A Wisconsin Political Fix
not just another blog
November 22, 2011
By Bill Kraus
As the occupiers, recallers, and other malcontents are about to learn, the mostly invincible incumbents who occupy our legislatures are largely deaf, dumb, and blind to their supplications.
As a veteran of multiple failed attempts to alter the electoral status quo, I feel equipped to offer several warnings and a little helpful advice.
The first warning is that enormous power has devolved on legislative leaders. The political parties, since they lost the power to recruit, slate, fund and manage campaigns, are noisy paper tigers. The tea party types and possibly the occupiers (if they get serious about acquiring power) could do some of this, but for the most part the legislative leaders are filling the pipeline. Are they filling it with rambunctious, aggressive, creative talents? They are not. They want lemmings. Empty suits. Followers. To a very large extent they seem to have gotten what they want in our state.
This means that anyone who wants something the legislative leaders do not want has his or her work cut out for him or her.
The legislative leaders think they know where they got their power and are not going to do anything to annoy those to whom they are beholden for their power and prestige. The legislative leaders reject changes that remove some of the threats to their well-being more or less routinely. They know how they got where they are and will rebuff any ideas that threaten their routes to power.
They are beholden to the status quo generally. More specifically they are beholden to anyone or any organization that is or are organized to deliver money to their campaigns and campaign organizations or that threaten their incumbencies in other ways.
Examples of the latter are organizations like the NRA (the National Rifle Association) and AARP (the American Association of Retired Persons). For reasons that befuddle me, these organizations, which do not contribute money or associate with either political party, almost always get their way. I concede that the golden oldies are not as formidable as they were once, but the NRA rules everywhere but in Illinois of all places.
Money suppliers are revered, respected and protected, which is understandable in a money-driven political system. This seems to be inevitable. It is not always reprehensible.
Where money goes astray is when it is connected to ideology. The most egregious are the single-issue organizations that want their contributions to be unfettered and anonymous.
One of the electoral reform ideas that everyone once respected and even urged, and that an otherwise deaf, dumb, and blind U.S. Supreme Court has approved and even recommended, is the disclosure of the names of contributors to organizations that participate alongside candidates’ campaigns in supporting or opposing candidacies.
It is no secret that the Wisconsin Right to Life organization has told its supporters on both sides of the aisle that disclosure of contributors would dry up the organization’s funding. Is that why a Democratic Assembly Speaker trashed a disclosure bill and why a Republican Assembly Speaker has said he will refuse to consider one? I’ll listen to a better reason if anyone has one.
Since secret contributors fund organizations on the anarchistic right and the socialistic left which interfere with and hijack campaigns without compunction, one would think that the candidates in those campaigns would want to know who their real enemies (the contributors) are so they could mount specific counterattacks. One would be wrong.
Money is golden. Secret money is whatever is more precious than gold.
The malcontents are about to learn that unless they or their goals come to the battle armed with large amounts of money, or their followers are disciplined, predictable lock step voters who can be relied on to turn out on election day, they are going to get what those of us who have been trying to clean up and reform campaign spending for years have received.
It’s called the brush-off.
Follow Bill Kraus on:
Read More...
Intro only...
A Wisconsin Political Fix
not just another blog
September 13, 2011
By Roger Utnehmer
If Wisconsin had a Civility and Compromise Hall of Fame for politicians, State Senators Tim Cullen and Dale Schultz would be the first to be inducted.
It is a cliché to decry the lack of civility and compromise in state politics. Partisanship has polarized all branches of government. That’s why what Senators Tim Cullen, a Democrat from Janesville, and Dale Schultz, a Republican from Richland Center are doing to restore civility has profound potential.
Cullen and Schultz have visited each others’ districts. Each listened to the concerns of the others’ constituents. They are working together finding common ground on issues that matter to people regardless of political affiliation. Their reciprocal visits have already resulted in both recognizing the importance of rail service to rural Wisconsin as a tool for economic development.
More positive results will follow.
Both have been around state government long enough to remember the days of bi-partisan cooperation when legislators built bonds of friendship across the aisle. Congratulations to Senators Cullen and Schultz for attempting to restore that rich Wisconsin tradition. May their efforts be an example for their colleagues to follow.
Their bi-partisan cooperation is proof we have hope for better discourse in a state government troubled by discord and incivility. Thanks to two veteran legislators for restoring optimism and hope that things will be better.
