The first in a series of recall elections, spurred by a contentious labor fight, got under way in Wisconsin Tuesday.
Six Democrats easily cruised to primary wins as expected, and will face Republican state senators who supported Gov. Scott Walker’s push to strip most public employees of collective bargaining rights in a general election match-up on Aug. 9. At stake is control of the narrowly divided, GOP-controlled chamber.
The unusual primaries Tuesday pitted Democratic candidates supported by the party against what news reports came to describe as “fake Democrats” — six candidates put forward by the GOP because recall races with only one challenger each would have bypassed the primary stage. Republicans therefore backed what they called “protest candidates,” allowing the incumbent GOP senators more time to campaign for the general election.
While outside groups campaigned on behalf of some of the Republican-sponsored challengers, those candidates themselves did not seriously campaign. The party-supported Democrats all won with comfortable margins — one as large as 40 percentage points — and only one race ended in single-digit margins. The recall contests set up by Tuesday’s results include Democratic state Rep. Jennifer Shilling vs. Republican state Sen. Dan Kapanke; Democratic state Rep. Fred Clark vs. state Republican Sen. Luther Olsen and Democratic state Rep. Sandy Pasch vs. Republican state Sen. Alberta Darling.
Wisconsin voters will go the polls again next Tuesday, when Green Bay Democratic state Sen. Dave Hansen will be the first legislator to face a recall general election since the state exploded in political protest in February. Republicans in two Democratic-held Senate districts will also face off that day in primaries, the winners of which will take on incumbents on Aug. 16. Unlike State Democrats are not running “fake Republicans” in an effort to push back recall dates.
By Aug. 16, nine state senators — six Republicans and three Democrats — will have faced recall elections.
Walker’s fight against public employees unions prompted Senate Democrats to flee the state in an effort to block a vote; protestors on both sides flooded the Capitol and a fiercely competitive state Supreme Court race shortly afterward snared national headlines. Republicans eventually managed to pass the law, and it was upheld by the state Supreme Court — but not before Wisconsin spent weeks at the center of a national political firestorm.
By: Dan Hirschhorn, Politico, July 12, 2011
July 12, 2011
Posted by raemd95 |
Class Warfare, Collective Bargaining, Conservatives, Corporations, Democracy, Democrats, Elections, GOP, Gov Scott Walker, Governors, Ideologues, Middle East, Politics, Republicans, Right Wing, State Legislatures, States, Union Busting, Unions, Voters, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Republicans | Public Employees, Wisconsin Legislature, Wisconsin Recall, Wisconsin Senate |
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National conservatives and Wisconsin Republicans have settled on a new talking point that they’re flogging relentlessly in the recall wars: Scott Walker’s proposal to bust public employee unions is already a success. Mere days after it became law.
In making this claim, it seems that Walker and conservative pundits are singing from the same sheet music. Walker made it on Face the Nation this Sunday; Rush Limbaugh has pushed it on his show; and Wisconsin GOP’ers facing recall campaigns are hammering away at it on the stump and in local media.
The notion that they’re pushing, however, is laughably bogus.
The basic claim focuses on a single school district out of hundreds — the Kaukauna School District, near Appleton, Wisconsin. After Scott Walker’s law went into effect last week, school officials announced new policies that they say will turn a deficit of $400,000 into a surplus of $1.5 million. Conservatives are claiming that this is because of Walker’s reforms to collective bargaining rules — the savings are the result, they say, of the fact that teachers and other school staff will pay more in health care costs and pension costs.
On Face the Nation this weekend, Walker amplified this claim, pointing to this specific school district as proof that his reforms had given schools and local governments the “tools” they need to turn their budgets around. “Those are the things we promised,” Walker exulted.
Limbaugh has also pushed this claim hard, arguing on his show recently that this proved Walker’s critics wrong. “Remember all of those fights, all of those protests, and all the bickering, and all the caterwauling, and all the complaining from these public employees in Wisconsin about taking their collective bargaining rights away?” Rush said. “That law goes into effect and immediately turns a $400,000 budget deficit into a one-and-a-half-million-dollar surplus in one school district.”
But here’s the thing: The collective bargaining ban, in and of itself, was not responsible for achieving these savings and this surplus. As the Appleton Post Crescent reports, the teachers union had already offered up financial concessions that would have produced almost identical savings and an almost identical surplus.
What’s more, the use of this one district to declare Walker’s policies a success is almost comical in its cherry-picking. There are 424 school districts in Wisconsin, and as the AP recently noted, Walker’s policies mean draconian budget cuts to 410 of them, with labor officials and school districts predicting increased class sizes and layoffs.
