a program that really, really works well." While the state struggles to cope with the constraints imposed by the recession, he contends, that same recession renders social services programs like CASA all the more critical. Magnified by the commitment of hundreds of CASA volunteers, Sen. Hansen adds, those $150,000 yield an enormous public benefit yet amount to a pittance in a state budget measured in tens of billions of dollars.
Sen. Hansen finds the case for CASA all the more compelling "as a family man." Married since 1971, the senator and his wife are parents to three daughters. The couple are also grandparents seven times over.
"They do so much good," he says of CASA programs. "It's about hundreds of volunteers, through very, very little spending, to help families and kids, and I think that's just awesome. I was very supportive of this. To a degree, you wonder why other people wouldn't jump on it, because they're doing so much good for so little money."
The needs of his own constituents rendered his commitment to CASA all the more urgent. "The fact that 178 kids got served in my district makes it more important for me to have done what I did to make sure CASA was funded," he says.
A former elementary-school teacher, Sen. Hansen believes "anything we can do to raise our children well, it's a key." As a former Brown County Board supervisor and as a state senator since 2000, he understands that "a lot of what we do in government today at the local level is to fix problems after they're broken rather than preventing them in the first place." He perceives CASA as a program "that up front can help people, get them on the right start."
Sen. Hansen recognizes that not everyone agrees with his support for such social services. "Some people would say we don't owe anybody a handout," he allows. "Well, this is a hand up, to help people get that great start and move ahead and be successful in life. And that's what, to me, that's why I'm in government, to make a difference. That's why I ran in the first place: To make a difference for people who really need our help."