Vinehout Jumps In

Woohoo!

State Sen. Kathleen Vinehout, who last week filed to run for the office, formally announced today her campaign for guv.

Vinehout joints former Dane County Exec Kathleen Falk as the only two formally announced Dem candidates in the field to take on Gov. Scott Walker in an expected recall election.

She said in a statement the state needs “a fresh start and a new attitude in Wisconsin politics and government.”

“We need a governor who will lead with self restraint; who will be clear and open about her intentions; who will respect Wisconsin’s traditions of good government; who supports and takes pride in our schools; who values the skills workers bring to their jobs. We need a governor who wants to solve problems, not score political points,” she said. “I pledge to be that kind of governor.”

Vinehout has had an eventful, if short, time in Wisconsin politics. Remember the rambling poem she wrote about her opponent in 2006? Or her complaining that she couldn’t afford health insurance while loaning $9,000 to her campaign?

Ahhhh… good times.

Wisconsin Dead Last in Donating to GOP Presidential Candidates

Shocking?

Not only did Democrat President Barack Obama outraise the entire 2012 Republican presidential field through Dec. 31, 2011, $582,000 to $529,000, but a Smart Politics analysis also found Wisconsin to be dead last nationally in per capita donations of $200 or more to GOP candidates.

Not at all. I suspect that I am like most people in that there’s only so much time and money I’m willing and able to fork over to support political campaigns. With the 2010 election, the 2011 recalls, the 2012 recalls, and all of the other local races in the past two years, we’ve been in campaign mode in Wisconsin 100% of the time for over a year now. For most Republicans in Wisconsin, keeping Walker in office is just more important now than worrying about the presidential primary,

Cone of Silence

This is crappy.

Nearly all of Wisconsin’s Republican state lawmakers signed an agreement not to comment publicly about redistricting discussions while new G.O.P.-friendly maps were being drafted. The pact was included in documents released in a lawsuit challenging the maps’ constitutionality.

Redistricting is an overtly politcal act. While I think it acceptable for the party in power to craft constitutional districts that may favor them, it is deplorable that such a veil of secrecy should be employed.

GAB Limits Challenges

Ummm...

Wisconsin’s elections agency ruled on Tuesday that it would not accept help checking recall petitions from groups including the tea party organizations GrandSons of Liberty and We the People of the Republic.

Government Accountability Board Director Kevin Kennedy said the board would not change its methods in the middle of the process and could not accept such information from sources other than the targets of recalls.

So let me get this straight… if I find my name fraudently signed to a petition, I don’t have any grounds to challenge it? I have absolutely no recourse to prevent the theft of my identity? That ain’t right.

One would take note that the GAB, in every circumstance, has taken the position most in favor of fraud and not in securing the integrity of our electoral process. If one is to err, one would hope that it’s usually on the side of integrity.

Fitzgerald to Challenge Enough Signatures to Stop Recall

Now we’ll see what the GAB does...

Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald says he plans on challenging enough signatures on recall petitions to stop any election.

Fitzgerald said Tuesday he will also make a number of other challenges, including arguing that newly drawn legislative boundaries should have been in play for the collection of the signatures.

Entire School Staff Replaced

Wow. Now that’s a response.

Updated at 10:25 p.m. ET: The Los Angeles Unified School District is replacing the entire staff of Miramonte Elementary School following the arrest of two teachers on lewd conduct charges last week, Superintendent John Deasy told parents at a meeting Monday night, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Positions will be filled by qualified teachers and other workers already on a placement or rehiring list, the Times report stated. But the displacement of the current staff could be temporary, according to the report.

I didn’t say it was a good response, but it certainly got everyone’s attention.

70,000 Approved

It seems that the DOJ is catching up with demand.

WAUSAU (WAOW)—The Wisconsin Department of Justice has been swamped with requests for concealed carry permits. Since the law went into effect in November, the DOJ reports it received over 80-thousand permit requests and approved nearly 70,000.

“no mere exercise in payback”

Charles Lane in the Washington Post nails it.

For public-sector unions, the Walker recall is no mere exercise in payback. The unions, upon which Democrats depend heavily for funding and foot soldiers, say Walker must be ousted and his reforms reversed for the sake of the middle class. Progressive values — even democracy itself — are in mortal danger.

Actually, the opposite is true. The threat to such progressive goals as majority rule, transparent government, a vibrant public sector and equality comes from public-sector unionism.

I had supposed that Walker’s victory in 2010, along with the victory of Republicans in both houses of the state legislature, entitled the people’s choices to make policy until the next election.

I had not realized that Wisconsin’s voters were allowed to elect representatives to do everything except change the rules on collective bargaining.