Walker’s premature declaration of victory — and the right wing echo chamber’s flacking of it — could look awfully silly when the full bill for his policies really comes due. And the notion that this one school district’s fiscal success is in any way a referendum on the most controversial aspect of Walker’s union busting proposal is laughable. This fight has never been about public employees’ unwillingness to make fiscal concessions — and always about stripping them of their rights.
By: Greg Sargent, The Washington Post, July 6, 2011
July 7, 2011
Posted by raemd95 |
Class Warfare, Collective Bargaining, Conservatives, Democracy, Economy, Elections, GOP, Gov Scott Walker, Government, Governors, Health Care Costs, Ideologues, Ideology, Labor, Lawmakers, Media, Middle Class, Politics, Press, Public Employees, Republicans, Right Wing, State Legislatures, States, Union Busting, Unions, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Republicans | Appleton WI, Kaukauna School District, Pensions, Teachers, Wisconsin Recall |
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Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser seems to have a bit of a temper! And he also seems to maybe have a bit of a history of verbally and perhaps physically attacking women. The latest, in case you haven’t heard, has the conservative justice accused of putting a liberal colleague in a “chokehold.” Here’s the thing: Even the anonymous sources defending Prosser say he put his hands around Justice Ann Walsh Bradley’s neck. They just say it was in self-defense.
Last year, Prosser screamed at a different (female) colleague, reportedly calling her a “bitch” and threatening to “destroy” her. When asked about all that, he blamed her for “goading” him into attacking her. That is classic psycho behavior, but I have to say that I did not expect Prosser to be accused of physical violence. And, you know, I wouldn’t expect “these women keep forcing me to attack them” to continue working as an excuse for attacking colleagues, but I guess I’m underestimating the conservative movement! Because everyone is running with the “Prosser was forced to put his hands on her neck because she ran towards him” story. Fox Nation headline: “WI Judge Prosser Smeared?” Human Events blames “Big Labor” for forcing Prosser to attack his colleagues.
Here’s Ann Althouse’s (a law professor!) defense:
ALSO: People may assume that the man is larger than the woman, but — from what I have heard — Bradley is significantly larger than Prosser. Bradley is also 7 years younger than Prosser, who is 68.
Compelling!
Bradley isn’t accused by anyone of laying a hand on Prosser. The case for Prosser is that Bradley came at him and he pushed her back in “defense,” but everyone seems to agree that his hands did end up on her neck. I don’t really think there’s any justification for that! And attacking women and then blaming them for making you do it is how abusive assholes justify their behavior. Not that I know the facts of this horrible case. But I tend to side with the people who don’t have a history of threatening to “destroy” people, because that is how comic book characters talk.
Anyway, now the right wants to recall Bradley, for attacking Prosser with her huge, terrifying neck.
By: Alex Pareene, Salon War Room, June 27, 2011
June 28, 2011
Posted by raemd95 |
Conservatives, Elections, GOP, Politics, Republicans, Right Wing, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Republicans, Women | Abuse, Bullies, Fox Nation, Human Events, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, Justice David Prosser, Violence |
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At first glance, this will seem deep in the weeds, but this just in from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal constitutes a real break for Wisconsin Dems in their quest to take back the state senate in the recall wars:
State elections officials Monday took a Republican Assembly lawmaker off the ballot in a recall election against a Democratic senator.
The state Government Accountability Board voted unanimously to leave Rep. John Nygren (R-Marinette) off the ballot in the July 19 recall election for Sen. Dave Hansen (D-Green Bay) in the 30th Senate District. The board found that Nygren fell just short of collecting the 400 valid nominating signatures needed to qualify for the ballot, finding he collected only 398 valid signatures.
The accountability board had initially found that Nygren had submitted 424 qualifying signatures from voters. But after a number of signatures were challenged by Democrats, the accountability board found that 26 of those were invalid.
In a nutshell, what happened here is that one of the Dem state senators that Dems and labor thought was genuinely vulnerable to a recall challenge — Dave Hansen — will now no longer face his toughest challenger. Once it has been established through signature gathering that a recall election will be held against a sitting official, a potential challenger only requires 400 signatures to get on the ballot in the recall elections. Hansen’s leading challenger, John Nygren, fell short and was disqualified.
Hansen is now all but certain to face a challenge from a far weaker candidate — David VanderLeest. According to Journal Sentinel columnist David Bice, this latest challenger has a court record that includes disorderly conduct.
Kelly Steele, a spokesman for the labor-backed We Are Wisconsin, was thrilled about the new development, claiming that VanderLeest’s “rap sheet reads like a directory of the Wisconsin state criminal code.”
