A crisis and an opportunity

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A Wisconsin Political Fix
not just another blog
June 28, 2009

By Bill Kraus

The Wisconsin budget crisis is behind us to the extent it isn’t ahead of us due to latent structural deficits. The governor can veto out some pork and whatever additions offend him, but it is fundamentally his baby.

As agonizing as recession politics are, which are characterized by the worst of all worlds--lower income and higher cost--they do offer opportunities to rethink and rearrange the status quo. The status quo one should remember is not an accident. Someone put it there. And those someones are mobilized to make sure it stays put. The most serious threat to our democracy, as the NY Times Bill Safire pointed out 31 years ago, is hardening of the arteries.

Among the things on my unfulfilled wish list are:

1. The icon of local control of schools when most of the funding comes from elsewhere should be addressed. The state is putting up most of the money. The state should run the system. Set up a Department of Education as a cabinet office, fold DPI into it, and start running K-12 as the state system the Constitution envisioned.

2. How about turning the property tax into a series of fees for services and assess it on every piece of property that gets those services? Fire protection, police protection, waste collection, roads, and other vital services go to churches, non-profits, hospitals, everyone. Everyone should pay.

3. K-12 and vocational and technical education costs which are paid in part or in full with property taxes could be picked up by the state which has access to the almost equally unpopular income tax or the most popular of an unpopular category, the sales tax.

4. Wisconsin is awash in governmental units. What is it that towns do except conduct elections? Which brings up the parallel point that we have a ridiculous number of election districts in Wisconsin. Is it time to eliminate towns?

What about counties in metro areas. Isn't it time for us to have metro districts that fold in the suburbs and the cities and villages that are really part of the greater inter-dependent metro system?

6. Is it not time to extend the sales tax to services to recognize, among other things, that ours is increasingly a service economy. There’s a good excuse lying around for putting a sales tax on legal fees, to take one service at random. The money this would raise could be used in part to pay for court elections. This would eliminate the unsavory practice of lawyers paying to elect judges, and would have the desirable side effect for lawyers of not having to make those contributions. It may be more of a cost transference than a tax increase. Win-win.

7. There are minor cost savings available as well. All the work that the Constitution drafters assigned to offices like the secretary of state and the state treasurer has been taken over by the Department of Administration. These offices can be eliminated, which would require amending the Constitution over the dead bodies of the traditionalists from both parties. How about simply not funding them, which wouldn't?


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Government Accountability Board's "Sum Sufficient" Funding for Investigations Survives Budget Conference Committee

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Press Release

June 26, 2009

CONTACT:

Jay Heck – 608/256-2686

COMMON SENSE PREVAILS IN CONFERENCE COMMITTEE:
INDEPENDENT FUNDING FOR INVESTIGATIONS BY GOVERNMENT
ACCOUNTABILITY BOARD PRESERVED

Common sense and good public policy -- with regard to funding for investigations by the Government Accountability Board (GAB) for investigations -- prevailed last evening in the Conference Committee between Assembly and State Senate leadership to resolve the differences between the two legislative chambers in versions of the biennium state budget passed last week.

The Conference Committee opted to retain current law and reject an amendment contained in the Senate-passed version that would have stripped "sum sufficient" funding for GAB investigations, thereby undermining its independence and ability to investigate possible wrongdoing without legislative interference and "approval."

By this action, the effectiveness and independent integrity of the GAB is preserved.

Common Cause in Wisconsin is grateful to its many members and other citizens who expressed their outrage over this amendment. Also instrumental in preserving the independence and integrity of GAB were the many newspapers in the state who weighed in against the Senate Amendment, including the Wisconsin State Journal, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Green Bay Press Gazette, The Capital Times, Janesville Gazette, Sheboygan Press, Appleton Post Cresent, Oshkosh Nortwestern, Wausau Daily Herald (this morning) and others (apologies if I neglected to mention you by name).