“But Walker never campaigned on curtailing union rights!” his opponents cry. What rule of American democracy says that public officials may do only what they explicitly promised before taking office, and nothing else? By that logic, President Obama could be impeached because he opposed an individual mandate to buy health insurance during the campaign, then supported it in office.

Of course, collective bargaining in the public sector is inherently contrary to majority rule. It transfers basic public-policy decisions — namely, the pay and working conditions that taxpayers will offer those who work for them — out of the public square and behind closed doors. Progressive Wisconsin has a robust “open meetings” law covering a wide range of government gatherings except — you guessed it — collective bargaining with municipal or state employees. So much for transparency.

Even worse, to the extent that unions bankroll the campaigns of the officials with whom they will be negotiating — and they often do — they sit on both sides of the table.

Read the whole thing.

Not All Recoveries Created Equal

Ah yes...

The economy grew at 4.5% in 1983, with a few quarters of growth north of 8%. In 2011, meanwhile, the economy grew just 1.7%.

In just one month—September 1983—the economy added more than a million jobs. For the full year, the economy added almost 3.5 million jobs, a trend that continued into 1984, an election year in which Reagan captured 49 states in a landslide victory.

Obama can claim job growth of 1.8 million in 2011. A welcome comeback, but still tepid by comparison.

Looking ahead to 2012, Obama could replicate the 243,000 jobs created in January over each of the next 11 months and still not approach Reagan’s total for 1984 of 3.9 million.

New Tax Breaks for Wisconsinites

Excellent.

Wisconsin residents who use health savings accounts or who have children in day care will be able to take advantage of new tax breaks as they fill out their 2011 income tax returns this year. Companies that create jobs in Wisconsin also are in line for new benefits.

Neumann!

Interesting.

Solar energy companies owned by a tea party Republican running for an open U.S. Senate seat in Wisconsin who is strongly opposed to the 2009 federal stimulus package have received $500,000 in grants under the program.

Herein I consider the relative paradox of these situations. Is it possible to oppose a program but still take advantage of it? Perhaps Neumann opposes the stimulus programs, but if they are out there, why shouldn’t he partake in them?

Let’s put this in another context… I oppose the Earned Income Credit as a policy matter. If I qualified for it (I don’t), would I take advantage of it? Yes, I would. So does it pollute the position if one who opposes the stimulus programs to take advantage of them? Perhaps.

While readers of this blog know that I don’t support Neumann, I have difficulty in finding fault in his behavior here.

Ruling on GAB Vacated By Appeals Court

Interetsing.

A state Court of Appeals Friday reversed a lower-court order that the Government Accountability Board must seek out duplicate and obviously fictitious recall petition signatures.

The 4th District panel ruled that Waukesha County Circuit Judge Mac Davis should have allowed pro-recall groups to intervene in the lawsuit brought by Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign.

“We conclude that the recall committees are entitled to intervene as a matter of right,” the court said, adding later in the decision that “it cannot be seriously disputed that the recall committees have an interest in the procedures that will be used to review their recall petitions and strike names.”

The decision ordered Davis to reconsider all “later rulings that were made without the participation of the intervenors” — including the Jan. 5 ruling that GAB enact additional procedures to ferret out invalid signatures.

Notice that the court didn’t dipute the actual ruling. They merely said that the recall committees should have been allowed to participate. I suspect that we’ll come to the same conclusion even after listening to the recall folks bloviate for a while.

Kramer Carries

I would do the same thing.

Bill Kramer of Waukesha is speaker pro tem of the Assembly. He controls debate and can order spectators out of the chamber.

He says he obtained a permit to carry a concealed weapon in November and has at times carried a Glock 26 on the Assembly floor.

He says he feels he needs the weapon given the toxic atmosphere at the state Capitol. Bands of protesters still angry over Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s contentious collective bargaining law have spent the past year harassing GOP legislators.

Although… I’m not a huge fan of Glocks.

Odd FoodShare Spending

Well, that does seem odd.

The Legislative Audit Bureau reports Friday that a portion of recipients on the Wisconsin FoodShare program spent almost $33 million outside the state last year.

Program participants are legally allowed to purchase food anywhere in the country. But the report shows some FoodShare cards were used for purchases in Wisconsin on the same day the card’s account number was manually entered for purchases in another state.

Milwaukee County Supervisor Busted for Taking Bribe

Ouch.

A Milwaukee County Board supervisor was charged Thursday with misconduct in public office and accepting a bribe for allegedly pocketing $500 in exchange for ensuring a vote on a county contract, according to a criminal complaint filed by Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm.

John L. Thomas Jr., 43, was charged with two felony counts as a result of an investigation by Chisholm’s office aided by Patrick Farley, director of the Milwaukee County Department of Administrative Services. In addition to serving on the Milwaukee County Board, Thomas is a candidate for Milwaukee city comptroller.