Restricted access to the State Capitol is in its third month now. All the doors at six of the eight ground-floor entrances to the building remain locked during normal business hours. The two that are open change periodically. Visitors wandering outside searching for an unlocked door have become a common sight.
Once you find one of the unlocked entrances, yellow crime scene tape herds you through a security checkpoint complete with a walkthrough scanner. This morning there were five uniformed officers at one of the checkpoints, standing there with nothing to do as traffic coming into the building was exceptionally light. A dubious use, to say the least, of state patrol personnel at a time when we are told the state is broke.
The waste of taxpayer money aside, exactly what threat is this tight security guarding against? The scene at the Capitol this morning was positively tranquil. Even at the height of mass demonstrations in February and early March, there were no legitimate security concerns. Protesters were remarkably civil and peaceful. They also were respectful – bordering on reverential – of the Capitol grounds. There was nary a scratch to be seen on the building's innards or on its exterior walls. The administration lied about the cost of repairing damage.
In the 30 years I have worked in or around the Capitol, I have seen tightened security only once before and that was in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Even then, both the manpower and technology employed paled in comparison to what we are seeing now. And the duration of the heightened state of alert after 9/11 was much more brief than today's.
What state of emergency exists to justify continued restriction of public access to the people's house? Why are ordinary taxpaying citizens still being made to feel like enemies of the state when visiting their own State Capitol?
If nothing else, a locked-down Capitol building is a fitting metaphor. After all, those elected to represent us there are moving at breakneck speed this week to ram through a new law that, in the name of security, will make it a little more difficult for all of us to vote and a lot more difficult for some.
Those most burdened by a new requirement to produce photo identification in order to exercise the right to vote include the elderly, the young, the poor and racial minorities. According to New York University's Brennan Center for Justice, 11 percent of U.S. citizens – more than 21 million people – do not have government-issued photo identification. Both senior citizens and young people are significantly less likely to possess photo ID. Eighteen percent of citizens over the age of 65 and between the ages of 18 and 24 do not.
According to the Brennan Center's findings, 15 percent of people earning less than $35,000 a year lack a valid government-issued photo ID. And African Americans are three times less likely than whites to have such identification. Twenty-five percent of African American voting-age citizens do not have a photo ID compared to only 8 percent of white voting-age citizens.
As with the Capitol lockdown, the push for voter ID begs the question: Exactly what threat is this security measure guarding against? By any measure, voter fraud is exceedingly rare in Wisconsin, nearly to the point of being nonexistent. There have been only a handful of documented cases in Wisconsin, and not one has involved the kind of identity fraud that a photo ID requirement could presumably prevent.
What state of emergency exists to justify this discriminatory restriction of public access to the ballot box? Why should ordinary taxpaying citizens be made to feel like enemies of the state when visiting their polling place?
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Friday, April 29, 2011
Ahead To The Past
We are living through what I have described as the third stage of ownership in American politics, as I've written a time or two before.
At the start of the American experiment, the instruments of social control and the way the ruling class kept political power in the hands of a very few were slavery and disenfranchisement. You had to be a white, male property owner to have a vote and thus a voice. At the time that whittled the electorate down to about 10% of the nation's population. That was the first stage of ownership.
It took a civil war, but eventually the abolitionists won and slavery was ended. The suffragettes won too after decades of struggle, and the right to vote was extended to nearly all of the adult population. That did not mean the ruling class was about to surrender control and relinquish power. In slavery's place they put Jim Crow. When women and former slaves got the vote, they moved on to voter suppression. Poll taxes. Literacy tests. The second stage of ownership.
The women's rights, voting rights and civil rights movements brought to an end legal segregation and the second-stage voter suppression tactics. Prompting the ruling class to embark on the design and construction of a third stage of ownership. One of the first telltale signs of what was emerging was the U.S. Supreme Court's 1976 ruling in Buckley v. Valeo radically reinterpreting the First Amendment (which was 185 years old at the time) to equate money and speech. Goodbye "free speech," hello "fee speech." What has been designed and built is a political marketplace where meaningful participation is prohibitively expensive for all but a very few in our society. This is the new instrument of social and political control. The wicked genius of this design is that the primary weapon of the third stage is called a donation. A gift. Makes social and political control sound downright philanthropic.
This is not to say there are not remnants of the earlier stages that remain with us. The current push to require a photo ID in order to vote is a throwback to the second stage. Requiring voters to show photo identification to cast a ballot would be a very modest inconvenience for most of us. It creates another hoop to jump through on election day and might make some lines at polling places a bit longer. But it will make voting much more difficult for three classes of people – the poor, the elderly and students.
More than a few poor people can't afford a car and don't drive, and as a result many haven't bothered to get a driver's license. Poor people also tend to be more mobile than the general population. This is particularly true of course for the homeless. Even if they do drive, the chances are far greater that their current address is not on their driver's license. Having a driver's license would do them no good when it comes to voting.
A photo ID law for voting would have a similarly discriminatory impact on many seniors. As their eyesight and reflexes have deteriorated, they've given up driving and stopped renewing their driver's permits.
Same story for students, another highly mobile population. I was speaking in a class on the UW-Platteville campus and asked how many students have a driver's license with their current address on it. Fewer than half raised their hands.
If the current version of the Wisconsin photo ID bill passes, those without a valid photo ID with their current address on it would have a problem when it comes to voting. They would have to go to a Division of Motor Vehicles office and get an updated driver's license or go to some other government agency to get a different state-issued ID card.
It should be noted that not every county in Wisconsin has a DMV office. So for some, securing a right to vote will mean paying to travel to another county. And if you need your birth certificate to prove you are who you say you are for the purposes of getting that state-issued ID and don't happen to have a copy handy, you'll have to go to yet another government office and pay for one. These are poll taxes, folks.
It should be further noted that the way the bill is written, students wouldn't be able to use their student IDs. Never mind these are photo IDs issued by a state government agency. Nope, if they don't have a driver's license with their current address on it, they'll have to go to the trouble to get yet another form of photo identification.
The political motivations behind the discriminatory treatment of poor people, seniors and students are obvious. So is the fact that this bill effectively calls for poll taxation, one of the second stage of ownership's crudest and most vile instruments of political control.
At the start of the American experiment, the instruments of social control and the way the ruling class kept political power in the hands of a very few were slavery and disenfranchisement. You had to be a white, male property owner to have a vote and thus a voice. At the time that whittled the electorate down to about 10% of the nation's population. That was the first stage of ownership.
It took a civil war, but eventually the abolitionists won and slavery was ended. The suffragettes won too after decades of struggle, and the right to vote was extended to nearly all of the adult population. That did not mean the ruling class was about to surrender control and relinquish power. In slavery's place they put Jim Crow. When women and former slaves got the vote, they moved on to voter suppression. Poll taxes. Literacy tests. The second stage of ownership.
The women's rights, voting rights and civil rights movements brought to an end legal segregation and the second-stage voter suppression tactics. Prompting the ruling class to embark on the design and construction of a third stage of ownership. One of the first telltale signs of what was emerging was the U.S. Supreme Court's 1976 ruling in Buckley v. Valeo radically reinterpreting the First Amendment (which was 185 years old at the time) to equate money and speech. Goodbye "free speech," hello "fee speech." What has been designed and built is a political marketplace where meaningful participation is prohibitively expensive for all but a very few in our society. This is the new instrument of social and political control. The wicked genius of this design is that the primary weapon of the third stage is called a donation. A gift. Makes social and political control sound downright philanthropic.
This is not to say there are not remnants of the earlier stages that remain with us. The current push to require a photo ID in order to vote is a throwback to the second stage. Requiring voters to show photo identification to cast a ballot would be a very modest inconvenience for most of us. It creates another hoop to jump through on election day and might make some lines at polling places a bit longer. But it will make voting much more difficult for three classes of people – the poor, the elderly and students.
More than a few poor people can't afford a car and don't drive, and as a result many haven't bothered to get a driver's license. Poor people also tend to be more mobile than the general population. This is particularly true of course for the homeless. Even if they do drive, the chances are far greater that their current address is not on their driver's license. Having a driver's license would do them no good when it comes to voting.
A photo ID law for voting would have a similarly discriminatory impact on many seniors. As their eyesight and reflexes have deteriorated, they've given up driving and stopped renewing their driver's permits.
Same story for students, another highly mobile population. I was speaking in a class on the UW-Platteville campus and asked how many students have a driver's license with their current address on it. Fewer than half raised their hands.
If the current version of the Wisconsin photo ID bill passes, those without a valid photo ID with their current address on it would have a problem when it comes to voting. They would have to go to a Division of Motor Vehicles office and get an updated driver's license or go to some other government agency to get a different state-issued ID card.
It should be noted that not every county in Wisconsin has a DMV office. So for some, securing a right to vote will mean paying to travel to another county. And if you need your birth certificate to prove you are who you say you are for the purposes of getting that state-issued ID and don't happen to have a copy handy, you'll have to go to yet another government office and pay for one. These are poll taxes, folks.
