The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel or more appropriately Dave Umhoefer recently won the Pulitzer prize for investigative journalism.
Looks like another great piece of investigate reporting by AP reporter Ryan Foley. He uncovered more cronyism in the Doyle administration and totally unethical behavior by lawyer, former Governor Tony Earl.
Political hire costs Wisconsin taxpayers $346,000
Editorial - Don’t be bluffed by budget fear - Go ahead., make the taxpayers’ day.
Beloit Daily News, 5 5 2008
ACCORDING TO THE Doyle administration, unless Wisconsin decision-makers come up with a plan to fill the $527 million budget hole soon, there will be no choice but to cut state payments for schools, municipalities, construction projects and more.
OK. So what?
Not that we’re supportive of the dilly-dallying taking place in Madison, mind you. Those full-time elected legislators - you know, the ones who only spent about four weeks in session last year - have few responsibilities more pressing than establishing the state’s budget. The failure, again, to manage the state’s finances in a timely and responsible way just adds to the mounting evidence that the people have been poorly served.
THE POINT is that if it becomes necessary to cut … then cut!
That’s what responsible budget managers do, from coast-to-coast, in the private sector, which does not have the luxury of coercively adding revenue (read: raising taxes) or resorting to the kind of accounting legerdemain that is a staple of government.
One need look no further than last week’s announcement that General Motors is shelving the second shift in Janesville, putting some 750 workers out on the street. That is a painful process that will reverberate across the Stateline Area. Does anyone think General Motors’ managers wanted to make that truly tough choice?
By comparison, state government’s challenge is modest.
WE’VE SAID IT before, we’ll say it again. So long as every government employee - state workers, school teachers, city staffers and so on - can expect job security, annual raises and the kind of benefit packages that are rare as snowballs in Miami, stop trying to tell taxpayers how hard decisions are being made.
They’re not. And government does nothing for its sinking credibility by claiming otherwise. The answer is smaller government, coupled with an attitude adjustment by the people.
The Founders did not intend for government to meet every need or touch every corner of citizens’ lives. In fact, the Founders surely would be mortified by today’s bloated bureaucracies and endless demands on the people’s purse.
I have been travelling the state in past couple weeks and have heard quite a few stories of people that want to do the right thing and some stories of people that think they want to do the right thing - but seem to be totally clueless.
Case in point - Representative Kagen from the Green Bay area. Seems he told a group of loggers that are in serious financial hardships for a variety of reasons that he needed to check with his friends with butterfly collections on the impact to their hobby before commenting on restrictive policies of the federal government on the logging industry.
I heard this story sitting a restaurant in the early morning in the most northern part of Wisconsin. The restaurant - usually empty at this time of day - was packed with loggers that didn’t have work to do because of the extreme actions of the environmentalist.
What a perfect commercial - Congressman Kagen checking with his friends on the impact of their butterflys while the north woods of Wisconsin sees jobs lost - businesses closed - families unable to make ends meet - while his friends are trying to determine the impact of their butterfly collection.
In my opinion Kagen has no clue on Doing The Right Thing.
Court elections give voters needed voice
By Maureen Martin
The polls had barely closed in Wisconsin ’s judicial election — in which the conservative beat the liberal for the second time in a row — when liberals began calling the election a “tragedy ” in a “broken ” judicial system and vowed to fix it. But the system ain ‘t broke. Actually, the election was a stellar example of democracy in action.
What Is ACORN?
ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is the nation’s largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families, working together for social justice and stronger communities.
National Education Association
1201 16th Street NW
Washington, DC
What is Rootscamp?
RootsCampDC an “un-conference” where you set the agenda and lead the sessions. RootsCampDC is for people who played a role in the 2008 elections and are prepared to share with others innovations, failures, old wisdom and new discoveries.
Seems like ACORN or affliated groups are up to it again - this time there may be someone watching over thier shoulders.
You may remember that Robert Doeckel from Progress Now/One Wisconsin Now responded to my challenge to have video cameras and volunteers from his organization and mine at 100 polling places on election day and post to YouTube any mischief.
“and video cameras at the polls are just another right-wing voter intimidation tactic. i’ll be glad to share with you our reports of intimidation and misinformation to get voters to stay home.” Robert Doeckel
Seems like Robert and his friends are in training. Rootscamp Attendees
I trust Robert and all the attendees are planning on Doing The Right Thing. Yeh Right!
(Isn’t it interesting that Progress Now and One Wisconsin Now has same template for web site. Wonder where they get their money from? - George where are you?)
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has reported that State Representative Mark Pocan requested assurances from the State Department of Revenue that “businesses do not deduct political contributions to groups that run third-party independent campaign ads…”
Pocan said the state’s largest business group, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, which ran some of those independent Supreme Court election ads, has solicited contributions from businesses to pay for the TV ads and other efforts to decide elections
I am sure Representative Pocan wanted to Do The Right Thing to make sure the ads that ran against Judge Mike Gableman were not funded by illegally deducted contributions. Ya Right.
WMC spokesman Jim Pugh said all its member businesses are told any contributions they make for political ads run by its political arm, WMC Issues Mobililization Council Inc., ads are not tax-deductible.
Dr. Wasserman should Do The Right Thing - Drop out of the race for the State Senate.
If these are the tactics he and Decker will use it would be better for him to drop out now then incur the wrath of the voters in November. Debate the issues - disagree on how to solve the problems facing the state - but do it without stooping to the lowest form of political sleaze ever to be seen in Wisconsin’s history.
From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel this morning.
Misinformation was “getting spread for political purposes,” said Darling, 63, of River Hills. “It was an issue that (Capitol) people are talking about.”