That’s my opinion. I’d like to hear yours. I’m Roger Utnehmer
Roger Utnehmer is President and CEO of DoorCountyDailyNews.com, and a member of Common Cause in Wisconsin's State Governing Board.
Read More...
Intro only...
A Wisconsin Political Fix
not just another blog
May 2, 2011
By Bill Kraus
What the responses to
my last blog post about de-partisanizing redistricting reminded me of is how far below the radar this whole subject is.
This is not what you would call a high-profile item. A good half of the people who contacted me or who didn’t respond to my contact urging them to join a movement to turn the every decade legislative district map-making over to people who don’t have a dog in the fight seemed wary of my motives.
Imagine that.
What had been made clear is that the present system puts competitiveness into the criteria mix. Negatively. As long as the map-making is in the hands of the legislators who occupy these districts, they will favor making fewer districts and the elections for those districts less competitive. So far so good.
The next assumption among the doubters was that the Iowa system, which I admire, tries to make more districts and elections more competitive. This may or may not be the result of disinterested redistricting, but it is not the objective of it. The genius of the Iowa system is that it simply takes competitiveness out of the list of criteria.
The criteria that remain and which I like are:
1. Where counties or major municipalities have the population to be about one Assembly seat or two or three or more, districts should be drawn within those bounds to yield that number.
2. No counties or municipalities should be divided among districts unless that is necessary to assure approximately one person one vote. And then the districts should be defensible, have natural boundaries like rivers or city thoroughfares or media markets, other political boundaries like school districts, or ethnic conclaves.
3. No wards should be cut.
4. Districts should be as compact as possible. No long fingers or squiggles. Square is a good shape.
5. Population equality is a goal not an absolute. Over the course of the 10 years these districts are in effect a lot of population shifts are going to happen. So getting close to population is good, getting too perfect is probably impossible and not necessary.
6. If within these rules, incumbents can be placed in one district and putting two incumbents into one district can be avoided, that’s okay. Contorting districts to make sure there are no incumbent vs. incumbent contests isn’t justifiable.
No red and blue criteria are recommended.
The idea is to make defensible, almost-population-equal districts and let the voting chips fall where they may.
It seems to me that maps drawn by a dispassionate public agency which has a few geography majors on staff can do this without setting off an epidemic of paranoia: the incumbents’ occupational disease.
And, if what they come up with is at or near what has happened in Iowa, for example, the incumbents will vote for it overwhelmingly, there will be fewer gerrymanders, and more voters votes will count right through the November elections.
How scary is that?
The opportunity to put this idea on everybody’s short agenda at this moment in time and space arrives because there are going to be eight or nine elections in a wholly unanticipated summer season this year. It is my hope that everyone who runs in these elections will be asked to support this un-radical, unthreatening, voter-power enhancing idea.
I would think that none of them would say no thanks, that they prefer gerrymandering.
This is the last chance to make this good thing happen until 2021.
Let’s do it.
Follow Bill Kraus on:
Read More...
Intro only...
A Wisconsin Political Fix
not just another blog
April 18, 2011
I hope that the answers to the questions asked in the following blog are US and NOW. If you think they should be, would you be willing to put your name on the virtual letterhead of a virtual organization that is going to ask the legislature and governor to bring something other than partisan warfare to this year’s redistricting?
If you are willing to lend your name, please send a message to jheck@commoncause.org or call 608-256-2686.
- Bill
April 23, 2011
*******************************************
By Bill Kraus
Anyone who has seen the process up close wants nothing more to do with drawing the lines for legislative districts. All turf battles bring out the worst in our political system, and redistricting is a virtual golf course.
And that’s only half of it.
When the opportunity to get a 10 year advantage rears its ugly head, really bad things happen.
This could be that kind of a year. And it’s not like the results achieved in prior decades by legislative fiat often adjusted by judicial revisions have been God’s gift to democracy.
The most recent rearrangement of Wisconsin’s legislative districts have created a map where only one of our eight congressional districts is demographically competitive, and
informed sources tell me as few as nine of the one hundred and sixteen seats in the state legislature that were on the ballot last year were considered “in play.” All the rest were considered “safe” for the candidates of one party or another. This was not an accident. The maps are made by and for the incumbents. The leaders of these incumbents recruit, slate, fund, and manage most of these campaigns. They do not have the unlimited funds needed to compete in all 116 races. Their objective is not admitted or even well known but comes down to “the fewer toss up races the better.”