It should be further noted that the way the bill is written, students wouldn't be able to use their student IDs. Never mind these are photo IDs issued by a state government agency. Nope, if they don't have a driver's license with their current address on it, they'll have to go to the trouble to get yet another form of photo identification.
The political motivations behind the discriminatory treatment of poor people, seniors and students are obvious. So is the fact that this bill effectively calls for poll taxation, one of the second stage of ownership's crudest and most vile instruments of political control.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
The Real Debate Over How To Pick Judges
Less than a week ago, the Wisconsin State Journal published the latest in a three-year-long string of editorials calling for Wisconsin to stop electing judges. This came just over a week after the newspaper ran an editorial headlined "Wisconsin Supreme Court elections must go."
The State Journal started its editorial crusade in support of "merit selection" of judges in January 2008 and has been devoting copious amounts of ink to the topic ever since. A Google search for "Wisconsin State Journal and merit selection" a few moments ago produced 57,400 results. There has been a steady stream of editorials with headlines like "Judicial elections are a ruse" and "Let merit replace mud in Wisconsin Supreme Court selection process" and "Keep partisan politics off the court" and "Restore public's trust in court."
The real ruse is the idea that merit selection will remove politics from judicial selection. Under a merit selection system, a nominating commission is established. The commission reviews applicants and the commission's selection is appointed, usually by the governor. Then after the appointee has served in office for a period of time, a "retention election" is held to allow voters to decide whether the appointed judge should remain on the bench.
Where merit selection has been put in place, it has been far from free of politics. Missouri's nominating commission has come under attack for being too partisan, too easily manipulated by legal insiders, as well as insufficiently diverse and consequently unfair to minority applicants. And retention elections look conspicuously like plain old every day judicial elections. You need look no further than Iowa for evidence of that.
Another real ruse is that merit selection is remotely doable in our state. More than three years worth of editorials has moved the public policy debate in Wisconsin over judicial selection not one inch. Amending the state constitution is necessary to move to the system the State Journal favors. That is a years-long process requiring the approval of state lawmakers in two successive sessions of the Legislature, and then voter approval in a statewide referendum. There have been no votes in either house of the Legislature on a proposed constitutional amendment establishing merit selection for judges in the three years since the State Journal started campaigning for it. That's because not a single legislator in either party has been willing to even introduce such an amendment.
One former member of the Assembly, Mark Gottlieb of Port Washington, did introduce a proposed constitutional amendment calling for appointment of Supreme Court justices. But Gottlieb didn't propose merit selection, he called for members of the state's highest court to be directly appointed by the governor. The proposal went nowhere and Gottlieb is no longer in the Legislature.
There is a reason why neither Republican nor Democratic legislators are calling for a constitutional amendment ending judicial elections. They know voters of every stripe oppose it. Even if lawmakers did approve such an amendment and then return two years later and approve it again, the voters would not ratify it. The politicians know the path to merit selection leads nowhere.
In a very thoughtful New York Times commentary published this week two law professors, one at Hofstra and the other at the University of California in Irvine, state the obvious: judicial elections are here to stay.
Thirty-nine states elect at least some of their judges. For more than a quarter of a century, voters in state after state have rejected switching from electing judges to appointing them. Just last year, despite a campaign led by retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Nevada voters became the latest to reject such a change.
Look, judicial selection is inherently political. Appointing judges does not take politics out of the process, it only removes the voters. The highest appointed court in the land, the U.S. Supreme Court, also easily qualifies as one of the nation's most politicized.
Instead of spinning our wheels arguing over whether it's better to appoint or elect judges, we should accept that we've been electing judges in Wisconsin for over 150 years and we will be electing them 150 years from now. The real question is whether future elections will look like they did for the better part of a century and a half in Wisconsin or instead resemble the auctions we've had for state Supreme Court since 2007.
The sooner we can get down to the business of answering that question, the better off we'll be.
The State Journal started its editorial crusade in support of "merit selection" of judges in January 2008 and has been devoting copious amounts of ink to the topic ever since. A Google search for "Wisconsin State Journal and merit selection" a few moments ago produced 57,400 results. There has been a steady stream of editorials with headlines like "Judicial elections are a ruse" and "Let merit replace mud in Wisconsin Supreme Court selection process" and "Keep partisan politics off the court" and "Restore public's trust in court."
The real ruse is the idea that merit selection will remove politics from judicial selection. Under a merit selection system, a nominating commission is established. The commission reviews applicants and the commission's selection is appointed, usually by the governor. Then after the appointee has served in office for a period of time, a "retention election" is held to allow voters to decide whether the appointed judge should remain on the bench.
Where merit selection has been put in place, it has been far from free of politics. Missouri's nominating commission has come under attack for being too partisan, too easily manipulated by legal insiders, as well as insufficiently diverse and consequently unfair to minority applicants. And retention elections look conspicuously like plain old every day judicial elections. You need look no further than Iowa for evidence of that.
Another real ruse is that merit selection is remotely doable in our state. More than three years worth of editorials has moved the public policy debate in Wisconsin over judicial selection not one inch. Amending the state constitution is necessary to move to the system the State Journal favors. That is a years-long process requiring the approval of state lawmakers in two successive sessions of the Legislature, and then voter approval in a statewide referendum. There have been no votes in either house of the Legislature on a proposed constitutional amendment establishing merit selection for judges in the three years since the State Journal started campaigning for it. That's because not a single legislator in either party has been willing to even introduce such an amendment.
One former member of the Assembly, Mark Gottlieb of Port Washington, did introduce a proposed constitutional amendment calling for appointment of Supreme Court justices. But Gottlieb didn't propose merit selection, he called for members of the state's highest court to be directly appointed by the governor. The proposal went nowhere and Gottlieb is no longer in the Legislature.
There is a reason why neither Republican nor Democratic legislators are calling for a constitutional amendment ending judicial elections. They know voters of every stripe oppose it. Even if lawmakers did approve such an amendment and then return two years later and approve it again, the voters would not ratify it. The politicians know the path to merit selection leads nowhere.
In a very thoughtful New York Times commentary published this week two law professors, one at Hofstra and the other at the University of California in Irvine, state the obvious: judicial elections are here to stay.
Thirty-nine states elect at least some of their judges. For more than a quarter of a century, voters in state after state have rejected switching from electing judges to appointing them. Just last year, despite a campaign led by retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Nevada voters became the latest to reject such a change.
Look, judicial selection is inherently political. Appointing judges does not take politics out of the process, it only removes the voters. The highest appointed court in the land, the U.S. Supreme Court, also easily qualifies as one of the nation's most politicized.
Instead of spinning our wheels arguing over whether it's better to appoint or elect judges, we should accept that we've been electing judges in Wisconsin for over 150 years and we will be electing them 150 years from now. The real question is whether future elections will look like they did for the better part of a century and a half in Wisconsin or instead resemble the auctions we've had for state Supreme Court since 2007.
The sooner we can get down to the business of answering that question, the better off we'll be.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Who Pays The Fare Rides The Train
Talk about bad timing. On Monday Governor Scott Walker announced $25.5 million in state grants for freight rail upgrades in Wisconsin. That same day Wisconsin & Southern Railroad's CEO William Gardner was criminally charged with making illegal campaign donations, many of them to Walker's campaign. Over half of the state grants go to – you guessed it – Wisconsin & Southern Railroad.
Walker has been all over the board on rail issues. As a member of the Assembly he voted for Tommy Thompson's 1993 state budget proposal to commit $50 million to kickstart the development of passenger rail from Madison to Milwaukee or Milwaukee to Green Bay. He also supported Thompson’s 1997 state budget plan exempting passenger train projects from the normal state bidding process.
That was before he got religion. And the financial backing of the road builders.
Upon becoming governor he rejects $810 million in federal funds earmarked for a Milwaukee-to-Madison passenger rail project, insisting the money be used for road improvements instead. Then he applies for some of the federal funds he just turned down to make upgrades to Amtrak's Chicago-Milwaukee Hiawatha line. Sheesh, this train ride is making all of us dizzy.
Now Walker is doling out more than $25 million in new state subsidies for railroad companies, nearly $14 million of which is being steered to the company run by the wealthy donor who is pleading guilty to felony campaign money laundering charges.
Now this train ride is making us sick.
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
Wisconsin's No-Win Scenario
After all hell broke loose in Wisconsin in mid-February I wrote that of all the paths our state government could take, the one chosen was the most polarizing and divisive imaginable, a path that leads to "ripping Wisconsin in two."
As it turns out, almost exactly in two.
I also wrote back in February that it was easy to see how Scott Walker wins in all this, but harder to see how Wisconsin could emerge victorious. As of this morning it has become infinitely more difficult for even Walker's most ardent supporters to find plausible grounds to declare him a winner, regardless of the eventual outcome of the inevitable ballot recount.
Seven weeks ago, hardly anyone knew who JoAnne Kloppenburg was. David Prosser was coming off a resounding primary election win, outpolling Kloppenburg by a whopping 30-point margin. Kloppenburg had never held public office. Had never even run for one before. Prosser was a 13-year Supreme Court incumbent with a political career spanning more than three decades. Yet the general election turned out to be a photo finish.