Here’s why this is important. In order to take back the state senate, Dems need to net three recall wins. Six Republicans face recall battles; while only three Dems do. But now one of the three Dems may be far safer than previously thought, which means Dems may have an easier time netting three wins — and that Wisconsin GOPers may have a tougher time hanging onto the state senate.
By: Greg Sargent, The Washington Post Plum Line, June 27, 2011
June 27, 2011
Posted by raemd95 |
Conservatives, Democracy, Elections, GOP, Gov Scott Walker, Governors, Ideology, Politics, Republicans, Right Wing, State Legislatures, States, Union Busting, Unions, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Republicans | David Vanderleest, Rep John Nygren, Sen Dave Hansen, We Are Wisconsin, Wisconsin Democrats, Wisconsin Government Accountability Board, Wisconsin Recall, Wisconsin Senate |
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Today, Gov. Scott Walker will sign the controversial state budget bill into law. He was originally scheduled to sign his budget at Badger Sheet Metal Works, a private business operated by a man with six felony tax convictions, in Green Bay, at 2 p.m. on Sunday. However, now that Gregory A. DeCaster’s tax troubles have been publicized, the governor’s office has announced a new locationfor the ceremony: Fox Valley Metal Tech, also in Green Bay.
“While Mr. DeCaster has served his time in jail and paid his debt to society, it is fitting that the governor would choose to sign this budget at a business owned by someone who was once convicted of the felony of tax evasion,” said Marc Norberg, a Wisconsin native and assistant to the general president of the Sheet Metal Workers’ International Association.
Department of Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch said something quite similar earlier in the day when he told WisPolitics, “Green Bay, and certainly the company that we’re going to, reflects really what this budget and what Gov. Walker’s first term here is all about.”
Will the budget bill be a job creator?
According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Walker chose to sign the budget at a manufacturer “to emphasize the budget’s focus on job creation.”
Gov. Scott Walker boasted that his budget proposals and other controversial policies have created 25,000 jobs in Wisconsin since the start of the year at a discussion led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Monday in Washington, D.C.
CMD contacted the Center for Wisconsin Strategy, a field laboratory for high-road economic development in the state for a bit of perspective on this spin.
“While we don’t think the governor has that much ability to affect overall employment … to the extent that he has, he has arguably hurt the state,” said Sam Munger, managing director of the Center on Wisconsin Strategy’s Center for State Innovation.
Munger said a significant amount of provisions in the budget will end up destroying the quality of jobs that currently exist.
According to a recent Center of Wisconsin Strategy report, the 8 percent wage cut Walker issued to the 380,000 jobs under his control could cost Wisconsin about 22,000 additional jobs, “because families that rely on the income from their public-sector jobs will have less to spend in their local communities.”
“If you look all the way through the budget … his primary motivation has not been keeping jobs, it’s been remaking the state as a corporate welfare haven,” Munger said, citing Walker’s refusal of federal stimulus money and federal broadband money and his refusal to engage the state in other job-generating projects, while rewarding the wealthy and corporations with a range of tax breaks.
The budget’s cuts to municipalities will suck money out of localities, Munger said, adding that pulling money out of circulation will cost jobs in an indirect or induced way. In contrast to the rosy news coming from the Governor’s mansion, the most recent data from the Department of Workforce Development shows that unemployment increased in most Wisconsin cities in the month of May. The report shows that unemployment rates increased in 25 cities with a population of 25,000 people or more, with only Stevens Point experiencing a slight drop, from 7.9 percent to 7.8 percent.
Other budgetary measures that Munger said threaten job quality are cuts to childcare subsidies for working parents, making it more difficult to obtain unemployment insurance and rolling back child labor laws.
“Everything that he has done in the budget that related to jobs or employment has either killed jobs, destroyed the quality of jobs or been a giant giveaway to corporations,” Munger said.
By: Jessica Opoien, Opinion Writer, Center For Media and Democracy, June 26, 2011
June 26, 2011
Posted by raemd95 |
Class Warfare, Collective Bargaining, Conservatives, Corporations, Democracy, Economy, GOP, Gov Scott Walker, Government, Governors, Ideologues, Ideology, Jobs, Labor, Middle Class, Politics, Public Employees, Republicans, Right Wing, State Legislatures, States, Tax Evasion, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Union Busting, Unions, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Republicans | Badger Sheet Metal Works, Center for Wisconsin Strategy, Child Subsidies, Fox Valley Metal Tech, Gregory A. DeCaster, Mike Huebsch, Municipalities, Wages, Wisconsin Budget, Wisconsin Politics |
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