Boots & Sabers

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Category: Politics – Wisconsin

Usurpers on the high court

by | 0734, 23 Jan 24 | , | 3 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a part:

The leftist-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court is continuing its rampage to strip Wisconsinites of self-governance and reshape the state to their will. Where leftists could not win support for their ideology at the ballot box, they will use the power of the court to advance it.

 

Unless you are a political nerd, it is difficult to convey how bad the court is acting in regard to Wisconsin’s legislative maps. Article 4 section 3 of the Wisconsin Constitution is crystal clear that it is the duty and responsibility of the state legislature to redraw the state’s legislative boundaries every 10 years after the federal census.

 

[…]

 

The Supreme Court does not have to use any of the submitted maps. They could just ignore them all and draw their own. One thing is certain, however: The new maps will maximize the advantage for Democrats even if districts are gerrymandered such that they will be renowned as a piece of abstract art. One need only look to our neighbors in Illinois to see the depths to which Democrats will gerrymander districts to their advantage.

 

But the deeper outrage of the leftist court’s actions is not the “what,” but the “who.” Our government of self-governance relies on the rule of law and the separation of powers. The leftists are rejecting both of these bedrock principles in one stroke. They are substituting ideology for law and brazenly snatching an express constitutional power from the legislative branch of government.

 

We are watching a judicial coup unfold before our eyes. These are menacing times.

Enjoying the new year fireworks

by | 0759, 19 Jan 24 | | 0 Comments

Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News earlier this week.

The new year began with an entertaining spat between the conservative Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann and the liberal Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson. While amusing, the kerfuffle overstates the dissimilarities.

 

On New Year’s Day, Schoemann posted on X a snarky comment welcoming residents of Milwaukee County to Washington County to do their shopping and dining. The comment was a swipe at the fact that Milwaukee County increased the county sales tax by 0.9% on January 1. The city of Milwaukee increased the sales tax by 2%. In one day, people making purchases in the city of Milwaukee are paying 7.9% in sales taxes compared to 5.5% in Washington County.

 

Johnson shot back saying, “If folks are looking at a high-quality dinner or a theater or a fine dining experience, they can come here (Milwaukee), or go to Cracker Barrel there (Washington County).” Zing!

 

Liberal Milwaukee has become a high-tax island, and they appear to not have any intention of slowing down. In the wake of the 44% increase in the sales tax, Milwaukee city leaders are proposing a 15% pay increase for themselves. Included in the proposal is an automatic 3% increase for themselves every year in perpetuity.

 

Not to be left behind, the Milwaukee Public Schools voted to ask the voters for an additional $252 million in a referendum. MPS already spends an incredible $19,000 per student and enrollment is declining. The state Legislature just gave MPS tens of millions of additional dollars in a deal struck last year. A deal, incidentally, in which MPS agreed to put school resource officers back in the schools and the school district has already broken that agreement without any consequence.

 

Lest Washington County residents look with too much aspersion toward their neighbors to the southeast, some self-reflection is in order. Washington County also has a 0.5% county sales tax on top of the state sales tax. The county sales tax was sold to the voters in 1998 as a temporary emergency imperative for several critical capital expense needs related to public safety. The county sales tax has been extended every time – most recently in 2022 and 2017 with the vocal support of Schoemann.

 

The West Bend School District is also following the path charted by their big brother to the southeast. The West Bend district is also seeing a rapid decline in enrollment and is receiving a budget boost from the same state funding that Milwaukee is getting. Despite this, the West Bend School Board has hired consultants and is moving down the process to ask the voters for more money in a referendum later this year. They may yet change course, but history teaches us otherwise.

 

What is the lesson to be learned? While Washington County and Milwaukee County are viewed as polar political opposites as highlighted by the rhetorical fusillade between Schoemann and Johnson, they are different more in degree than in substance. Yes, Milwaukee County is a tax hell, but Washington County is only slightly less fiery.

 

The other lesson is that when it comes to government spending, the politicians in charge will never, ever admit that they have enough to spend — never mind too much to spend. Politicians of all stripes derive their power from their ability to spend our money. The more they spend, the more power they have. It does not matter what they spend it on. That is not what it is about. It is about political power derived from wielding the public purse.

UW Requires Racist Reeducation

by | 1855, 18 Jan 24 | , , | 4 Comments

Wow. From WRN and WILL. Stunning racism at UW.

For example, the handout that was included with the WILL news release tells students, “As beneficiaries of racism and white privilege, you sometimes take a defensive posture even when you are not being individually blamed. You may personalize the remarks, not directed personally at you. It is the arrogance of your privilege that drags the focus back to whites.”

 

The handout repeatedly generalizes about whites, saying, “Whites are more willing and more comfortable decrying our oppression than scrutinizing our privilege.” It uses the term whites over and over again.