Yes, some of Prosser's wounds were self inflicted. Even those who endorsed him did so in some of the most heavily caveated terms ever seen. But his biggest wound was opened by Scott Walker.
What's known for sure at the moment is that much remains unknown, including which of the candidates will end up sitting on the state Supreme Court for the next 10 years. What's certain is that a lot of lawyers will be very busy and will be getting a lot richer in the weeks to come, that conspiracy theories about ballot box stuffing and voting irregularities will abound, and that partisans on both sides will be more or less perpetually overheated.
Against this backdrop, we all are left to puzzle over how anything resembling a consensus on how to move Wisconsin ahead can possibly be reached in this totally polarized and completely divided state. For the time being anyway, any attempt to quench the citizenry's thirst for a way forward will involve dipping from a thoroughly poisoned well.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Speech Nazis
The second century of the American experiment was just coming to a close and the First Amendment was 185 years old when the U.S. Supreme Court radically reinterpreted the meaning of free speech. In 1976 the court ruled that money is speech.
Having legislated from the bench that money talks, the nation's highest and most activist court dictated early last year that money can talk as much as it wants. No limit can be placed on election spending by corporations and other interest groups.
Now the Supremes have an Arizona public financing law in their sights. Judging from this week's oral arguments, it's certainly possible if not likely that the court will strike down a key component of the law as an unconstitutional infringement on free speech. It's a foregone conclusion that Justices Roberts, Scalia, Alito and Thomas will vote to invalidate the law approved by Arizona voters back in 1998. Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kagan seem likely to uphold it. The law's fate rests with Justice Anthony Kennedy, who said he is "tempted" to strike it down.
If the court does indeed do that, it will be effectively ruling that not only does money talk and not only can it talk as much as it wants, but any effort by the public to enable those who are not well-endowed financially to get a word in edgewise violates the First Amendment right of free speech.
As Jerry Seinfeld would say, we are entering Bizarro World. When it comes to free speech, the United States Supreme Court seems poised to take us to a place where up is down and everything is opposite of what common sense tells you.
Arizona's law bans no speech. It places no restriction of any kind on any sort of speech. If candidates or interest groups are speaking, the law enables others to speak too. It creates more speech. But by the Bizarro logic that five of the nine Supreme Court justices seem to be applying to the situation, creating more speech infringes free speech.
The First Amendment is 45 words long. It does not say money is speech. Nowhere does the word money appear. Nowhere does it say a state cannot take steps to prevent politicians from being bought and our government from being owned. The money-is-speech doctrine does not come from an act of Congress or any state law. It is a judicial invention.
Nowhere in those 45 words does it say that corporations are people. In fact, the word corporation does not appear a single time in the entire U.S. Constitution or any of its amendments. The money-can-talk-all-it-wants doctrine granting corporations free speech rights and allowing unlimited corporate spending on elections cannot be found in the text of the Constitution or the First Amendment, and it does not owe its origins to an act of Congress or any state law. It is another judicial invention.
These unelected judges-for-life are now working on the completion of an unholy trinity in campaign finance jurisprudence. Money talks. Money can talk as much as it wants. Money should do all the talking. Nowhere in the First Amendment does it say that speech is a privilege that must be purchased at great expense. Nowhere in our founding documents or in the law does it say it is impermissible to try to establish a more level playing field in elections by enabling those who are not outlandishly wealthy to be heard. For the court's current five-member to say so would be the latest judicial invention.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Sleaze Begets Sleaze
Hate begets hate. Violence begets violence. Words variously attributed to Dr. Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi. Words inspired by scripture. Gospel of Matthew, verse 26:52. Words thrown into sharp relief by the current race for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Justice David Prosser has responded angrily to what he calls a "despicable ad" aired by a shadowy front group known as the Greater Wisconsin Committee. Prosser is correct. The ad is despicable.
He also claimed it is "the worst ad that has ever been run in a judicial campaign." Now that is a real stretch. It's vile, but when it comes to taking liberties with the truth, Greater Wisconsin's ad isn't nearly as bad as Michael Gableman's Willie Horton ad. When it comes to cynically playing on fear of crimes against children, this one is no worse than the lurid ad the state teachers union sponsored a few years ago. Then there were the hit jobs by Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, including the infamous "Loophole Louie" ad and another that twisted the facts in the so-called "letter from the grave" case beyond recognition. Greater Wisconsin Committee is up against stiff competition in the sleaziest ad category.
David Prosser has every reason to be upset. There's no excuse for the kind of raw sewage this group is slinging in his direction. Just as there is no excusing Prosser for letting Gableman off the hook for telling an outright lie in what likely does qualify as the worst ad ever run in a judicial campaign in Wisconsin. What goes around comes around. Prosser allowed slime to go around without consequence. Now it has come around and he's been slimed.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Big Biz's Non-Denial Denial
Organized boycotts of companies that supported Governor Scott Walker's election are unquestionably giving some businesses around the state a bad case of heartburn. So bad that Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce was moved to condemn the actions, and the state car dealers' association sent their members a script on how to respond to angry customers.
Boycott websites like this one and Facebook pages including one with nearly 23,000 followers as of today are directing people to our website to see who donated to Walker. Traffic to wisdc.org has spiked dramatically with nearly 9 million hits to the site in just the last six weeks. In 2009 we had 3.2 million hits the whole year, which was by far the most we'd ever seen in a odd-numbered year.
Businesses that have become targets of boycotts are singing from a common hymnal in defending themselves. Their stock answer is to say individuals employed by their companies may have donated to Walker, but the companies themselves didn't. In most cases, that statement is true, as far as it goes. But it's what Woodward and Bernstein used to call a non-denial denial.
A business claiming it has not directly contributed to a candidate in Wisconsin out of its corporate coffers is not saying much. It has been illegal for corporations to give directly to candidates for over 100 years, and it remains illegal today. But companies can and some do establish political action committees (PACs) for the purpose of making campaign donations. Like KochPAC and M&I Political Awareness Fund.
Then there are the individual donations. Business leaders base their response to boycotts on a claim that company employees make their own decisions about campaign contributions and are free to support whoever they please. But if you look at the timing of individual donations by employees of a particular company – like, say, Kwik Trip – it's amazing how often you see a bunch of contributions all come in at the same time. If these employees are all making their own decisions, then how is it that they so frequently write checks to the same candidate on the same day? The unmistakable pattern that emerges when you follow the money makes it obvious that top executives and managers are doing the bidding of their companies.
Finally, there's one more pertinent piece of information some businesses aren't volunteering when they say they shouldn't be boycotted because they didn't financially back Scott Walker. Namely the sizeable donations they made to non-candidate committees and front groups that used the money to sponsor advertising supporting Walker. Koch Industries made $43,000 worth of donations directly to Walker's campaign through its PAC. But the company also gave $1 million to the national Republican Governors Association, which spent $5 million on advertising to help elect Walker. Kwik Trip chipped in $25,000 to the RGA. Top execs at Menard's gave a lot directly to candidates, but the company also sent the RGA $25,000.
Boycott websites like this one and Facebook pages including one with nearly 23,000 followers as of today are directing people to our website to see who donated to Walker. Traffic to wisdc.org has spiked dramatically with nearly 9 million hits to the site in just the last six weeks. In 2009 we had 3.2 million hits the whole year, which was by far the most we'd ever seen in a odd-numbered year.
Businesses that have become targets of boycotts are singing from a common hymnal in defending themselves. Their stock answer is to say individuals employed by their companies may have donated to Walker, but the companies themselves didn't. In most cases, that statement is true, as far as it goes. But it's what Woodward and Bernstein used to call a non-denial denial.
A business claiming it has not directly contributed to a candidate in Wisconsin out of its corporate coffers is not saying much. It has been illegal for corporations to give directly to candidates for over 100 years, and it remains illegal today. But companies can and some do establish political action committees (PACs) for the purpose of making campaign donations. Like KochPAC and M&I Political Awareness Fund.
Then there are the individual donations. Business leaders base their response to boycotts on a claim that company employees make their own decisions about campaign contributions and are free to support whoever they please. But if you look at the timing of individual donations by employees of a particular company – like, say, Kwik Trip – it's amazing how often you see a bunch of contributions all come in at the same time. If these employees are all making their own decisions, then how is it that they so frequently write checks to the same candidate on the same day? The unmistakable pattern that emerges when you follow the money makes it obvious that top executives and managers are doing the bidding of their companies.
Finally, there's one more pertinent piece of information some businesses aren't volunteering when they say they shouldn't be boycotted because they didn't financially back Scott Walker. Namely the sizeable donations they made to non-candidate committees and front groups that used the money to sponsor advertising supporting Walker. Koch Industries made $43,000 worth of donations directly to Walker's campaign through its PAC. But the company also gave $1 million to the national Republican Governors Association, which spent $5 million on advertising to help elect Walker. Kwik Trip chipped in $25,000 to the RGA. Top execs at Menard's gave a lot directly to candidates, but the company also sent the RGA $25,000.
Friday, March 18, 2011
The Great Recession's Great Divide
I've never seen people in Wisconsin more divided politically than right now. Our elected officials are hopelessly polarized, but we need to come to terms with the fact that it's because the people they represent are just as polarized.