Thanks also to the Assembly leadership for standing against the amendment and to those State Senators who opposed it.

The State Senate passed the Conference Committee report very early this morning and sent it to the Assembly where it will receive an up or down vote, sometime late today or early Saturday.

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Senator Decker's Misguided Amendment to Eviscerate the Government Accountability Board Must Not Prevail

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Press Release

June 22, 2009

CONTACT:

Jay Heck – 608/256-2686

DECKER'S AMENDMENT TO CRIPPLE GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY BOARD'S ABILITY TO INVESTIGATE CORRUPTION MUST GO

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ASSEMBLY LEADERS AND GOVERNOR SHOULD CALL FOR DECKER TO DROP MISGUIDED SENATE BUDGET AMENDMENT

What was State Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker (D-Weston) thinking? Or why was he not thinking when he inserted his outrageous amendment in the State Senate budget passed last Wednesday evening that would hamstring the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board's ability to mount and/or continue an investigation into government corruption -- particularly if the wrongdoing is happening in the Wisconsin Legislature?

Russ Decker and his staff were around when the Legislative Caucus Scandal occurred. Decker knew that the Government Accountability Board (GAB) was devised by Senator Mike Ellis (R-Neenah) with assistance from Senator Jon Erpenbach (D-Middleton) and Common Cause in Wisconsin (CC/WI) in the months immediately following the criminal chargings for felony misconduct in public office for illegal campaign fund raising of then-State Senate Majority Leader Chuck Chvala (D-Madison), State Senator Brian Burke (D-Milwaukee), Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen (R-Town of Brookfield), Assembly Majority Leader Steve Foti (R-Oconomowoc), and Assistant Majority Leader Bonnie Ladwing (R-Mount Pleasant) in Wisconsin's biggest and darkest political scandal in modern history. Decker even voted for final passage of legislation to establish the Government Accountability Board and its key component -- independent "sum sufficient" funding for investigations not subject to control by the Legislature.

So what was Decker thinking? His spokesperson, Carrie Lynch -- a long time Capitol insider -- issued explanations that no one in the press or anyone who cares about honest, clean, accountable state government could find credible. Here's one: “Many people felt [the board] needed to justify their budget like everyone else.” What people? Names please! The GAB is being subject to the same cuts to its budget as all other agencies. The GAB investigations are separate because they have to be in order for the GAB to be able to investigate without legislative interference -- the whole point of establishing this new agency! Their spending beyond that for GAB staff for investigations has been little - under $50,000. Who, other than Russ Decker, felt this need to eviscerate the GAB's ability to ferret out corruption?

And here is yet another Lynch "defense" of the indefensible Decker amendment:
"The only thing this does is put a dollar figure on what is spent. It does not limit their ability to do anything. The provision means that the GAB would use the same process that other agencies use to request more money.The Legislature does them all the time when state agencies need more money for a particular item. These requests are almost always granted."

How stupid does Lynch think we are? She is saying that GAB will have to come before the Legislature to request money to investigate the Legislature! That's the whole point. The GAB was specifically formed to have funding independent of the control and whim of the Legislature for investigations! Eliminate that independent funding source and you render the GAB impotent -- which is perhaps what Decker wants to do. But he should not and must not be allowed to get away with it.

If he has not done so over the weekend in secret conversations with the Assembly, Senator Decker should apologize to the citizens of Wisconsin and just drop this ill-advised, misbegotten scheme and move on. And if he hasn't or won't drop it, then Assembly Democratic leaders and Governor Jim Doyle should declare the Decker amendment "out of bounds" and off the table as a precondition to working out the rest of the differences in the budget between the two legislative chambers. On Friday morning, one powerful Democratic legislator told CC/WI that the Decker amendment "makes us [Democrats] look horrible." Well yes. And worse. It makes a mockery of the establishment of the GAB.