 

Read the handout here. One excerpt generalizes about white people’s beliefs about police and the court system.

 

Another excerpt is critical of conservative talk show legend Rush Limbaugh, telling students that quotes by him were “loaded with white people’s fear of people of color and what would happen if they gained ‘control.’ Embedded here is also the assumption that to be ‘pro-black’ (or any other color) is to be anti-white.”

 

The handout shared by WILL also contains this passage, “By saying we are not different, that you don’t see the color, you are also saying you don’t see your whiteness. This denies the people of colors’ experience of racism and your experience of privilege.” Another excerpt tells students, “To say people of color can be racist, denies the power imbalance inherent in racism.”

Enjoying the new year fireworks

by | 0813, 16 Jan 24 | | 0 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a part:

The new year began with an entertaining spat between the conservative Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann and the liberal Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson. While amusing, the kerfuffle overstates the dissimilarities.

 

On New Year’s Day, Schoemann posted on X a snarky comment welcoming residents of Milwaukee County to Washington County to do their shopping and dining. The comment was a swipe at the fact that Milwaukee County increased the county sales tax by 0.9% on January 1. The city of Milwaukee increased the sales tax by 2%. In one day, people making purchases in the city of Milwaukee are paying 7.9% in sales taxes compared to 5.5% in Washington County.

 

Johnson shot back saying, “If folks are looking at a high-quality dinner or a theater or a fine dining experience, they can come here (Milwaukee), or go to Cracker Barrel there (Washington County).” Zing!

 

Liberal Milwaukee has become a high-tax island, and they appear to not have any intention of slowing down. In the wake of the 44% increase in the sales tax, Milwaukee city leaders are proposing a 15% pay increase for themselves. Included in the proposal is an automatic 3% increase for themselves every year in perpetuity.

 

[…]

 

Lest Washington County residents look with too much aspersion toward their neighbors to the southeast, some self-reflection is in order. Washington County also has a 0.5% county sales tax on top of the state sales tax. The county sales tax was sold to the voters in 1998 as a temporary emergency imperative for several critical capital expense needs related to public safety. The county sales tax has been extended every time – most recently in 2022 and 2017 with the vocal support of Schoemann.

 

[…]

 

What is the lesson to be learned? While Washington County and Milwaukee County are viewed as polar political opposites as highlighted by the rhetorical fusillade between Schoemann and Johnson, they are different more in degree than in substance. Yes, Milwaukee County is a tax hell, but Washington County is only slightly less fiery.

 

The other lesson is that when it comes to government spending, the politicians in charge will never, ever admit that they have enough to spend — never mind too much to spend. Politicians of all stripes derive their power from their ability to spend our money. The more they spend, the more power they have. It does not matter what they spend it on. That is not what it is about. It is about political power derived from wielding the public purse.

 

The sooner taxpayers take this lesson to heart, the sooner we can begin to shift the power back to the people.

 

Milwaukee Newspaper Whitewashes Whitewater Story

by | 1115, 14 Jan 24 | , | 1 Comment

As if you needed some more evidence that Milwaukee’s newspaper is anything other than a Leftist propaganda rag… the background is that Brietbart ran a story a couple of weeks ago about the influx of illegal immigrants into the little town of Whitewater. The Brietbart story was prompted by a letter from city officials to federal officials asking for more money to deal with the influx of illegal immigrants. Outrage ensued because the struggles of Whitewater mirror the struggles of small communities across America that are being overwhelmed by the influx of illegal aliens foisted on them by the Biden administration.

The Milwaukee paper took it upon themselves to dig in to prove that the right-wing media got it wrong. Well, the right-wing media got it a little wrong in that the influx of illegal aliens occurred over the course of a couple of years (allegedly), but the rest was correct. The illegal aliens in Whitewater are leading to an increase in crime and increased costs for schools and other resources. From the MJS story:

In January 2022, Whitewater police responding to an apartment fire found two children sleeping on the floor with no adults present. The next day, they found a family with a toddler living in a 10-foot-by-10-foot shed in frigid weather. Then, they encountered a 14-year-old girl being forced to work 30 hours a week instead of attending school.

 

“Every shift, we were having contact with somebody that was recently here from Central America,” said police chief Dan Meyer. “That was not typical.”

 

It was the start of an unexpected influx of new residents. City officials estimate that 800 to 1,000 migrants have been drawn to Whitewater by jobs on farms and in factories and by available housing. Mainly from Nicaragua

 

[…]

 

There are many more English-language-learners in schools, and drivers being pulled over without licenses, and people being found in overcrowded or unsafe living situations.

 

[…]

 

The police have invested in interpreting software; the school district has hired more Spanish-speaking staff; the library got a grant to translate key brochures into Spanish.