Two messages that showed up in my e-mail inbox within minutes of each other yesterday were vivid reflections of that polarity.
One said "I looked at your website and unfortunately, your claim to be non-partisan must only mean you don't include political parties. Your (website) speaks loudly for who you really are – pure liberal and leftist. Why lie about who you are? Oh wait...that's an attempt to mask yourself in a cloak of darkness so the 'un-thinkers' of the world only see your false face. Such poor behavior."
The other said "I counted 8 articles written about Scott Walker in the last 6 years on your blog. Maybe there were more, but I didn’t see them when I did a search on your site. And I found 91 articles which were less than flattering about Governor Jim Doyle. (T)he propensity to attack a Democrat and not attack a Republican so much is a little questionable here. So, do you really think you made things 'better' by making it easier to get Democrats to switch over and vote for Walker? I don't. You might want to consider that, the next time you work at being 'neutral.'"
With apologies to Abraham Lincoln, you can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot please all of the people all of the time.
Or maybe, at this moment of foul moods, there's no pleasing much of anyone.
Two messages that showed up in my e-mail inbox within minutes of each other yesterday were vivid reflections of that polarity.
One said "I looked at your website and unfortunately, your claim to be non-partisan must only mean you don't include political parties. Your (website) speaks loudly for who you really are – pure liberal and leftist. Why lie about who you are? Oh wait...that's an attempt to mask yourself in a cloak of darkness so the 'un-thinkers' of the world only see your false face. Such poor behavior."
The other said "I counted 8 articles written about Scott Walker in the last 6 years on your blog. Maybe there were more, but I didn’t see them when I did a search on your site. And I found 91 articles which were less than flattering about Governor Jim Doyle. (T)he propensity to attack a Democrat and not attack a Republican so much is a little questionable here. So, do you really think you made things 'better' by making it easier to get Democrats to switch over and vote for Walker? I don't. You might want to consider that, the next time you work at being 'neutral.'"
With apologies to Abraham Lincoln, you can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot please all of the people all of the time.
Or maybe, at this moment of foul moods, there's no pleasing much of anyone.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
The First Recall Election
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
David Prosser is a partisan. Started out as an aide to a Republican congressman. Went on to serve as a Republican district attorney. Then as a longtime Republican assemblyman. Eventually became speaker of the house. Was appointed to the officially nonpartisan Supreme Court by his friend Tommy Thompson, both a reward for Prosser's years of labor for their party and salve on the wound opened when he lost his bid for a seat in Congress to a TV anchorman.
While on the bench Prosser agreed to be a character witness for his friend Scott Jensen. And he carried water for key GOP backers Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce and the Wisconsin Realtors Association, allowing the two groups to write new judicial ethics rules permitting Wisconsin judges to rule on cases involving their biggest campaign supporters.
Prosser hired a Republican operative to run his reelection campaign, and when Scott Walker was elected governor, Prosser's campaign was eager to hitch his wagon to Walker's. The campaign issued a statement saying that, if reelected, Prosser would serve as a complement to the new governor and his allies in the Legislature.
As Walker's push to strip public workers of their bargaining rights whipped up into a political firestorm, Prosser has tried to back away from his campaign's statement. But he undercut his attempt to distance himself in recent days when he told newsman Bill Lueders that he has "the most partisan background of any member of the court" and both parroted Walker's message and seemed to give the governor friendly advice by saying it is "imperative that the state get its fiscal house in order (and) send a message that this is a great place to do business. (And) it would seem to me that the governor makes his strongest case when he can show a linear relationship between the proposal he makes and our fiscal situation."
Them's fightin' words to those inflamed by Walker's union-busting actions and Robin Hood-in-reverse budget plan. Walker's opponents see a linear relationship between the governor and Justice Prosser, and they see it because Prosser himself has gone to great lengths to make it plainly apparent. April 5 will be the first opportunity for those who have been marching in mass and circulating recall petitions and boycotting business donors to voice their displeasure through the ballot box. Making the election for the supposedly nonpartisan Supreme Court a very partisan referendum on Scott Walker and his allies. Making it the first recall election.
David Prosser is a partisan. Started out as an aide to a Republican congressman. Went on to serve as a Republican district attorney. Then as a longtime Republican assemblyman. Eventually became speaker of the house. Was appointed to the officially nonpartisan Supreme Court by his friend Tommy Thompson, both a reward for Prosser's years of labor for their party and salve on the wound opened when he lost his bid for a seat in Congress to a TV anchorman.
While on the bench Prosser agreed to be a character witness for his friend Scott Jensen. And he carried water for key GOP backers Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce and the Wisconsin Realtors Association, allowing the two groups to write new judicial ethics rules permitting Wisconsin judges to rule on cases involving their biggest campaign supporters.
Prosser hired a Republican operative to run his reelection campaign, and when Scott Walker was elected governor, Prosser's campaign was eager to hitch his wagon to Walker's. The campaign issued a statement saying that, if reelected, Prosser would serve as a complement to the new governor and his allies in the Legislature.
As Walker's push to strip public workers of their bargaining rights whipped up into a political firestorm, Prosser has tried to back away from his campaign's statement. But he undercut his attempt to distance himself in recent days when he told newsman Bill Lueders that he has "the most partisan background of any member of the court" and both parroted Walker's message and seemed to give the governor friendly advice by saying it is "imperative that the state get its fiscal house in order (and) send a message that this is a great place to do business. (And) it would seem to me that the governor makes his strongest case when he can show a linear relationship between the proposal he makes and our fiscal situation."
Them's fightin' words to those inflamed by Walker's union-busting actions and Robin Hood-in-reverse budget plan. Walker's opponents see a linear relationship between the governor and Justice Prosser, and they see it because Prosser himself has gone to great lengths to make it plainly apparent. April 5 will be the first opportunity for those who have been marching in mass and circulating recall petitions and boycotting business donors to voice their displeasure through the ballot box. Making the election for the supposedly nonpartisan Supreme Court a very partisan referendum on Scott Walker and his allies. Making it the first recall election.
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Justice Prosser's Scott Problem
Next month's state Supreme Court election got a lot more interesting in the last two weeks. On the surface the contest is between sitting Justice David Prosser and Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg and will decide whether the conservative faction on the high court maintains its majority or control of the court swings to the left. But with historic demonstrations erupting over Governor Scott Walker's union-busting "budget repair" bill, this election will be more than anything a referendum on Walker.
Prosser has a Scott problem, to put it mildly. In announcing last December that he was hiring a Republican operative to run his reelection campaign, Prosser made no bones about the fact that he sees himself as a teammate of Scott Walker and his GOP allies in the Legislature. Despite the fact the Supreme Court is supposed to be a nonpartisan office and despite the constitutional separation of powers between co-equal branches of government that is central to the checks and balances in our system, Prosser said if reelected he would be "acting as a common sense complement to both the new administration and Legislature."
Prosser already has demonstrated his loyalty, siding with two of Walker's biggest political supporters – Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce and the Wisconsin Realtors Association – in voting for new judicial ethics rules written by the two groups allowing Wisconsin judges to rule on cases involving their biggest campaign supporters.
Walker is not the only Scott who looms large in Prosser's reelection bid. Prosser is an ex-Assembly speaker who agreed to serve as a character witness for Scott Jensen when his friend and former colleague was accused of criminal misconduct in public office. Prosser also was prepared to testify that when he was speaker he did the same things Jensen was criminally charged for.
Prosser has a Scott problem, to put it mildly. In announcing last December that he was hiring a Republican operative to run his reelection campaign, Prosser made no bones about the fact that he sees himself as a teammate of Scott Walker and his GOP allies in the Legislature. Despite the fact the Supreme Court is supposed to be a nonpartisan office and despite the constitutional separation of powers between co-equal branches of government that is central to the checks and balances in our system, Prosser said if reelected he would be "acting as a common sense complement to both the new administration and Legislature."
Prosser already has demonstrated his loyalty, siding with two of Walker's biggest political supporters – Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce and the Wisconsin Realtors Association – in voting for new judicial ethics rules written by the two groups allowing Wisconsin judges to rule on cases involving their biggest campaign supporters.
Walker is not the only Scott who looms large in Prosser's reelection bid. Prosser is an ex-Assembly speaker who agreed to serve as a character witness for Scott Jensen when his friend and former colleague was accused of criminal misconduct in public office. Prosser also was prepared to testify that when he was speaker he did the same things Jensen was criminally charged for.
Friday, February 25, 2011
The Call
Aside from providing much-needed comic relief, the Call Heard Around the World served some useful purposes. It certainly cleared up a few things. Now we know for sure that Scott Walker has been lying through his teeth all along as he's repeatedly insisted that his bill is all about budget balancing. And we know our governor has a Koch habit.
That Walker picked up the phone in the first place is instructive. He has steadfastly refused to talk to any of the protesters, and he's been unwilling to talk to Democratic leaders in the Assembly and Senate. But it was a different story when he thought OH MY GOD, David Koch is on the line.
