Message from Congressman Scott Fitzgerald

Good morning, everyone, and happy Tuesday!

I hope everyone’s week is off to a great start. I’ve been busy traveling around Southeast Wisconsin meeting with local businesses that serve our communities in many different ways.

I had an opportunity to meet with the team at RAIC Labs recently and was incredibly impressed with the work the company is doing. RAIC Labs was founded in 2019 and developed Rapid Automatic Image Categorization (RAIC), a computer vision software which performs classification and detection on photography, video, and satellite imagery.

Beyond serving our local community in Delafield, RAIC Labs is serving our nation too! Last February, in 2023, RAIC Labs used its technology to detect the Chinese spy balloon in archival Planet Labs data. The team searched 18 trillion pixels of geospatial data, successfully detecting the Chinese spy balloon and tracking its path back to the launch site. 

I appreciate the team for inviting me down to their office to learn more about the important work that they are doing.

While traveling around the district, I was also honored to be presented with the Associated Builders and Contractors Champion of Merit Eagle Award in West Bend. This award is given to legislators who have shown support for the construction industry and for policies that promote free enterprise, workforce development, and economic growth within the construction sector. These are all initiatives that I am passionate about supporting in Congress. That’s why I am a cosponsor of H.R. 1200, the National Right to Work Act, which would implement right to work laws nationwide and support the construction sector.

I am grateful for ABC’s support of my work in Congress, and it was terrific to receive the award at Master Electric in West Bend from the fantastic co-owners!

Lastly, I had a chance to catch up with the Steel Craft team at their facility. Steel Craft is a metal manufacturing company that was founded nearly fifty years ago right in Hartford, Wisconsin. They specialize in a wide range of services including comprehensive fabrication, machining, welding, laser cutting, precision powder coating, and logistics. I appreciated the opportunity to discuss policy developments on Capitol Hill that impact the company and having a chance to see the diverse offering of products the team produces.  

Manufacturing is vital to our economy in SE WI and has deep roots in our state history thanks to companies like Steel Craft.

I’ll close out this week’s eNewsletter with a quick legislative update from Capitol Hill. Last week, I co-introduced a bill alongside Congressman Darrell Issa (CA-48), Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet. The bill is H.R. 9922, the Litigation Transparency Act of 2024, and it requires the disclosure of parties receiving payment in civil lawsuits.

In hundreds of cases every year, civil litigation is funded by undisclosed third-party interests – including hedge funds, commercial lenders, and sovereign wealth funds operating through shell companies. This bill would require disclosure of investors who have a right to receive payment based on the outcome of a case, as well as the disclosure of the financing agreement between investors and parties to the civil action.

As a former state legislator, I helped usher in laws to mandate disclosure of third-party litigation financing in Wisconsin courts. This bill ensures parties are aware of all stakeholders who had a financial interest in the outcome of litigation. These commonsense disclosure laws should similarly be required in federal courts, where the stakes can be higher.

That wraps the congressional updates from last week. 

Have a great week everyone and thanks for reading along!  

-Scott

That's a wrap for this week's eNewsletter! Follow me on Twitter and Facebook to stay up to date on my work for the 5th District of Wisconsin.

Sincerely,

Scott Fitzgerald
Member of Congress