 

[…]

 

Meyer and Weidl had drafted the letter with the aim of showing residents the city had done everything it could to secure more funds before asking taxpayers for money in a referendum. They believe an infusion of dollars to up police department staffing and add an immigrant liaison position, among other ideas, could go a long way.

 

[…]

 

There is no public transportation system in the town, so many undocumented individuals drive without licenses. It’s only recently that free clinics opened to serve those without health insurance.

 

[…]

 

“we would have, say, third graders who didn’t know their ABCs or we would have high school students who didn’t know how to read,” Ramirez said.

 

Before, the teachers mostly helped students of Mexican heritage who grew up bilingual in the U.S. Suddenly the district had to hire instructors who could teach migrant kids in Spanish to read and write. And it’s tougher to catch up high schoolers who are taking classes like chemistry and history compared to younger children, Ramirez said.

 

[…]

 

Meyer, the police chief, drew the estimate of 800 to 1,000 new migrants from the number of new children in schools and the number and type of calls police have received. It’s “probably a conservative estimate,” he said, as a chunk of those who have arrived are young, single men who aren’t in school.

 

Meyer said his officers’ investigations in cases involving migrants take longer, leaving less time for proactive policing. As a way to quantify that decline in officers’ available time to police in the community, he provided data that showed officers initiated half the number of traffic stops in 2023 compared to an 11-year average.

 

At traffic stops, unlicensed drivers might give a fake name or fake ID documents. And because they come with so few possessions, people under investigation for crimes easily slip away and can’t be found for follow-up interviews.

 

Officers might not realize until later that it was the third or fourth time police had stopped someone until a time-consuming effort to truly identify the person. Then there’s the task of correcting all the prior records in the system.

 

“It’s hours and hours of manpower,” he said.

Look at all of those tax dollars being spent on law enforcement, schools, the library, and everything else. Accompany that with the increase in crime, unsafe driving, unsafe living conditions, and overall decline in safety.

Now multiply that by the 10,000 communities across America that are dealing with Biden’s illegal invasion. He is killing our nation and he’s doing it on purpose.

Wisconsin Republicans Push Rigged Choice Voting

by | 0829, 10 Jan 24 | | 2 Comments

What the hell are Wisconsin’s Republicans thinking giving this an ounce of air? Ranked choice voting is a ridiculous system that facilitates cheating and erodes confidence in elections. It is damaging to our Republic and should not be considered by serious people.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A bipartisan bill that would dramatically change how Wisconsin residents choose congressional candidates by asking them to rank their top choices instead of voting for one of two candidates had its first public hearing in the state Legislature on Tuesday.

 

The hearing comes just a week after opponents circulated a proposed constitutional amendment to ban ranked choice voting. It’s unclear whether either measure has enough support to pass, but the movement shows the idea is gaining attention in the battleground state.

 

The bill before the state Senate’s elections committee on Tuesday would implement a ranked choice voting system known as final five. Under the system, all candidates for a U.S. House or Senate seat would appear together on a primary ballot regardless of their party, with the top five finishers advancing to the general election. Right now, Republicans and Democrats run on separate ballots in partisan primaries.

UW-La Crosse Chancellor Fired for Being Pornographer

by | 1600, 28 Dec 23 | , | 1 Comment

Oh, fer cryin’ out loud.

The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents unanimously fired UW-La Crosse Chancellor Joe Gow during a closed-door meeting Wednesday after discovering videos posted on porn websites featuring him and his wife.

 

Gow, 63, and his wife, Carmen Wilson, are featured on several porn websites using “Sexy Happy Couple” as the account name, a moniker also used on at least two social media accounts.

 

The couple also published two books detailing their experiences in the adult film industry, under pseudonyms. Both books and the social media accounts feature photos clearly showing Gow and Wilson.

Wisconsin Court Preselects “Referees” For Maps

by | 1405, 27 Dec 23 | , | 8 Comments

Isn’t it curious how the court selected these two people to decide if the new maps – yet to be drawn – are “fair?” How were they selected? Who interviewed them? Was there input from litigants in the lawsuit? How much will it cost? Was the selection process competitive? How many other people were considered? Who is accountable for their performance? Who is watching the watchers? While the story below attempts to paint them as fair, unbiased arbiters, the opaque selection process that chose them oozes a hand on the scale. This is not what good governent looks like.

When the Wisconsin Supreme Court last week ordered parties to a redistricting lawsuit to draw new legislative maps, it also named two referees to evaluate the maps’ adequacy.

The two consultants — University of California, Irvine political science professor Bernard Grofman and Carnegie Mellon University postdoctoral fellow Jonathan Cervas — may not be household names in Wisconsin, but they have played prominent roles in settling map disputes in other states.

 

[…]

Bernard Grofman

 

Grofman was recently one of two special masters the Virginia Supreme Court hired to draw new maps after that state’s bipartisan commission deadlocked on selecting new ones. Nominated by Democrats, Grofman worked with a Republican-nominated special master to forge new congressional and legislative maps in Virginia that followed similar principles the Wisconsin Supreme Court set forth last week.