The maps they have drawn if left alone or have submitted to the courts if not are not egregiously gerrymandered, but the result of these designs have created a democracy where some 82% of the voters who show up for the final vote in November did not have a real choice. The results of the elections they participated in were pretty much predetermined by the people who decided on the basis of how the people in the districts in their maps could be expected to vote.
In short most of us do not choose our representatives. Our representatives choose us.
We are not at the table when the maps are drawn. We do not necessarily share the priorities of the people who are at the table. Most of us might, for example, like to have more rather than fewer contests that were more competitive.
This could be done. This is being done in other places. Right next door, for example, in Iowa a disinterested state agency that doesn’t want to limit the number of competitive elections makes the map the legislature ultimately approves.
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s farewell gift to the voters of California was a mapping system similar to Iowa’s. A couple other states follow that path as well. And, astonishingly, in North Carolina the Republicans in the legislature are also trying to turn over this fractious responsibility to non-partisans.
We could do that. It isn’t rocket science. We could turn the mapmaking over to some agency as dispassionate and fair minded as, say, the Government Accountability Board where the responsibility for overseeing our elections already resides.
Why would the legislature and the governor do this for us?
It would get a very distracting issue off the table in a contentious, issue filled year.
It would save money. The legislative leaders wouldn’t have to hire expensive, otherwise worthy law firms to help them do the mapping.
And it would be the right thing to do in a year when finding a proposal that a very large bi-partisan majority of citizens might regard as praiseworthy is as rare as a robin in a Wisconsin spring.
I can guarantee that the the 82% of us who are geographically disenfranchised would cheer.
Anyone willing to wait tell 2021 to do this?
I didn’t think so.
Follow Bill Kraus on:
Read More...
Intro only...
A Wisconsin Political Fix
not just another blog
April 11, 2011
By Bill Kraus
The Impartial Justice bill, which saw the light of day in a reform-averse Legislature only because all the sitting members of the state Supreme Court urged it on them, was supposed to be the poster child for full public funding. It was designed to get the candidates out of the demeaning money raising business and removing the taint of being beholden to their significant donors. It’s companion piece was intended to diminish the role of interest money in these campaigns as well.
The bill that passed was funded at a modest level which made it kind of good news/bad news for the incumbents. Potential challengers would no longer be daunted by the need to raise a large campaign fund to mount a respectable campaign which could open the floodgates. Advantage challengers. The low level of spending allowed by the candidates would make it very difficult for a challenger to produce and run the TV commercials which are widely considered necessary to get the name recognition they would need to be competitive. Advantage incumbents.
The companion piece which would have used the infusion of additional public money for candidates to offset and disincentivise outside spenders did not become law. It did get past the soon-to-be-dead body of the then-majority leader of the state Senate, but the brain dead or duplicitous also soon to be a dead body speaker of the Assembly put it in the trash can instead of to a vote. The Supreme Court by a 4-3 vote rejected an attempt to bring it in through a side door.
The poster child was still there, but less attractive.
The two survivors of the 2011 Supreme Court primary contest which would test public funding and run campaigns that made these campaigns shorter and maybe even sweeter. This, in turn, would prompt the great majority of voters who say they hate the tenor and cost and endlessness of the campaigns to demand an extension of full public funding to all elections. Full public funding ascendant.
Events intervened.
A placid primary which looked like it would lead to an easy victory for the incumbent morphed into something unseen and unanticipated in judicial elections. The outsiders came in with all guns blazing. Some supported the candidates. Most did not. Trashing and demonization dominated the airwaves.
The candidates were outspent and overwhelmed but did their level best to dodge or refute the firestorm of false and exaggerated charges by the outside bomb throwers and stay--er--judicial.
Expectations for the future of Impartial Justice are cloudy at best. The good thing is that those of us who think the election system needs to be repaired are accustomed to celebrating small victories. Despite all the clatter both candidates were spared the indignity of raising the amount of money it would have taken to be financially competitive and the recusal requests that come with taking money from supplicant/donors who appear before the court.
