Boots & Sabers

The blogging will continue until morale improves...

M
Tag: Column

Prosser retires from state’s highest court

by | 0749, 3 May 1616 | , | 8 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here you go:

In a somewhat unexpected development, Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser has announced his retirement. He will leave the bench in July. The jostling immediately began to find a suitable replacement.

Prosser has served on the Supreme Court for 18 years. Prior to being on the court, Prosser was a private attorney, district attorney and served for 18 years in the Wisconsin Assembly — including two years as speaker of that body. He was appointed to the bench in 1998 by Gov. Tommy Thompson and was elected twice thereafter.

While Prosser has not publicly stated a reason for his resignation, it is not hard to imagine that at 73 years old and after 44 years of public service, he wants to enjoy many years of well-earned retirement. It is also not hard to imagine that the contentious political climate of the court in the past few years in which Prosser was maliciously maligned made the decision to retire an easy one.

From 1998 to 2011, Prosser served with distinction and was respected by all. When Prosser was appointed, the Wisconsin Supreme Court had a liberal majority with Prosser finding himself on the more moderate side of the bench. He was elected unopposed in 2001 with 99.53 percent of the vote.

The court maintained its liberal majority until 2008, when Justice Michael Gableman defeated liberal incumbent Justice Louis Butler. Since then, Prosser has sat on the more moderate end of the conservative majority of the court. That was enough to draw withering fire from Wisconsin liberals when Prosser ran for re-election in 2011.

Prosser became the first target for Wisconsin’s liberals rebelling against newly elected Gov. Scott Walker. Prosser’s re-election effort was in the first election after Walker came into office and signed the Act 10 reform. Since Prosser was identified with the conservative majority of the court and his defeat would swing the court back to a liberal majority that would strike down Act 10, Wisconsin’s liberals and unions pulled out all the stops to defeat Prosser. They unfairly attacked Prosser and made him a proxy for Walker.

They lost. Prosser won. It was the first defeat for Walker’s opponents in a political war that continues to rage.

Since Prosser’s re-election in 2011, Wisconsin’s voters have continued to strengthen the conservative majority on the court to five of the seven justices. Because of this, Prosser’s retirement will not shift the balance of the court. By law, Prosser’s replacement will be appointed by Walker and will not stand for election until 2020. That is a lot of time for the voters of Wisconsin to get to know Prosser’s replacement and decide whether or not he or she is worthy of election.

The process for the appointment has already begun with several people submitting their names to Walker for consideration and several more expected to do so before the May 19 deadline. Many names being floated are current judges like Wisconsin Court of Appeals judges Mark Gundrum, Thomas Hruz and Brian Hagedorn. Others are judges on lower courts like county judges Randy Kischnick and Jim Troupis.

This will be an incredibly important appointment for Walker. Wisconsin rarely fails to re-elect an incumbent Supreme Court justice with Butler being the only incumbent to lose re-election in the past 48 years. It is fairly likely that whomever Walker appoints will serve on the court until he or she is ready to retire.

Walker is entitled to appoint whomever he chooses and will surely spend an inordinate amount of time considering his choice. He will have time to deeply consider his choice. He should not appoint someone who has run for the court and the voters have already rejected. He should appoint someone who has demonstrated sound judgment. He should appoint someone who is young enough to give many years of service to the court if the voters want it. And most of all, he should appoint someone with a deeply conservative judicial philosophy.

Prosser has served the citizens of Wisconsin for more than two generations in two branches of state government, having stood for election 13 times. He deserves our gratitude and respect for his honorable service. Thank you, Justice Prosser — may you enjoy all that Wisconsin has to offer in your well-earned retirement.

Finding Justice

by | 0701, 26 Apr 1616 | , | 1 Comment

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here you go:

The city administrator for West Bend, T.J. Justice, has been arrested and charged with two felony counts — one for child enticement-prostitution and one for soliciting a child for prostitution. If convicted, Justice could spend the next 50 years in prison. Justice has posted bail and is on paid administrative leave from his city job until the Common Council decides what to do with him. At this point, there are more questions than answers, but the ramifications will be felt in our little city for some time to come.