 

[…]

Jonathan Cervas

 

Cervas has also been involved in creating new political maps. After a New York judge found Democratic-proposed maps unconstitutional, a judge hired Cervas to redraw boundaries for the state’s U.S. House seats and state Senate.

Employee Allegedly Forced Out Because of Her Race at UW Eau Claire

by | 1719, 22 Dec 23 | , , | 2 Comments

Nuts

A University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire staff member sued her employer over being ousted from a position in a campus diversity office allegedly for being “White.”

 

The lawsuit alleges that when Rochelle Hoffman was promoted to UW-Eau Claire’s interim director of the campus’s Multicultural Student Services office, the school’s former Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and Student Affairs Olga Diaz was told by students that a White woman was not fit to preside over a position intended to serve students of color.

 

“You hired a white woman as the Interim Director?” one student was cited in a federal complaint against the university.

 

Per the complaint, another student asked, “Do you personally feel white staff can do as effective a job as a person of color, within a space for people of color?”

 

Hoffman said she felt compelled to resign last year after eight months of intense hostility and staff questioning her “legitimacy” after being promoted to interim director of the campus’s Multicultural Student Services office, the complaint states.

Radicals in Black Robes Abandon Representative Government

by | 1634, 22 Dec 23 | , | 0 Comments

First the Colorado High Court… now Wisconsin’s. We are witnessing the weaponization of the Judicial system by Marxists. Any means necessary. Dark days are ahead.

MADISON – The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Friday ordered the Republican-controlled state Legislature to draw new legislative boundaries ahead of the 2024 election, arguing their GOP advantage is unconstitutional — delivering a long-sought win for Democrats who have stayed deep in the Legislature’s minority for more than a decade.

 

The court in a 4-3 decision said the court is also prepared to replace the state’s heavily gerrymandered maps if the Legislature and Democratic governor cannot agree on a new plan.

Governor Evers’ shadow government

by | 1629, 22 Dec 23 | | 0 Comments

Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News earlier this week:

“Wisconsin’s open government laws promote democracy by ensuring that all state, regional and local governments conduct their business with transparency. Wisconsin citizens have a right to know how their government is spending their tax dollars and exercising the powers granted by the people.”

— Attorney General Josh Kaul, Wisconsin Public Records Law Compliance Guide 

 

Based on the principle that transparency in government is both a right of the people and an obligation of government officials, Wisconsin has some of the best open records laws in the nation. That is why it is so troubling to learn that our Governor, Tony Evers, has been hiding his official email communications behind an secret alias for years. What else is he hiding?

 

The news came to light a few weeks ago when Wisconsin Right Now, a conservative news and opinion outlet, learned that Governor Evers has been using the name of Hall of Fame Milwaukee Braves pitcher Warren Spahn’s name for the governor’s secret email address warrenspahn@ wisconsin.gov. According to a disclosure from the governor’s office, there are over 17,000 emails to and from the governor’s secret email address between 2017 and 2023.

 

Evers dismissed the disclosure as not newsworthy while pretending that using secret email addresses was normal government practice. As someone who has requested records for decades, the governor’s assertion is news to me, other open government advocates, and news agencies. Secret emails are not normal except for politicians who are trying to hide something.

 

Wisconsin’s Open Records Laws are clear and unambiguous. When someone requests records from a public official about a particular subject or time period, the official is compelled by law to provide all of those records irrespective of whether the records are from their official email account, personal email account, text, chat, or any other format. It is the content of the records that makes them government records and subject to disclosure – not the means of transmission. The fact that the governor has failed to disclose the content of his secret email account despite dozens of legal open records requests is a clear violation of the law.

 

This governor has a history of secrecy. In 2019, FOX6 had to sue the governor to get emails. FOX6 had filed a routing request for a couple of weeks of emails. They had a practice of this to just see what might turn up. The governor rejected the request claiming that the news agency needed to narrow the request to a specific search term. The governor’s novel interpretation of the law was ludicrous and against the law as written and practiced for decades. After FOX6 sued, the governor finally relented and released some emails. At that time, however, the governor did not disclose the governor’s secret emails as required by law.

 

Furthermore, during that imbroglio, Tony Evers scoffed at the request saying, “Oh, that’ll be pretty, pretty boring I’ll tell ya. If I do one email a day, that’s an extraordinary day… It’s pretty boring. I mean, I can’t remember sending an email all week.’ That is a lie. Evers knew at the time that he was using a secret email account that was averaging over nine emails per day for years.

 

Governor Tony Evers’ culture of secrecy is antithetical to good government. When politicians are acting above board in good faith, they do not mind the public looking at their work and communications. When politicians are doing wrong, they scurry in the shadows like rats. Evers is reflexively secretive and acts with the arrogance on one who has spent his life in government. In the case of his secret email account, he has clearly been violating the law by failing to disclose it in response to records requests.