So much for the false pretenses that this is all about Wisconsin and it's all about getting the state's financial house in order. When he thought he was talking to a billionaire right-wing kingmaker, Walker spoke the truth: "This is about public sector unions."
So much for the false pretenses that this is not part of a national crusade to break those unions across the country. When the online journalist posing as Koch said "you're the first domino," Walker said: "Yep, this is our moment." And he said "this is ground zero, there's no doubt about it." He even went on to compare what he's doing to what Ronald Reagan did to the air traffic controllers.
Walker also revealed a positively Nixonian streak when he told the Koch impersonator how he and those in his inner circle had thought about employing dirty tricks like planting troublemakers among the demonstrators. And how he might pretend to be open to talking to Senate Democrats who've fled the state in order to trick them into returning to the Capitol, only to clear the way for his GOP allies to pass his union-busting bill.
At other points in the conversation, the governor showed a troubling willingness to put his conscience in neutral. He spoke of how he had the attorney general looking into whether ethics charges could be brought against Democrats holed up in Illinois, but evidently saw no red flags when the fake Koch said "once you crush these bastards I'll fly you out to Cali and really show you a good time." Walker replied: "All right, that would be outstanding."
Koch Industries is a registered lobbying agent in Wisconsin, and it is against the law in this state for lobbying interests to provide such perks to government officials here.
It is also against the law in Wisconsin for government officials to solicit campaign funds on state time in a state office using a state telephone, or to coordinate electioneering efforts with outside interests. Walker told his phone companion that "particularly in some of these more swing areas, a lot of these guys are gonna need, they don’t actually need ads for them but they’re going to need a message put out reinforcing why this was a good thing to do for the economy and a good thing to do for the state."
Finally, just couldn't help but notice how the governor ended the conversation by saying "thanks a million!"
Yep, it was almost exactly a million.
That Walker picked up the phone in the first place is instructive. He has steadfastly refused to talk to any of the protesters, and he's been unwilling to talk to Democratic leaders in the Assembly and Senate. But it was a different story when he thought OH MY GOD, David Koch is on the line.
So much for the false pretenses that this is all about Wisconsin and it's all about getting the state's financial house in order. When he thought he was talking to a billionaire right-wing kingmaker, Walker spoke the truth: "This is about public sector unions."
So much for the false pretenses that this is not part of a national crusade to break those unions across the country. When the online journalist posing as Koch said "you're the first domino," Walker said: "Yep, this is our moment." And he said "this is ground zero, there's no doubt about it." He even went on to compare what he's doing to what Ronald Reagan did to the air traffic controllers.
Walker also revealed a positively Nixonian streak when he told the Koch impersonator how he and those in his inner circle had thought about employing dirty tricks like planting troublemakers among the demonstrators. And how he might pretend to be open to talking to Senate Democrats who've fled the state in order to trick them into returning to the Capitol, only to clear the way for his GOP allies to pass his union-busting bill.
At other points in the conversation, the governor showed a troubling willingness to put his conscience in neutral. He spoke of how he had the attorney general looking into whether ethics charges could be brought against Democrats holed up in Illinois, but evidently saw no red flags when the fake Koch said "once you crush these bastards I'll fly you out to Cali and really show you a good time." Walker replied: "All right, that would be outstanding."
Koch Industries is a registered lobbying agent in Wisconsin, and it is against the law in this state for lobbying interests to provide such perks to government officials here.
It is also against the law in Wisconsin for government officials to solicit campaign funds on state time in a state office using a state telephone, or to coordinate electioneering efforts with outside interests. Walker told his phone companion that "particularly in some of these more swing areas, a lot of these guys are gonna need, they don’t actually need ads for them but they’re going to need a message put out reinforcing why this was a good thing to do for the economy and a good thing to do for the state."
Finally, just couldn't help but notice how the governor ended the conversation by saying "thanks a million!"
Yep, it was almost exactly a million.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Walker's Pants-On-Fireside Chat
Scott Walker insists there are two choices. Either break the unions in the name of saving money on health insurance and pensions, or massive layoffs. He said last night that unless his union-busting bill passes, some 1,500 public employees will lose their jobs by June with 5,000 to 6,000 more layoffs will be necessary in the next fiscal year. Pick your poison.
That's one whopper of a false choice.
Even if you count state employee costs that are federally funded or otherwise not paid for with general state taxes, total salary and fringe benefit costs for those workers account for less than a fifth of the overall state budget.
Walker's saying you either have to strip workers of their rights or a bunch of them will have to lose their jobs, but he's walling off over four-fifths of the budget and refusing to even acknowledge the countless potential budget-trimming options that lie therein.
The real menu of options also includes raising revenues in some way. Or at least not further cutting corporate taxes when the majority of companies already are not paying any. Just a few weeks ago Walker and his allies in the Legislature rammed through $67 million in new business tax breaks. Those could be delayed or, better yet, repealed.
Wisconsin has a broad array of real options to choose from, ones that would spread the sacrifice much more broadly than the phony either-or ultimatum Scott Walker has laid out.
That's one whopper of a false choice.
Even if you count state employee costs that are federally funded or otherwise not paid for with general state taxes, total salary and fringe benefit costs for those workers account for less than a fifth of the overall state budget.
Walker's saying you either have to strip workers of their rights or a bunch of them will have to lose their jobs, but he's walling off over four-fifths of the budget and refusing to even acknowledge the countless potential budget-trimming options that lie therein.
The real menu of options also includes raising revenues in some way. Or at least not further cutting corporate taxes when the majority of companies already are not paying any. Just a few weeks ago Walker and his allies in the Legislature rammed through $67 million in new business tax breaks. Those could be delayed or, better yet, repealed.
Wisconsin has a broad array of real options to choose from, ones that would spread the sacrifice much more broadly than the phony either-or ultimatum Scott Walker has laid out.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Pyrrhus Of Wisconsin
In response to congratulations for winning a costly victory over the Romans, King Pyrrhus of Epirus is reported to have said: "One more such victory will undo me!"
Scott Walker clearly has never studied up on Pyrrhic victories. There's been no sign so far that he has any inkling that winning his crusade against worker rights could end up being his undoing. Maybe he's right. Maybe it'll work out just fine for him in the end. Maybe it'll just be the state of Wisconsin that is undone.
It's easy to see how Scott Walker wins by busting unions. It's equally easy to see how the Republican Party wins. It's getting harder by the day to see how Wisconsin comes out of this a winner.
If Walker gets his way, the Koch brothers will be happy. They'll get a handsome return on their investment. They've lined up their dominoes and are planning on Wisconsin being the first to fall. Whether or not Walker's union-busting bill becomes law, his campaign makes him a hard-right hero and elevates him to the national stage. Puts him on the short list of vice presidential hopefuls. He can probably have his own show on Fox News if he wants.
The future doesn't look as bright for the state of Wisconsin. We'll have a demoralized and resentful state workforce. We'll have a hopelessly divided citizenry. We'll have a mostly-dysfunctional legislature grow even more paralyzed. Recall elections against those who vote for the bill, and recall elections for those who vote against it.
And then when the other shoe drops and the rest of Walker's budget plans are finally unveiled, local government officials will be informed of drastic cutbacks in state aid and will be thrust into the position of having to resort to the same treatment of local workers that state workers already are being subjected to under Walker. Although they won't be the ones who stripped them of their rights in the first place, they will be the ones who will have to cut their pay and take away some of their benefits and then watch them like hawks and bully them into submission when they become demoralized and resentful.
Every local official will in effect be wearing a Scott Walker mask. They will become the face of the discord and chaos and ill will that will visit their communities. Every school board member. Every superintendent. Every mayor and city alder. Every county executive and supervisor. Every village president and trustee. Every town official. Years spent cultivating good labor relations will be laid to waste.
The poor will get poorer, with deep cuts to low-income assistance programs like BadgerCare and Medicaid. The rich will get richer, with corporate tax breaks and all manner of other favors showered on the biggest campaign donors. The middle class will continue to gradually disappear. Public schools will get worse. So will many vital public services. Some will disappear altogether.
Maybe Scott Walker will win. But it will be the most Pyrrhic of victories for the people of Wisconsin.
Scott Walker clearly has never studied up on Pyrrhic victories. There's been no sign so far that he has any inkling that winning his crusade against worker rights could end up being his undoing. Maybe he's right. Maybe it'll work out just fine for him in the end. Maybe it'll just be the state of Wisconsin that is undone.
It's easy to see how Scott Walker wins by busting unions. It's equally easy to see how the Republican Party wins. It's getting harder by the day to see how Wisconsin comes out of this a winner.
If Walker gets his way, the Koch brothers will be happy. They'll get a handsome return on their investment. They've lined up their dominoes and are planning on Wisconsin being the first to fall. Whether or not Walker's union-busting bill becomes law, his campaign makes him a hard-right hero and elevates him to the national stage. Puts him on the short list of vice presidential hopefuls. He can probably have his own show on Fox News if he wants.
The future doesn't look as bright for the state of Wisconsin. We'll have a demoralized and resentful state workforce. We'll have a hopelessly divided citizenry. We'll have a mostly-dysfunctional legislature grow even more paralyzed. Recall elections against those who vote for the bill, and recall elections for those who vote against it.