According to the criminal complaint, Justice began texting with a teenage girl in May 2015. The texts were salacious, with Justice repeatedly and forcefully telling the girl that he wanted to have sex with her and was willing to pay her money for it.

In September 2015, the girl’s mother discovered the texts and responded to Justice saying, “no I’m 16, stop.” Justice responded with surprise at her age, but then appears to have continued aggressively soliciting the girl for sex with full knowledge that he was pursuing an underage girl. At one point he even allegedly texted, “your age is a turn on accept that and let’s figure this out babe.”

This February, the girl’s mother contacted the police about the situation. A Muskego police detective posed as the girl and contacted Justice to set up a meeting Thursday to have sex for $200. Justice showed up right on time with a bottle of Viagra in the car and was subsequently arrested. After first denying it, he confessed claiming that he would only have had sex with the girl if she consented — as if that ameliorates the fact that he was allegedly intending to pay an underage girl, who cannot legally consent, for sex.

Where do we go from here? As far as Justice is concerned, the criminal justice system will take care of him. It appears from the criminal complaint that the police did a superb job collecting evidence and the likelihood of conviction is high. Hopefully the next time we hear from Mr. Justice is in 50 years when the girl is collecting Social Security and our grandchildren are arguing over where to place a released nonagenarian sex offender.

As for the city of West Bend, there are a lot of questions that need to be answered and city leaders will need to find a replacement while caring for city employees reeling from the news. If the criminal complaint is true, it is clear Justice is a rotten human being and a predator. It is possible that he was a master manipulator and successfully concealed his rottenness from friends and coworkers. That has certainly happened in the past where horrible people manage to appear perfectly normal in polite society.

It is also possible that signs were overlooked, or worse, covered up. We already know that Justice lied on his application for city employment, saying that he had a college degree when he did not. At the time, the Common Council and mayor considered that fact against his record of achievement and decided to forgive that transgression. Since Justice has been a city employee, were there other transgressions? Were there complaints? If so, what happened? Are there more victims?

One thing that jumps out from the criminal complaint is how brazen Justice was. He used his own phone and name while openly soliciting a teenage girl he had never met. It was either incredibly stupid or incredibly arrogant. While it is possible that Justice was able to hide his hideous behavior, the shameless way in which he behaved in soliciting a child makes it difficult to believe that this was the first and only incident.

As I said, there a lot of questions and it has been less than a week since Justice was arrested. While we must push for answers, we must also be patient as people work through the legal and procedural issues. Since this is a personnel issue with the city, some information won’t be forthcoming for some time, which will be frustrating. And there will be those who oppose the current city leadership who will seek to use this for their own political advantage. We must be discerning in separating fact from fiction.

This incident also serves as another in a long line of reminders that parents must monitor their kids’ online behavior. It is not about trusting your kids. It is about not trusting people like Justice who may be preying on them.

West Bend needs a super super

by | 0704, 19 Apr 1616 | , | 3 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here it is:

The West Bend School District is searching for a superintendent. Whoever gets the job has some big shoes to fill and some challenges to tackle. We should be as concerned about why a good superintendent would choose West Bend as we are about the School Board choosing a good superintendent.

The School Board has engaged a search company to recruit a superintendent in the wake of Ted Neitzke’s resignation. The application is already available and online. The plan is to stop collecting applications at the end of April, select candidates May 16, conduct interviews and choose a superintendent June 9 for a start date of July 1. As outlined, it is a fairly aggressive schedule.

The School Board has a lot of work to do to decide what they want to see in a new superintendent. Do they want someone from inside or outside of the district? Do they want someone looking to make radical changes or continue the current policies? Do they want someone who is an “upand- comer” or someone looking to build a legacy before retirement? Increasingly, districts are also hiring superintendents who come from outside of education like nonprofit or business leaders. Should the School Board consider a candidate without a background in education?