 

Governor Evers’ shadow government

by | 0823, 19 Dec 23 | | 1 Comment

Boy, this story died quickly… so I’m bringing it back up. My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a part:

Based on the principle that transparency in government is both a right of the people and an obligation of government officials, Wisconsin has some of the best open records laws in the nation. That is why it is so troubling to learn that our Governor, Tony Evers, has been hiding his official email communications behind an secret alias for years. What else is he hiding?

 

The news came to light a few weeks ago when Wisconsin Right Now, a conservative news and opinion outlet, learned that Governor Evers has been using the name of Hall of Fame Milwaukee Braves pitcher Warren Spahn’s name for the governor’s secret email address warrenspahn@ wisconsin.gov. According to a disclosure from the governor’s office, there are over 17,000 emails to and from the governor’s secret email address between 2017 and 2023.

 

Evers dismissed the disclosure as not newsworthy while pretending that using secret email addresses was normal government practice. As someone who has requested records for decades, the governor’s assertion is news to me, other open government advocates, and news agencies. Secret emails are not normal except for politicians who are trying to hide something.

 

Wisconsin’s Open Records Laws are clear and unambiguous. When someone requests records from a public official about a particular subject or time period, the official is compelled by law to provide all of those records irrespective of whether the records are from their official email account, personal email account, text, chat, or any other format. It is the content of the records that makes them government records and subject to disclosure – not the means of transmission. The fact that the governor has failed to disclose the content of his secret email account despite dozens of legal open records requests is a clear violation of the law.

 

[…]

 

Furthermore, during that imbroglio, Tony Evers scoffed at the request saying, “Oh, that’ll be pretty, pretty boring I’ll tell ya. If I do one email a day, that’s an extraordinary day… It’s pretty boring. I mean, I can’t remember sending an email all week.’ That is a lie. Evers knew at the time that he was using a secret email account that was averaging over nine emails per day for years.

 

Governor Tony Evers’ culture of secrecy is antithetical to good government. When politicians are acting above board in good faith, they do not mind the public looking at their work and communications. When politicians are doing wrong, they scurry in the shadows like rats. Evers is reflexively secretive and acts with the arrogance on one who has spent his life in government. In the case of his secret email account, he has clearly been violating the law by failing to disclose it in response to records requests.

Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to School Choice

by | 0820, 15 Dec 23 | , , | 4 Comments

Good news!

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to hear a lawsuit brought by Democrats seeking to end the state’s taxpayer-funded private school voucher program.

 

The lawsuit could be refiled in county circuit court, as both Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ administration and Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos had argued. The Supreme Court rejected it without comment in an unsigned, unanimous order.

 

Democrats who brought the lawsuit asked the state Supreme Court to take the case directly, which would have resulted in a much faster final ruling than having the case start in lower courts.

UW Regents Choose DEI Over Employee Raises

by | 0545, 12 Dec 23 | , | 3 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s some:

Many Americans were shocked by the militant antisemitism that erupted from our nation’s universities in the wake of Hamas’ evil murder, rape, kidnapping, and torture of Israeli civilians on October 7th. Some of us have watched the growing racial and religious hate growing in our universities for years, but the virulent display of hate by students and faculty has laid bare a malignant cancer in our culture.

 

The darker realization is that the bigotry we see on campuses all over our nation is being taught. It is the result of the incremental, but intentional, decline of our universities into schools that prioritize teaching people to be leftist activists instead of enlightened thought leaders. We see that prioritization on full display in Wisconsin.

 

The legislative Republicans, led by Speaker Robin Vos and undermined by Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, have been withholding money for employee raises for the Universities of Wisconsin until UW agreed to eliminate its Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) staff. Although DEI is infused throughout the Universities, the UW currently has 43 exclusive DEI positions and about 34,000 total employees.

 

Despite the stated high-minded rhetorical ideals around DEI, it is part of the cancer in our universities. DEI purports to promote individualism and unique individual experiences. In practice, it devolves into categorizing people into arbitrary racial, ethnic, religious, gender, and economic groups, assigning a relative value to each category, and then encouraging separatism and discrimination. It fosters a culture of dehumanizing the “other” by assigning people to groups instead of engaging them as individuals. DEI programs favor racial segregation in dorms and learning spaces, quotas for admissions and hiring, and silences voices from unfavored people. As practiced on our UW campuses, DEI has long since left behind principles of tolerance and equality.

 

Furthermore, while some DEI professionals still try to adhere to classical liberal principles of inclusion, many of these DEI positions have become destination jobs for some of the most hateful, bigoted, and vile people in our society. Too many times when we watch another racist screed online, we see it coming from someone who has a career in the protected DEI club of academia.

