MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Democratic Gov. Tony Evers will sign a Republican bill removing the term “mental retardation” from five state agencies’ administrative codes even though he’s already issued an executive order that does just that, his spokeswoman said Wednesday.
Evers issued the order late Tuesday afternoon, stunning GOP legislators who have been pushing their bill toward floor votes in both the Senate and Assembly. The measure’s authors, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald and state Rep. John Jagler, who has a daughter with Down syndrome, accused the governor of copying them and vowed to keep working on the legislation.
Evers spokeswoman Melissa Baldauff said the governor would “happily” sign the bill if it reaches his desk. She said Evers believes protecting Wisconsin residents’ dignity is more important than who gets to claim credit.
That statement by Evers’ mouthpiece would sound noble if it weren’t for the fact that Evers specifically took action to get all the credit. And there’s the rub… Evers knew this bill was coming. He could have waited to sign it, have a nice signing ceremony with the lawmakers, and use it as a way to build relationships and bipartisanship. This was the perfect bill to do it.
Instead, he used it as an opportunity to poke the legislative leaders in the eye… again. Evers is showing over and over again that he has no interest at all in trying to work across the aisle. His is just going to continue campaigning and never shift to governing.
I guess we should ask ourselves “What Would Fitz and Vos Do?”
“Well, we’re going to start in a couple weeks with our budget adjustment bill. The first step is we’re going to deal with collective bargaining for all public employee unions, because you use divide and conquer.… That opens the door once we do that.” scott walker, 1-18-2011.
Maybe the right question is what would the people in the video do?
Perhaps Evers was trying to be proactive in sparing the disabled from a public humiliating event.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcuqM1LEi5c
Public educators have an underlying resentment for serving the needs of special needs students. This is a “tell” – typical comment made in discussions about school choice: “Private voucher schools don’t have to accept special needs students like public schools have to.”
Never mind that school districts receive Federal aid, as well as state aids for special education needs. Some of which they are free to share with private schools. And under Open Enrollment, school districts can also reject special needs students, as per Dept. Public Instruction: “If an IEP is developed or revised for the pupil, the nonresident school district may consider whether it has the special education and related services for the pupil. If no, the nonresident school district may notify the parent and the resident school district that the pupil must return to the resident school district.”
Why even is this a political battle? That term went out decades ago.
I’m shocked. I figured Leroy would be in here celebrating as I’m sure hes tired of the label.