[media-credit name=’DEREK MONTGOMERY/Herald photo’ align=’alignright’ width=’336′][/media-credit]The University of Wisconsin’s College Democrats hosted state Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, who decried Republican legislative tactics and chided their policies as detrimental to the UW System in a question-and-answer session Wednesday night.

Pocan cited his recent experiences in the Joint Finance Committee as evidence of damaging cuts to the UW budget proposed by state Republicans.

“The Republicans’ plan is to gut the UW System,” Pocan said. “[State Democrats are] going to do the best we can to make sure it is maintained.”

Rather than modify Gov. Jim Doyle’s initial budget proposal, Republican legislators have opted to draw up their own, suggesting the governor’s budget proposal is flawed beyond repair. Pocan believes drawing up a separate budget is a gimmick meant to mislead voters into thinking there is a larger gulf between the Republican and Democratic proposals than actually exists.

According to Pocan, this is a response to Doyle’s tax-freeze proposal — an issue initially championed by state Republicans. Pocan argues the recent acceptance of a commitment to provide two-thirds of all public-school funding by state Republicans is indicative of an assimilation of Doyle’s most important budget proposals.

Nonetheless, when it comes to issues such as domestic-partner benefits and financial aid, the prospective proposals will offer enormous differences. Pocan does not see these as a Republican priority, and even delivered a pointed barb to Assembly Speaker John Gard, R-Peshtigo.

“John Gard can’t spell ‘university’ … let alone fund it.”

Although there is dissent among state Democrats on the extent of possible cuts to UW funding, Pocan is confident the upcoming Republican budget proposal will ultimately lead to greater tuition hikes for students.

“We don’t exactly set the tuition — that is up to the Board of Regents — but we set the dollars that are going to be coming into the university,” Pocan said. “If we provide less money than is currently allotted, that is going to lead to a tuition increase.”

Pocan confronted state Republicans on the merits of their voter-ID proposal, which would require all voters to show a photo ID including their current address at the polls. He suggested that in close elections, the best way to ensure Republican victories is to prevent as many people from voting as possible. Pocan senses the proposal would disenfranchise those with low incomes, senior citizens and students, all of whom tend to vote Democrat.

“[Voter registration is] really nice in Wisconsin … it helps to turn out students the day of. We can just grab two forms of ID and just go down there,” UW junior Jon Mitchell said.

The response to Pocan was predictably positive, given the partisan crowd.

“He is somebody that any Democrat should aspire to be like,” UW sophomore Brian Shactman said.