 

Seeing this cancer growing in our state universities, Speaker Vos and his compatriots sought to use a financial wedge to force positive change at UW by withholding money for employee raises until the UW eliminated its 43 dedicated DEI positions. Last week, Vos caved and agreed to a compromise that I thought gave too much for too little.

 

In the sixteen-point deal, the UW would agree to freeze, not eliminate, its DEI positions in place. UW would also agree to adhere to rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court to not discriminate in admissions, pull back on racial discrimination for hiring, add a teaching module about freedom of expression, and implement an automatic admission program for Wisconsin’s top High School students.

 

In return for these modest concessions by UW that involve mostly doing things that they should be doing anyway, Vos agreed to open the financial floodgates and lavish hundreds of millions of dollars on UW to pay for employee raises, build a long-sought new engineering building, pay for several new building projects all over the system, and pay to demolish and remove 21 old buildings. That is a lot of construction for a UW with steeply declining enrollment.

 

Despite this surrender by Vos where UW got almost everything it wanted, the UW Regents voted to reject the compromise. What does this tell us about the UW Regents and the leadership of the Universities of Wisconsin?

 

In a $7.53 billion budget for the Universities of Wisconsin, the Regents always had budgetary room to pay for employee raises and buildings, but they prioritized DEI and administration. At UW-Madison alone, they have grown administration and support staff by 23 percent in the last ten years according to The College Fix. The instructional staff to undergrad ratio has stayed constant at about one to ten while there is now about one administrator for every four undergrads.

 

There was always budgetary room for employee raises – there still is – but the UW leadership decided to hold those raises hostage to put pressure on the legislature to agree to continue to fund DEI.

 

Is it any wonder that our universities have become cesspools of hate and division? The leadership and administration of those universities are making the choice to maintain and grow cancerous teachings at the expense of all else. We are regressing as a culture in terms of tolerance, acceptance, and inclusion and that regression is being led by our universities like the Universities of Wisconsin.

Milwaukee County Supervisor Seen Shirtless on Zoom Call

by | 2029, 11 Dec 23 | | 0 Comments

From Bice. Honestly… bonehead mistake and he handled it with humor and humility. Funny story

Burgelis, who is running for a seat on the Milwaukee Common Council, briefly appeared shirtless during a livestream for the Milwaukee County Board’s Judiciary, Law Enforcement and General Services Committee on Dec. 4. The meeting was being held at the Milwaukee County Courthouse, while Burgelis monitored it virtually from home.

 

More than two hours into the meeting, the livestream showed Burgelis, a rookie supervisor, without clothes from his waist up for less than 10 seconds. His feed was cut off a little more than a minute after he first appeared bare-chested on the video.

 

He said he did have pants on.

 

“It’s embarrassing,” said Burgelis, a mortgage loan officer. “This was clearly not intentional, though I’m always eager to get more exposure for the county, my campaign or my social life.”

 

As it turns out, Burgelis isn’t even a member of this County Board committee. He said he was using his cellphone to watch what was going on with the panel while doing his laundry at home. He said he had taken off his shirt and tossed it in the wash.

Unions sue to overturn Wisconsin’s 2011 Act 10

by | 0909, 9 Dec 23 | , | 0 Comments

Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News last week:

A group of unions have filed suit demanding that Wisconsin’s 2011 Act 10 be thrown out. They argue that the law is unconstitutional because it discriminates between public safety government employees and general government employees. Given that neither public safety government employees nor general government employees constitute a protected class in the state Constitution or in law, the case should be thrown out on its face, but it is probable that this is the beginning of the end of Act 10.

 

Since it has been well over a decade since Act 10 was passed, it is worth refreshing our collective memories about it. In 2010, Democrat Gov. Jim Doyle had declined to run for reelection after a series of scandals and gross mismanagement of the budget. The state was facing a massive $3.6 billion structural deficit. When Gov. Scott Walker and his fellow legislative Republicans were swept into office on a wave of discontent, they were immediately confronted with fixing the deficit. Act 10 began in a special session in early 2011 to fix the Democrats’ budget deficit. A structural budget deficit required a structural repair. At the time, roughly half of the $28.3 billion general fund budget (it was $44.4 billion in the most recent budget — up 57% — but that is for another column) was entitlements. Pension costs ate up 13%, shared revenue and K-12 spending was 15%, and all other state needs (universities, prisons, natural resources, etc.) were squeezed into the remaining 22%. Act 10 was designed to address the structural budget by restructuring the pension and local government parts of the state budget. The problem was that government unions had a stranglehold on that spending. In the days before Act 10, the powerful government unions organized to elect local school board members and other local elected officials. When it came to bargain for government employees, everything was on the table and the union officials were usually negotiating with people they helped elect. The taxpayers were not represented.