And then when the other shoe drops and the rest of Walker's budget plans are finally unveiled, local government officials will be informed of drastic cutbacks in state aid and will be thrust into the position of having to resort to the same treatment of local workers that state workers already are being subjected to under Walker. Although they won't be the ones who stripped them of their rights in the first place, they will be the ones who will have to cut their pay and take away some of their benefits and then watch them like hawks and bully them into submission when they become demoralized and resentful.
Every local official will in effect be wearing a Scott Walker mask. They will become the face of the discord and chaos and ill will that will visit their communities. Every school board member. Every superintendent. Every mayor and city alder. Every county executive and supervisor. Every village president and trustee. Every town official. Years spent cultivating good labor relations will be laid to waste.
The poor will get poorer, with deep cuts to low-income assistance programs like BadgerCare and Medicaid. The rich will get richer, with corporate tax breaks and all manner of other favors showered on the biggest campaign donors. The middle class will continue to gradually disappear. Public schools will get worse. So will many vital public services. Some will disappear altogether.
Maybe Scott Walker will win. But it will be the most Pyrrhic of victories for the people of Wisconsin.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Why The Dummies Are Wrong
The ventriloquist dummies that pass for state policymakers these days are moving at breakneck speed to take away longstanding worker rights in Wisconsin. They say it has to be done right now to patch a hole in the state's budget for the current year, even though the Legislature's own nonpartisan budget analysts say there's no such short-term problem.
Green Bay-area business leader Paul Linzmeyer is right. What the dummies say is nonsense. Governor Walker and his allies in the Legislature are not doing this for budgetary reasons. Their inspiration is ideological. This is about politics, not state finance. This is about paying back big campaign donors and punishing political opponents. And yes, this is about union busting.
The health insurance and pension benefit concessions they are after would reportedly save the state about $300 million over the next two years. The deficit for the coming two years is now projected to be $3.6 billion. They expect us to believe it is worth ripping Wisconsin in two to solve less than a tenth of the long-term problem the state faces. And they expect us to believe it despite the fact it has become abundantly clear they could get the concessions without stripping workers of their rights.
These facts make the political games the dummies are playing plainly visible. All that aside, for me it boils down to this: Workers have a fundamental right to organize and collectively bargain with their employer. It is unacceptable under any circumstances to solve budget problems by taking away people's rights.
I am not a public employee. In fact, I've never been represented by a union in any job I've ever had. But I am not incapable of seeing and appreciating that all working people have benefited greatly from things unions have fought for and won over the years. We take for granted as a basic employment standard that workers have weekends off, 8-hour work days, 5-day work weeks, and paid vacation and sick leave. All of these things were won by unions.
My benefits aren't as good as those received by Wisconsin's public workers. My employer pays a third of the cost of the health insurance I have. I pay $789 a month out of pocket to cover my family, nearly $9,500 a year. There is no dental coverage. The Democracy Campaign covers one third of a rather meager monthly payment into an individual retirement account.
I'm not complaining. I consider myself lucky. I am paid to do work I love. My parents were dairy farmers and the family didn't have health or dental insurance at all when I was growing up. They had no pension plan. No weekends off or vacations either. Cows need milking twice a day, every day.
Although I fit the profile of someone who might resent public employee compensation, I can't begrudge state and local government workers their pay and benefits. A teacher's job is far more important than mine. A firefighter's is more essential. So is a police officer's. Plowing snow and picking up the trash are indispensable too.
Millions of dollars are showered on professional athletes for entertaining us. A good teacher is worth infinitely more to society than a good quarterback or starting pitcher or point guard. Yet I'm supposed to be bent out of shape because the average teacher in Wisconsin earns something like $51,000 a year? Hell, a truly outstanding teacher would be a bargain at $200,000 in my book.
A state budget is more than just an accounting of how much we'll be taxed and how those taxes will be spent. It is a reflection of our society's priorities. We need to get ours straight.
Green Bay-area business leader Paul Linzmeyer is right. What the dummies say is nonsense. Governor Walker and his allies in the Legislature are not doing this for budgetary reasons. Their inspiration is ideological. This is about politics, not state finance. This is about paying back big campaign donors and punishing political opponents. And yes, this is about union busting.
The health insurance and pension benefit concessions they are after would reportedly save the state about $300 million over the next two years. The deficit for the coming two years is now projected to be $3.6 billion. They expect us to believe it is worth ripping Wisconsin in two to solve less than a tenth of the long-term problem the state faces. And they expect us to believe it despite the fact it has become abundantly clear they could get the concessions without stripping workers of their rights.
These facts make the political games the dummies are playing plainly visible. All that aside, for me it boils down to this: Workers have a fundamental right to organize and collectively bargain with their employer. It is unacceptable under any circumstances to solve budget problems by taking away people's rights.
I am not a public employee. In fact, I've never been represented by a union in any job I've ever had. But I am not incapable of seeing and appreciating that all working people have benefited greatly from things unions have fought for and won over the years. We take for granted as a basic employment standard that workers have weekends off, 8-hour work days, 5-day work weeks, and paid vacation and sick leave. All of these things were won by unions.
My benefits aren't as good as those received by Wisconsin's public workers. My employer pays a third of the cost of the health insurance I have. I pay $789 a month out of pocket to cover my family, nearly $9,500 a year. There is no dental coverage. The Democracy Campaign covers one third of a rather meager monthly payment into an individual retirement account.
I'm not complaining. I consider myself lucky. I am paid to do work I love. My parents were dairy farmers and the family didn't have health or dental insurance at all when I was growing up. They had no pension plan. No weekends off or vacations either. Cows need milking twice a day, every day.
Although I fit the profile of someone who might resent public employee compensation, I can't begrudge state and local government workers their pay and benefits. A teacher's job is far more important than mine. A firefighter's is more essential. So is a police officer's. Plowing snow and picking up the trash are indispensable too.
Millions of dollars are showered on professional athletes for entertaining us. A good teacher is worth infinitely more to society than a good quarterback or starting pitcher or point guard. Yet I'm supposed to be bent out of shape because the average teacher in Wisconsin earns something like $51,000 a year? Hell, a truly outstanding teacher would be a bargain at $200,000 in my book.
A state budget is more than just an accounting of how much we'll be taxed and how those taxes will be spent. It is a reflection of our society's priorities. We need to get ours straight.
Businessman Wonders What Walker Is Thinking
Paul Linzmeyer is scratching his head.
Linzmeyer is a businessman. He ran companies in San Francisco, Chicago and Denver before returning to his home state in 1994 to become president and CEO of the Green Bay-based company Bay Towel. He helped establish an 18-county economic alliance in northeast Wisconsin now known as NEW North, and continues to serve on its board of directors. He is a past chairman of the Green Bay Area Chamber of Commerce and the Wisconsin Council on Workforce Investment. He currently chairs the Bay Area Workforce Development Board.
And he can't figure out Scott Walker.
Let me allow Linzmeyer to explain in his own words. He shared the following thoughts with me in an e-mail yesterday and gave me permission to post them today:
Linzmeyer is a businessman. He ran companies in San Francisco, Chicago and Denver before returning to his home state in 1994 to become president and CEO of the Green Bay-based company Bay Towel. He helped establish an 18-county economic alliance in northeast Wisconsin now known as NEW North, and continues to serve on its board of directors. He is a past chairman of the Green Bay Area Chamber of Commerce and the Wisconsin Council on Workforce Investment. He currently chairs the Bay Area Workforce Development Board.
And he can't figure out Scott Walker.
Let me allow Linzmeyer to explain in his own words. He shared the following thoughts with me in an e-mail yesterday and gave me permission to post them today:
Governor Walker needs to take some basic organizational leadership courses to
help him understand how to engage the employees in coming up with creative and
innovative ways to deal with budget deficits. Clearly, if he wanted to be
respectful of employees who opted to have union representation, he would have
chosen a much less caustic solution. Granted, he has a monumental task in front
of him, but this is not a monarchy, and thus, the budget deficit must be a
problem solved in a collaborative manner.
Government employees – whether police, school teachers, snowplow operators – are doing work that enhances our quality of life. Like most processes, whether in business or in government, there are some that are inefficient, wasteful or just unpopular. Regardless of what we feel about the services that government performs, the fact is that people who do these jobs are committed to doing a good job. I would suspect that the breakdown in government of those employees who truly excel, those who really should be fired, and the bulk of those somewhere in the middle mirrors current business and other organizational models.
From a business perspective, (Walker's approach) is the worst way to engage people who we say are of value to our system. Think about it this way: You are a new leader of a company and you want to build trust with your employees. Do you start out by delivering a crippling attack on them without any discussion, and then tell those same employees that they are important to you? Government workers are necessary and the work they do has incredible value to our quality of life. They also have great ideas, and if they’re engaged in meaningful dialogue in which their voices are really heard, they could help fix this budget crisis.
Companies and organizations that want to be successful in the 21st century realize that they need to engage all their stakeholders, especially their employees, in a more meaningful way. That means sharing challenges and engaging in meaningful
dialogue that will renew the spirit of American workers towards innovative and
creative solutions.