In the news release issued Wednesday, Darling accused her opponent, Democratic Rep. Sheldon Wasserman of Milwaukee and Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker (D-Weston) of spreading rumors that she had health problems.
The Institute For One Wisconsin has a new web site. Protect Wisconsin’s Vote.
They are talking about the upcoming November election in Wisconsin and that there is a myth about voter fraud in Wisconsin.
I cannot agree with them concerning past elections because I saw it, but agree with them in November of 2008 it will be a little tougher for all the mischief that used to take place.
They must have heard the same rumors about the undercover folks already trying to see who is behind the past abuses and who is funding it. A FBI agent once told me - just follow the money.
George - where are you?
Wisconsin’s Judicial Revolution
By JOHN FUND
April 5, 2008; Page A8
On Tuesday, for the first time in over four decades, Wisconsin voters turned out an incumbent justice of their state supreme court. The election showed that, given a clear choice, voters usually prefer a judicial conservative to one with an activist bent.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court certainly bent the rule of law over the past four years, as a 4-3 liberal majority became the nation’s premier trailblazer in overturning its own precedents and abandoning deference to the legislature’s policy choices. Thus the defeat of Justice Louis Butler at the hands of Burnett County Judge Michael Gableman has national implications. A recent study in the University of California-Davis Law Review found that Wisconsin is the eighth most-cited state supreme court by other judicial bodies. Its rulings play a larger role in shaping court decisions elsewhere than those of courts in states such as New York, Florida or Texas. In addition, 38 states elect all or part of their appellate-level judges by popular vote. Judge Butler’s defeat sends a signal that a judge who dramatically oversteps traditional boundaries can be brought to account.
When John Roberts was confirmed as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005, he noted “judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules, they apply them.” Most Americans agree, but the liberal majority on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court made so many suspect calls it seemed intent on rewriting the rules.
These calls began in 2004, immediately after Justice Diane Sykes stepped down to join a federal appeals court. Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle replaced her with Mr. Butler, a former Milwaukee judge and public defender who had lost to Ms. Sykes by a 2-1 margin in a nonpartisan race in 2000. Justice Butler soon wrote the infamous decision in Thomas v. Mallet, which created a guilty-until-proven-innocent approach to product liability. Wisconsin became the only state to adopt a “collective liability” theory in lead paint cases: Whether a company actually produced the lead paint that harmed a claimant was irrelevant to its to its guilt or innocence.
Then came Ferdon v. Wisconsin Patients, declaring unconstitutional the state’s cap on noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases. It argued that the caps bore “no rational relationship to a legitimate government interest.” That the legislature had specifically passed the caps to make malpractice insurance “available and affordable,” and the caps worked. In 2004, the American Medical Association judged Wisconsin to be one of only six states not in a medical malpractice crisis. Marquette University law professor Rick Esenberg concluded that under the court’s reasoning in that case, “almost any law is subject to being struck down.”
The Wisconsin supreme court also expanded the U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretation of search and seizure law. Justice Butler wrote a majority opinion finding that the state constitution provided greater protection to suspected criminals, even though its wording virtually mirrored that of the U.S. Constitution. And so a bloody sweatshirt was ruled inadmissible in a murder case because the suspect told officers where it was before having his Miranda rights read to him.
Judge Sykes, now on the federal bench, felt so strongly about this decision she declared its reasoning “pure unvarnished result-orientation.” In a widely noted lecture at Marquette University, she lamented that the state supreme court had “manifested a cavalier, almost dismissive attitude toward the sources of legal interpretation generally thought to be most authoritative: the text, structure, and history of the constitution and laws, and the court’s own precedents.”
All of this meant that Louis Butler’s bid this year for a full 10-year term was bound to be contentious. Teacher unions, trial lawyers and Indian tribes (which had benefited from the court’s controversial expansion of casino gambling) poured money into third-party ads attacking Judge Gableman.
They were matched by business groups such as Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, which ran ads noting that Justice Butler had earned the nickname “Loophole Louie” from fellow public defenders for winning reversals of his clients’ criminal convictions. Justice Butler made the mistake of embracing the nickname, claiming it was “affectionate.” Voters weren’t amused.In the wake of Justice Butler’s defeat, some liberals have declared that elections for the state’s supreme court should end, and its members be appointed by the governor. Tom Basting, president of the Wisconsin Bar, claims that “judges are different from other elected officials” and “that means some of the standards voters typically use when evaluating candidates don’t apply to judges.”The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected the distinction between judicial and legislative elections. In expanding the political free speech rights of judicial candidates, it declared in 2002 (Republican Party of Minnesota v. White) that completely separating the judiciary from the notion of “representative government” ignores the fact that state-court judges possess the power to “make” common law as well as to shape their state constitutions. Thus it is entirely appropriate for voters to have a say in whether that “immense power,” as the Supreme Court called it, will be used with restraint or abandon.
Wisconsin is in many ways a liberal state – it hasn’t voted Republican at the presidential level in decades – but its electorate showed this week that it favors judicial restraint over activism. This fall, voters in other states ranging from Louisiana to Michigan will face pivotal elections over what direction their own state supreme courts will go. Inevitably, a chorus will complain about the amount of money spent on those races by outside groups. No doubt the campaigns will be messy. But that’s a small price to pay to ensure that voters remain a check on the judiciary. If judges are umpires, the best way to ensure that they make the right calls is to bounce those who abuse their power from the game.
Mr. Fund is a columnist for WSJ.com.
MADISON, Wis. — Shirley Abrahamson, chief justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, said on Thursday morning she plans to run for re-election next year.
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