 

Act 10 did a number of things including restricting government union negotiations to just wages, required government unions to certify every year to ensure the employees wanted the unions’ representation, required government employees to contribute to their own health insurance and pensions, made elected official and political appointees equal to other employees for pensions, restructured some old debt, provided funding for corrections, and separated UW Madison from the UW System by giving it flagship status. It was an expansive and well-crafted law.

 

It worked. The budget was repaired and the tremendous budgeting that Republicans did throughout the 2010s led to the $7 billion budget surplus that politicians are arguing about today. It all started with Act 10.

 

Act 10 has also led to incredible savings for Wisconsin’s taxpayers. According to the MacIver Institute, which has been tracking the impact of Act 10 since it was passed, the cumulative savings stemming from Act 10 for Wisconsin’s taxpayers as of March of this year is $16.8 billion. Put another way, Wisconsin’s high cost of government would have been $16.8 billion more taxing had Act 10 never been passed.

 

Furthermore, the government employees who most opposed Act 10 have been voting with their feet. According to the Wisconsin Policy Institute, of the 983 public-sector unions in Wisconsin at the time of Act 10’s passage, only 318 successfully recertified and were still bargaining for employees as of 2021. Teachers unions are still the most active with 56.2% of them still active. At the other end of the spectrum, only 3.4% of county employee unions are still active. Government employees have been clear. The vast majority of them reject unionization just as most other Wisconsin workers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 9.3% of Wisconsin’s workers — including government workers — were unionized in 2021.

 

That’s the rub. Follow the money. The unions suing over Act 10 have been decimated by the law because it allows workers to choose. The unions want to return to the bad old days when unions existed in perpetuity and government workers were forced to be members and pay dues. The unions were also able to shake down taxpayers for even more money like when the state teachers union founded a health insurance company and forced school districts to use it. All of that stopped with Act 10 and the river of taxpayer money that flowed into union coffers slowed to a babbling brook.

 

Despite the fact that Act 10 was litigated multiple times and ruled legal and constitutional every single time, the unions are suing again 12 years after Act 10 passed into law. Why? Because they and their Democrat vassals managed to elect a leftist activist majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The unions and the Democrats are looking to get a return on their investment and reinvigorate the government unions by turning the taxpayer spigot back on full.

 

Sadly for Wisconsin’s taxpayers, they will probably get their way.

States Slip Into Deficits

by | 0756, 8 Dec 23 | , | 0 Comments

Hmmm…

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota is projected to have a budget surplus of $2.4 billion this biennium, state officials said Wednesday. But there are warning signs in future years that could lead to a potential deficit.

 

The $2.4 billion surplus is $800 million more than end-of-session estimates, but smaller than the eye-popping $17 billion surplus the state legislature had to work with when they began session this past January, before it passed a $72 billion state budget by adjournment in May. 

AND

California is facing a major budget crisis due to a “severe revenue decline,” and a record $68 billion budget deficit, likely forcing Democrats running the state to cut spending as the mass exodus of people and businesses moving to Republican-run states continues.

According to California’s non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) report released Thursday, the state’s budget deficit has grown exponentially in just a few months’ time, up more than $54 billion from just $14.3 billion in June.

Minnesota has burned through a healthy surplus with massive spending and California already has a massive deficit. Both states are run by Democrats and are merely at different points in a very predictable trajectory.

There’s a lesson for Wisconsin here. We have a surplus right now that Democrats, and some Republicans, are fighting over how to spend it. The lesson is that politicians will spend whatever you give them and then some. The only way to control the size of government is to limit the money they can spend. If Democrats manage to retake the Legislature, this generation of Democrats has shown absolutely no willingness to restrain their spending. It would be a balance sheet bloodbath.

Just say no.

No means no.

Evers’ Office Violates Standard Anti-Discrimination Practices

by | 2045, 6 Dec 23 | , | 0 Comments

Another gem from Wisconsin Right Now. This wouldn’t fly in any professional private sector business in the country. It’s an office culture that breeds discrimination and discontent.

Gov. Tony Evers’ top Comms director did not receive any written performance evaluations despite her $112,008 taxpayer-funded salary, Wisconsin Right Now has learned through an open records request.

 

Evers chose her as his spokesperson with no other applications and no job posting, we’ve learned, although state law allows governors to forgo the civil service process when picking their office staff.

 

“Performance of all Governor’s Office employees is evaluated on an ongoing basis and is typically provided verbally,” the governor’s legal counsel wrote WRN in a letter.

 

We asked Evers’ office for “any documents indicating who conducted the evaluations of Britt Cudaback from 2019 to present” and for the “personnel evaluations/performance evaluations of Britt Cudaback from 2019 to present.”

 

By using passive voice (“is evaluated”), Evers’ legal counsel wrote around WHO evaluated Cudaback verbally, if at all.