I am hoping that the governor will reconsider his stance, but my fear is that his stance is ideological, not pragmatic. Trying to disguise this move against the unions as a budget move is disingenuous at best. Let’s maintain (what) has made Wisconsin great and start negotiations with the unions with the objective of changing the way Wisconsin does business.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Extreme Ventriloquism
In its first day, the Citizen Vigil for the Greater Good succeeded in outing plans to eviscerate collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin. Within hours of exposing what those who've taken charge at the Capitol were cooking up out of public view, their plan was all over the news.
The need for better surveillance is one of the reasons we started our vigil. This was the first time but won't be the last that we will force out into the open what they would like to keep under wraps until the last possible second.
But an even more important reason for doing this is to organize an ongoing opportunity for citizens to protest and agitate against the plutocratic extremism that has taken hold in our state government.
One of the things I said yesterday in my remarks at the kickoff of our vigil is that money throws its voice at the Capitol every day. What we have is not a legislature, but rather a parliament of ventriloquist dummies. There is nothing republican about the way these Republicans are doing the public's business.
Maybe most people have gotten so used to elections paid for by less than 1% of the population and politicians who then shamelessly pander to the donor class that they've lost the capacity to summon any resistance.
If that's the case, then most people had better wake up. These ventriloquist dummies who pass for elected representatives of the people have an agenda. A really long agenda.
This is union-busting ventriloquism. Next week, when the Legislature is not scheduled to be in session, look for them to convene anyway to ram through legislation castrating unions.
This is train-derailing ventriloquism. Governor Walker was willing to throw away $810 million because he is deeply in debt to an interest group that didn't support him for most of his long political career but loves him now.
This is wetland-destroying ventriloquism. To make one big campaign donor happy the dummies are willing to say so long to one of the state's remaining wetlands.
This is smokestack ventriloquism. Walker and his minions aim to make it difficult if not impossible for wind energy and biofuels to get a foothold here in Wisconsin, for more than a million reasons.
This is vote-suppressing ventriloquism. The dummie leader in the Senate said passing legislation requiring a photo ID to vote would be the first order of business, and sure enough, making it a little harder for everyone and a lot harder for a few to cast a ballot is on the fastest of tracks. Never mind the handful of documented cases of voter fraud have nothing to do with people trying to pass themselves off as someone else to vote, which is the only thing a photo ID requirement could possibly address. Never mind that this solution in search of a problem amounts to a poll tax.
This is power-abusing ventriloquism. These extremists are bent on trampling on checks and balances that have done this country proud for more than two centuries and giving the governor veto power over legislative oversight of rules made by executive branch agencies.
This ventriloquism is Robin Hood in reverse. They will rob from the poor and middle class and give to the rich. They've already doled out nearly $70 million in corporate tax breaks and are just getting warmed up. Word is there will be huge cuts in the budget for Medicaid and other health benefits for the poor and working families, big reductions in aid for public schools, and a wholesale abandonment of community development programs.
This is bigoted ventriloquism. We're hearing they will seek, most likely in the state budget bill, to get rid of the state's new domestic partner registry which gives same-sex partners in committed relationships limited health and legal protections.
This is no time for sitting on hands. The ventriloquists and their dummies are not resting.
The need for better surveillance is one of the reasons we started our vigil. This was the first time but won't be the last that we will force out into the open what they would like to keep under wraps until the last possible second.
But an even more important reason for doing this is to organize an ongoing opportunity for citizens to protest and agitate against the plutocratic extremism that has taken hold in our state government.
One of the things I said yesterday in my remarks at the kickoff of our vigil is that money throws its voice at the Capitol every day. What we have is not a legislature, but rather a parliament of ventriloquist dummies. There is nothing republican about the way these Republicans are doing the public's business.
Maybe most people have gotten so used to elections paid for by less than 1% of the population and politicians who then shamelessly pander to the donor class that they've lost the capacity to summon any resistance.
If that's the case, then most people had better wake up. These ventriloquist dummies who pass for elected representatives of the people have an agenda. A really long agenda.
This is union-busting ventriloquism. Next week, when the Legislature is not scheduled to be in session, look for them to convene anyway to ram through legislation castrating unions.
This is train-derailing ventriloquism. Governor Walker was willing to throw away $810 million because he is deeply in debt to an interest group that didn't support him for most of his long political career but loves him now.
This is wetland-destroying ventriloquism. To make one big campaign donor happy the dummies are willing to say so long to one of the state's remaining wetlands.
This is smokestack ventriloquism. Walker and his minions aim to make it difficult if not impossible for wind energy and biofuels to get a foothold here in Wisconsin, for more than a million reasons.
This is vote-suppressing ventriloquism. The dummie leader in the Senate said passing legislation requiring a photo ID to vote would be the first order of business, and sure enough, making it a little harder for everyone and a lot harder for a few to cast a ballot is on the fastest of tracks. Never mind the handful of documented cases of voter fraud have nothing to do with people trying to pass themselves off as someone else to vote, which is the only thing a photo ID requirement could possibly address. Never mind that this solution in search of a problem amounts to a poll tax.
This is power-abusing ventriloquism. These extremists are bent on trampling on checks and balances that have done this country proud for more than two centuries and giving the governor veto power over legislative oversight of rules made by executive branch agencies.
This ventriloquism is Robin Hood in reverse. They will rob from the poor and middle class and give to the rich. They've already doled out nearly $70 million in corporate tax breaks and are just getting warmed up. Word is there will be huge cuts in the budget for Medicaid and other health benefits for the poor and working families, big reductions in aid for public schools, and a wholesale abandonment of community development programs.
This is bigoted ventriloquism. We're hearing they will seek, most likely in the state budget bill, to get rid of the state's new domestic partner registry which gives same-sex partners in committed relationships limited health and legal protections.
This is no time for sitting on hands. The ventriloquists and their dummies are not resting.
Friday, February 04, 2011
Protection Money, 21st Century Style
We've reached that point where you are left with a little vomit in your mouth when you hear Scott Walker say for the umpteenth time that Wisconsin is "open for business." But at least we are getting a clearer picture of what he actually means. Wisconsin is open for old business. The state under Walker seems to want little to do with anything resembling a new economy or, god forbid, a green economy. Wisconsin is not open to high-speed rail. Or wind power or biofuels.
No wonder. We've written plenty about why Walker was willing to say goodbye to $810 million in federal rail funds. And as business reporter Mike Ivey pointed out in a lengthy piece published this week, the two special interests that want to slow down if not stop the spread of wind power gave Walker nearly $1.2 million to aid his run for governor. Oil, gas and coal interests scared by the emergence of biofuels gave him close to $128,000.
Protection rackets traditionally have been underworld criminal enterprises. Nowadays the payment of most protection money has been decriminalized and hides behind a seemingly innocent mask. Now it's called a campaign contribution. And there's no better illustration of the new racket than what old business interests in Wisconsin are doing to protect themselves from the economic destiny the rest of the world seems much more prepared to embrace.
No wonder. We've written plenty about why Walker was willing to say goodbye to $810 million in federal rail funds. And as business reporter Mike Ivey pointed out in a lengthy piece published this week, the two special interests that want to slow down if not stop the spread of wind power gave Walker nearly $1.2 million to aid his run for governor. Oil, gas and coal interests scared by the emergence of biofuels gave him close to $128,000.
Protection rackets traditionally have been underworld criminal enterprises. Nowadays the payment of most protection money has been decriminalized and hides behind a seemingly innocent mask. Now it's called a campaign contribution. And there's no better illustration of the new racket than what old business interests in Wisconsin are doing to protect themselves from the economic destiny the rest of the world seems much more prepared to embrace.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Scott Walker, Plagiarist
A few weeks into Scott Walker's tenure as governor, one thing is becoming clear. He has no ideas. None of his own, anyway.
Walker is pushing to dilute legislative oversight and give himself new power to veto rules developed by state agencies (whose heads are mostly appointed by the governor). This tampering with time-honored checks and balances is not Walker's idea. He lifted it straight from the agenda Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce came out with last November.
He also plagiarized WMC's proposal for so-called "tort reform." No, we're not talking state intervention in the baking of those cakes made of eggs and sugar and not much else. A tort is an injury, damage or wrongful act done willfully and negligently and settled with monetary damages in civil court. Walker and the Legislature's Fitzgerald brothers did WMC's bidding in ramming through changes that make it harder for consumers to seek compensation for being injured or poisoned by harmful products and limit damages that can be awarded even if a consumer does manage to sue despite the new obstacles. The new law even protects nursing homes from lawsuits when they abuse or neglect their elderly patients.
Two new corporate tax breaks are in the works, another gift to WMC. Never mind that these favors add to a state budget deficit already expected to be $3 billion. And never mind that it's estimated that close to two-thirds of big businesses in Wisconsin already pay no taxes, as Wisconsin newspaper hall of famer Dave Zweifel recently reported.
Then there's the special session bill pushed by Walker and legislative leaders providing an exemption from statewide wetlands protections for one developer – a Green Bay area businessman who happens to be a major campaign contributor to Governor Walker. This one has such a rank stench that today it's being reported that even though the skids appear to be greased and the bill is sailing toward passage, some involved with the development project are having second thoughts.