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When Mark Pitsch and the Wisconsin State Journal first uncovered and reported this incredibly shocking stunt early Thursday morning, CC/WI jumped on it immediately. We talked to reporters, editorial page editors and legislators-- immediately putting the heat on to get rid of this outrageous proposal.

On Thursday morning we issued this statement which resulted in an article in the statewide Associated Press: Senate Budget Limits Funding For Investigations with CC/WI's "take" on the Decker Amendment, an article in the Wisconsin State Journal, and on the statewide Wisconsin Radio Network, this news story: Budget item could hamper investigations. And then there was this story Friday morning by Shawn Johnson over Wisconsin Public Radio: Senate provision would affect financial independence of GAB.

We also consulted with the State Journal for their Friday editorial: Don't go back to bad old days at Wisconsin State Capitol, and with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for their Sunday editorial: A budget in need of nips, tucks and major surgery -- which listed the Decker provision crippling the GAB as the first item to "delete." Other newspapers have joined in the condemnation of the Decker Amendment. None have come to its defense.

Steve Walters, the State Capitol bureau chief of the Journal Sentinel wrote about the Decker amendment: Senators vote to control watchdog's budget. On Friday evening, CC/WI condemned the Decker Amendment on Wisconsin Public Television's program, Here and Now.

CC/WI also commented extensively on the secretive, closed-door character of the shaping of the state budget, even as it nears the end game, for Associated Press: Democrats might reach deal on budget in secret.

And on Up Front, the news and public affairs program hosted by Mike Gousha for WISN - TV in Milwaukee, and broadcast on television all over Wisconsin, CC/WI talked about that shameful budget process and the chances for meaningful campaign finance reform this year (which are good!) in a five-minute segment that you can watch here: Budget Passed With Closed-Door Meetings.

Your reactions and comments? Stay tuned to see how this "Decker drama" is resolved. We cannot imagine that Decker will not be forced to withdraw his shameful measure.

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Jay Heck
Executive Director
Common Cause in Wisconsin
152 W. Johnson Street, Suite 212
Madison, WI 53703

Want Good Government? Join Common Cause in Wisconsin!
Call 608/256-2686
Website: www.commoncausewisconsin.org
E-Mail Address: ccwisjwh@itis.com

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Friendly disagreements

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A Wisconsin Political Fix
not just another blog
June 21, 2009

By Bill Kraus

David Carley’s memorial service brought back most of the surviving relics of the 1960s and 1970s, including me.

My earliest association with Dave was in 1977. He and I co-chaired Martha Bablitch’s 1978 campaign for a seat on one of the newly created courts of appeals.

While we occasionally pitched in--if asked--with advice and reassurances, our main role was to bi-partisanize the candidate’s image and behavior. All judicial candidates who came to their campaigns with a partisan history knew it was necessary to cleanse their candidacy by a show of bi-partisanship.

This representation was considered particularly important for supreme and appeals court races. Former governor Pat Lucey and former Republican state party chairman Ody Fish, later replaced by former governor Lee Dreyfus, played the parts that David Carley and I were cast for in Martha’s campaign in several court campaigns.

What a concept. Sometime between then and now, however, the people running campaigns found de-partisanizing unnecessary.

That was bad. What was infinitely worse was that the talk broadcast media weighed in with their mandate that it was not enough for Democrats and Republicans to disagree with one another they had to dislike each other as well. The wedge-addicted mercenaries who were running campaigns wanted philosophical adversaries to be personal enemies.

The week of the Carley memorial I experienced another example of the politics of the past when Judge John Shabaz showed up at the Avenue Bar for lunch at the “has beens” table and exchanged pleasantries and reminiscences with a collection of former journalists and pols with whom he was at war during his entire political career.

Almost all the people at that table may have hated John’s politics. They liked the man. They admired his talent and tenacity. And vice versa.

Is it possible to get past--or rid of--the media zealots and the wedging mercenaries and regain our civility and mutual respect for the participants in the honorable trade of politics?

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