Evers Signs Brewers Bill

by | 0737, 6 Dec 23 | | 1 Comment

I wrote about this multiple times. This is a great package for the Brewers. It’s terrible for the taxpayers. One thing it confirmed for me was that there are no, or very few, small government Republicans left in Wisconsin. The fact that there was so little opposition to this spending package is ample evidence of that fact.

The package went through multiple revisions as lawmakers worked to find ways to reduce the public subsidy. The bill Evers finally signed calls for a state contribution of $365.8 million doled out in annual payments through 2050. The city of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County will contribute a combined $135 million.

 

The legislation also imposes surcharges on tickets to nonbaseball events at the stadium such as rock concerts or monster truck rallies. The surcharges are expected to generate $20.7 million.

 

The Brewers, for their part, will spend $110 million and extend their lease at the stadium through 2050, keeping Major League Baseball in its smallest market for another 27 years.

 

The bill easily passed the Legislature last month, with the Assembly approving it on a 72-26 vote and the Senate following suit 19-14. Attanasio said during the signing that the Brewers have received inquiries from other cities about relocating but moving was never an option. He said he understands how painful it was for the community when the Milwaukee Braves left for Atlanta in 1966. He did not name the cities inquiring about hosting the Brewers.

Unions sue to overturn Wisconsin’s 2011 Act 10

by | 0738, 5 Dec 23 | , | 0 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. I thought we were done debating Act 10, but here we are…

A group of unions have filed suit demanding that Wisconsin’s 2011 Act 10 be thrown out. They argue that the law is unconstitutional because it discriminates between public safety government employees and general government employees. Given that neither public safety government employees nor general government employees constitute a protected class in the state Constitution or in law, the case should be thrown out on its face, but it is probable that this is the beginning of the end of Act 10.

 

Since it has been well over a decade since Act 10 was passed, it is worth refreshing our collective memories about it. In 2010, Democrat Gov. Jim Doyle had declined to run for reelection after a series of scandals and gross mismanagement of the budget. The state was facing a massive $3.6 billion structural deficit. When Gov. Scott Walker and his fellow legislative Republicans were swept into office on a wave of discontent, they were immediately confronted with fixing the deficit. Act 10 began in a special session in early 2011 to fix the Democrats’ budget deficit. A structural budget deficit required a structural repair. At the time, roughly half of the $28.3 billion general fund budget (it was $44.4 billion in the most recent budget — up 57% — but that is for another column) was entitlements. Pension costs ate up 13%, shared revenue and K-12 spending was 15%, and all other state needs (universities, prisons, natural resources, etc.) were squeezed into the remaining 22%. Act 10 was designed to address the structural budget by restructuring the pension and local government parts of the state budget.

 

The problem was that government unions had a stranglehold on that spending. In the days before Act 10, the powerful government unions organized to elect local school board members and other local elected officials. When it came to bargain for government employees, everything was on the table and the union officials were usually negotiating with people they helped elect. The taxpayers were not represented.

 

[…]

 

It worked. The budget was repaired and the tremendous budgeting that Republicans did throughout the 2010s led to the $7 billion budget surplus that politicians are arguing about today. It all started with Act 10.

 

Act 10 has also led to incredible savings for Wisconsin’s taxpayers. According to the MacIver Institute, which has been tracking the impact of Act 10 since it was passed, the cumulative savings stemming from Act 10 for Wisconsin’s taxpayers as of March of this year is $16.8 billion. Put another way, Wisconsin’s high cost of government would have been $16.8 billion more taxing had Act 10 never been passed.

 

Furthermore, the government employees who most opposed Act 10 have been voting with their feet. According to the Wisconsin Policy Institute, of the 983 public-sector unions in Wisconsin at the time of Act 10’s passage, only 318 successfully recertified and were still bargaining for employees as of 2021. Teachers unions are still the most active with 56.2% of them still active. At the other end of the spectrum, only 3.4% of county employee unions are still active. Government employees have been clear. The vast majority of them reject unionization just as most other Wisconsin workers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 9.3% of Wisconsin’s workers — including government workers — were unionized in 2021.

 

That’s the rub.

 

Follow the money.

 

The unions suing over Act 10 have been decimated by the law because it allows workers to choose. The unions want to return to the bad old days when unions existed in perpetuity and government workers were forced to be members and pay dues. The unions were also able to shake down taxpayers for even more money like when the state teachers union founded a health insurance company and forced school districts to use it. All of that stopped with Act 10 and the river of taxpayer money that flowed into union coffers slowed to a babbling brook.

 

Despite the fact that Act 10 was litigated multiple times and ruled legal and constitutional every single time, the unions are suing again 12 years after Act 10 passed into law. Why? Because they and their Democrat vassals managed to elect a leftist activist majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The unions and the Democrats are looking to get a return on their investment and reinvigorate the government unions by turning the taxpayer spigot back on full.

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