Nonetheless the poster child is pretty banged up. The first clean up is a full disclosure treatment so that the voters know who the outsiders are. If they want to play they should be asked to put prominent upfront labels on the TV commercials that are their main--more like only--weapon, so voters know that these scurrilous outbursts are not coming from the candidates themselves. Those whose money sources or supporter biases are not easily evident (as unions, manufacturers, lawyers, realtors, etc. are) should also be asked to tell the voters where they get their money. They can put in as many chips as they want, but full disclosure should be the price of getting a seat at the table.
Even the freedom-of-speech-crazed-collateral-damage-blind-U.S. Supreme Court has indicated that those who want to play the game can’t do it anonymously. No more blindsiding.
The Legislature has to do its small bit as well and put the modest sum for full public funding that was available to this year’s candidates back in the budget from whence it disappeared. Another letter supporting Impartial Justice from a unanimous Supreme Court would probably make this easier.
Follow Bill Kraus on:
Read More...
Intro only...
A Wisconsin Political Fix
not just another blog
March 14, 2011
One of the newest members of the Common Cause in Wisconsin State Governing Board, former State Representative (1975-1991) and State Senator (1991-1998) Calvin Potter of Sheboygan Falls, reminds us not to forget the good government tradition that used to be what people here and all over the nation thought of when they thought of Wisconsin. Here are his thoughts, as published in The Sheboygan Press on Sunday.
By Cal Potter
As we listen to the public commentary surrounding the heated debate in Wisconsin's current political scene, one often sees a lack of understanding of the role of democracy, as well as too little knowledge of, and respect for, our state's unique political heritage. Improved literacy amongst the public and politicians would help resolve the present hostile situation in order to again have government focus on its true role as for, of and by the people.
While Gov. Scott Walker was elected by 52 percent of the voters, it must be recognized that 48 percent did not choose his leadership and stand on many issues. While democracy is often touted as the rule of the majority, it is not meant to be the tyranny thereof. Democracy is as much, if not more, the protection of the minority and respect and consideration of differing opinions.
We are a pluralistic nation and as we grow from 310 million people to 450 million in the next 40 years, we will see even more diversity. If we are to have our major education, infrastructure, health care, environmental, employment and many more issues addressed in a much more successful manner, the polarized opinion machine that has been unleashed in this state and nation needs to be tempered.
Problem solving in a nation of diversity takes listening, discussion, appreciation and knowledge of differences and ultimately compromise. An attitude of my-way-is-the-only-way-and-all-others-are-wrong will only bring continued strife and ultimately a lack of problem solving.
When Wisconsin celebrated its 150th anniversary in 1998, the observance commission published a pamphlet listing Wisconsin's "firsts," recognizing the uniqueness and leadership this state has held in this nation. The 1997-98 Wisconsin Bluebook Sesquicentennial Edition also contained a section that recognized "Wisconsin's Firsts."
This included: worker and unemployment compensation, the progressive income tax, kindergarten and many other educational initiatives, consumer protection, open meeting and record requirements and ethics codes for public officials. The writing of Social Security and many labor and civil rights laws also have roots in our state.
The list of progressive legislation cannot be matched by any other state. Today's generation of politician appears to be very lacking in the knowledge and appreciation for their political ancestors' work, too often seemingly determined to ignore and reverse those gains.
Wisconsin is in a group of a handful of states which political scientists and historians recognize as special places of good government, responsive to the needs and wishes of their people, not just special interests.
We are not a Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, or a majority of other states; and we should not want to be.
We have been a leader in primary and secondary, academic and vocational education; protecting people's rights; recognizing the value of labor; holding high the expectation of good, clean and open government; and protecting our land, air and water resources to name just a few. These accomplishments have not been easy nor cheap, but have been good, special and the right thing to do.
In a cheap labor surplus world of 6½ billion people, soon to be 9 billion, Wisconsin, a cold energy dependent state, cannot win the competitive race to the bottom. We should not even try.
Yes, we must be frugal and use our limited resources wisely, but we need to play off our assets. A productive, well-educated work force, good infrastructure, clean environment, responsive government and we could go on, are what we need to build upon.
Those who like the opposite can find scores of places to fit their model, but transforming Wisconsin to that lower tier should not be part of the agenda, in spite of the well financed efforts, advocacy and expectation of many special interest groups.
Read More...
Intro only...
By Bill Kraus