Walker is copying from the Wisconsin Realtors Association's script on wind power. And, of course, on transportation issues he is taking his cues from the powerful road building industry. Wisconsin lost $810 million in federal funds for high-speed rail because Walker – the top recipient of road builder donations – did what was good for the road builders, namely insist that the rail money be used for highway projects instead. What was good for the road builders wasn't good for Wisconsin. We ended up with nothing. California, Illinois and a bunch of other states got our rail money.
Day after day more favors are done for the rich and powerful. Regular people have a choice. We can sit idly by and watch this disgraceful pandering to those who make the biggest campaign donations and have the most lobbyists prowling the halls of the Capitol on their behalf. Or we can go to the Capitol and stand against special interest ownership of our government.
The Democracy Campaign is organizing a citizen vigil at the Capitol because we'd rather stand and fight than sit on our backsides and twiddle our thumbs for the next two years. If they are going to do favors for the rich and powerful day after day, we're going to call them on it day in and day out.
That's why we're starting this vigil. And that's why we're calling on all 99ers to join us. Let me explain who I'm talking about. 99er is a term originally coined to describe jobless and financially vulnerable Americans. It refers to those who have exhausted all of their unemployment benefits, as 99 weeks is the maximum allowed under the law in any state. But we apply the term more broadly to the unrepresented and politically homeless. Here in Wisconsin, less than 1% of the population pays for all the election campaigning by state politicians. If the other 99% of us are to have a voice, it's up to us to demand it and fight for it.
Our success will depend on how many of us are willing to stand together in the interest of bringing back the idea that government should work for the greater good.
Walker is pushing to dilute legislative oversight and give himself new power to veto rules developed by state agencies (whose heads are mostly appointed by the governor). This tampering with time-honored checks and balances is not Walker's idea. He lifted it straight from the agenda Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce came out with last November.
He also plagiarized WMC's proposal for so-called "tort reform." No, we're not talking state intervention in the baking of those cakes made of eggs and sugar and not much else. A tort is an injury, damage or wrongful act done willfully and negligently and settled with monetary damages in civil court. Walker and the Legislature's Fitzgerald brothers did WMC's bidding in ramming through changes that make it harder for consumers to seek compensation for being injured or poisoned by harmful products and limit damages that can be awarded even if a consumer does manage to sue despite the new obstacles. The new law even protects nursing homes from lawsuits when they abuse or neglect their elderly patients.
Two new corporate tax breaks are in the works, another gift to WMC. Never mind that these favors add to a state budget deficit already expected to be $3 billion. And never mind that it's estimated that close to two-thirds of big businesses in Wisconsin already pay no taxes, as Wisconsin newspaper hall of famer Dave Zweifel recently reported.
Then there's the special session bill pushed by Walker and legislative leaders providing an exemption from statewide wetlands protections for one developer – a Green Bay area businessman who happens to be a major campaign contributor to Governor Walker. This one has such a rank stench that today it's being reported that even though the skids appear to be greased and the bill is sailing toward passage, some involved with the development project are having second thoughts.
Walker is copying from the Wisconsin Realtors Association's script on wind power. And, of course, on transportation issues he is taking his cues from the powerful road building industry. Wisconsin lost $810 million in federal funds for high-speed rail because Walker – the top recipient of road builder donations – did what was good for the road builders, namely insist that the rail money be used for highway projects instead. What was good for the road builders wasn't good for Wisconsin. We ended up with nothing. California, Illinois and a bunch of other states got our rail money.
Day after day more favors are done for the rich and powerful. Regular people have a choice. We can sit idly by and watch this disgraceful pandering to those who make the biggest campaign donations and have the most lobbyists prowling the halls of the Capitol on their behalf. Or we can go to the Capitol and stand against special interest ownership of our government.
The Democracy Campaign is organizing a citizen vigil at the Capitol because we'd rather stand and fight than sit on our backsides and twiddle our thumbs for the next two years. If they are going to do favors for the rich and powerful day after day, we're going to call them on it day in and day out.
That's why we're starting this vigil. And that's why we're calling on all 99ers to join us. Let me explain who I'm talking about. 99er is a term originally coined to describe jobless and financially vulnerable Americans. It refers to those who have exhausted all of their unemployment benefits, as 99 weeks is the maximum allowed under the law in any state. But we apply the term more broadly to the unrepresented and politically homeless. Here in Wisconsin, less than 1% of the population pays for all the election campaigning by state politicians. If the other 99% of us are to have a voice, it's up to us to demand it and fight for it.
Our success will depend on how many of us are willing to stand together in the interest of bringing back the idea that government should work for the greater good.
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
Show Us The Money
Let's start with a basic assumption. Voters have a right to know who is trying to influence elections.
By that measure, Wisconsin is failing. Our state's campaign finance disclosure system is a wreck.
Back in mid-November the state Government Accountability Board released figures showing special interest groups had reported spending close to $10 million on elections in 2010. We were pretty sure that was more than the tip of the iceberg, but also had strong reasons to believe there was much more spending that was below the radar.
After examining TV ad invoices, scouring IRS filings and turning over countless other stones, we were able to find about $9 million more that was spent. And there was almost certainly still more campaigning that escaped our notice.
So the bottom line is that Wisconsin's disclosure system accounted for barely half of the campaign spending by outside interest groups, if that. That is not disclosure that upholds the right of voters to know who is influencing elections.
When it comes to who actually supplied the interest groups with the $19 million they spent on election advertising, the state's disclosure laws failed us to an even greater extent. Less than a third of the money ($6 million of the $19 million) could be traced to identifiable donors. Most of it came from anonymous sources. That is not disclosure that protects the right of voters to know who is influencing elections.
Of those few groups that disclosed donations, some reported spending millions of dollars but only identified a small number of contributions they received to pay for their spending. For example, the Republican Governors Association's RGA Wisconsin 2010 PAC reported spending $3.48 million but only reported $31,190 in contributions. Where did the rest of the money come from? The public is left to guess.
Other groups reported receiving much larger amounts in contributions. The only catch is they listed themselves as the donors. On the right, the Republican State Leadership Committee reported spending $935,726 and receiving $772,091 in contributions. Who was so generous? Why, the Republican State Leadership Committee. On the left, a group called Advancing Wisconsin reported spending $558,895 and receiving $270,500 in donations . . . from itself. Where did the money really come from? The public is kept in the dark. That is not disclosure that comes close to satisfying the voters' right to know who is influencing elections.
For years, I've heard one Republican politician after another say they don't believe in limits on what's given to campaigns or spent on elections but they do believe all the money should be immediately and publicly reported. Let the money flow, but disclose everything. That's been their mantra.
Now the Republicans are in charge at the State Capitol. They control both the Assembly and Senate as well as the governor's office. Will their word become law? Or will the identities of those who are buying elections and, by extension, taking ownership of our government remain a carefully guarded secret?
By that measure, Wisconsin is failing. Our state's campaign finance disclosure system is a wreck.
Back in mid-November the state Government Accountability Board released figures showing special interest groups had reported spending close to $10 million on elections in 2010. We were pretty sure that was more than the tip of the iceberg, but also had strong reasons to believe there was much more spending that was below the radar.
After examining TV ad invoices, scouring IRS filings and turning over countless other stones, we were able to find about $9 million more that was spent. And there was almost certainly still more campaigning that escaped our notice.
So the bottom line is that Wisconsin's disclosure system accounted for barely half of the campaign spending by outside interest groups, if that. That is not disclosure that upholds the right of voters to know who is influencing elections.
When it comes to who actually supplied the interest groups with the $19 million they spent on election advertising, the state's disclosure laws failed us to an even greater extent. Less than a third of the money ($6 million of the $19 million) could be traced to identifiable donors. Most of it came from anonymous sources. That is not disclosure that protects the right of voters to know who is influencing elections.
Of those few groups that disclosed donations, some reported spending millions of dollars but only identified a small number of contributions they received to pay for their spending. For example, the Republican Governors Association's RGA Wisconsin 2010 PAC reported spending $3.48 million but only reported $31,190 in contributions. Where did the rest of the money come from? The public is left to guess.
Other groups reported receiving much larger amounts in contributions. The only catch is they listed themselves as the donors. On the right, the Republican State Leadership Committee reported spending $935,726 and receiving $772,091 in contributions. Who was so generous? Why, the Republican State Leadership Committee. On the left, a group called Advancing Wisconsin reported spending $558,895 and receiving $270,500 in donations . . . from itself. Where did the money really come from? The public is kept in the dark. That is not disclosure that comes close to satisfying the voters' right to know who is influencing elections.
For years, I've heard one Republican politician after another say they don't believe in limits on what's given to campaigns or spent on elections but they do believe all the money should be immediately and publicly reported. Let the money flow, but disclose everything. That's been their mantra.
Now the Republicans are in charge at the State Capitol. They control both the Assembly and Senate as well as the governor's office. Will their word become law? Or will the identities of those who are buying elections and, by extension, taking ownership of our government remain a carefully guarded secret?