It is a lot to consider. It is the most consequential single decision a school board makes and it is a difficult decision to reverse if they make a bad one. Unfortunately, the School Board, through no fault of their own, is beginning its recruitment a little late in the year. The best results for recruiting a superintendent tend to happen when the search begins in January. Many of the truly superior superintendents on the market have already accepted positions. That is not to say that there are not still great candidates available, but the pool is smaller than it was four months ago.

But as the School Board considers the candidates who apply, the candidates will also be considering the West Bend School District. Good people — especially talented executives with the ability to lead an organization the size of the West Bend School District — have options. Why would a super super choose to lead the West Bend School District?

The West Bend School District is the 19th largest district in the state. It resides in a conservative county of mostly middleclass families. The business community is diverse and has a good working partnership with the school district. The students also have access to the University of Wisconsin-Washington County and Moraine Park Technical College, which are located in the district.

Within the district itself, a superintendent has a lot to work with. The School Board and outgoing superintendent built a blossoming charter school, 4K program, online education initiative, performing arts center, popular walk-in clinic for employees and data-driven management tools. The district’s employee-turnover rate is lower than other districts in the area and considerably lower than the national average. The parents and community are, for the most part, active and engaged.

The district is not without problems. There is a vicious and growing problem with heroin and other drugs. Test scores are not where they need to be. And much like many other enterprises in America, there are continuing upward pressures on costs like healthcare with downward pressures on revenue.

But the most pressing problem with the district right now is cultural. There is a small but vocal contingent of teachers, parents and agitators who have chosen to take a very personal and nasty approach to change advocacy. While some of their complaints about things like too many standardized tests are legitimate, their continued spreading of false characterizations about things like teacher turnover, open enrollment and district policies only serve to paint a negative picture of the district that does not exist.

Furthermore, their chosen tactic to personally pillory those with whom they disagree has been reprehensible. The virulent glee with which some members of our community celebrated the departures of Neitzke and School Board President Randy Marquardt on social media and in the newspaper does not speak well for West Bend. Consider how potential applicants for the superintendent’s job would recoil at the venom spat at his or her predecessor.

While it is good to be anxious about the School Board choosing the right candidate, the greater worry might just be whether or not the right candidate will choose West Bend. As we consider both sides of the recruitment equation, I urge the School Board to not be pressured to unnecessarily rush a decision. A review of large districts by Learning Point Associates advises that school districts allow up to a full year from the time of vacancy to properly recruit, hire and transition a high-level district employee. West Bend does not need to wait a full year, but neither does it need to hire someone by July 1. If the absolute right candidate is not found in this first pass at recruitment, the School Board should appoint an acting superintendent while they take the time to conduct a more thorough recruitment process. A bad hire can push an organization off the rails for years to come. It is essential that the School Board take the time necessary to find the right candidate.

Dane Power

by | 0653, 12 Apr 1616 | , | 0 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here you go:

It has become so routine that it seems normal, but it is not — a Dane County judge has once again issued a daft ruling deeming a newly passed law to be unconstitutional. In an era when Democrats have been frustrated at the ballot box and relegated to the minority in the Legislature, they have turned to the court system to try to thwart the will of the people as expressed through their elected representatives.

The pattern has become predictable. The Republican Legislature and Republican governor enact a law they support. The liberal Democrats, unable to prevail in the Legislature, sue on the grounds that the law is unconstitutional. As the seat of state government, the first step in the legal process is in the Dane County Circuit Courts, where virtually every judge is liberal and rules that the law is unconstitutional. Then, after a lot of time and money is spent appealing the ruling, the Dane County judge’s ruling is overruled and the law stands. It happened with Act 10. It happened with Voter ID. And now it is happening with right-to-work.

Wisconsin’s right-to-work law was passed earlier this year, making Wisconsin the nation’s 25th state to pass such a law. The concept of right-to-work is simple and rooted in our natural right to freely associate with whom we please, or not. Under the previous law, people were forced to pay dues to a union, a private organization, as a consequence of working in a unionized shop. The people had to pay those dues even if they did not support or agree with the union. Wisconsin’s right-to-work law simply allows people to not belong to, or pay dues to, a union if they do not want to.

Of course, unions have been a bastion for the Democratic Party for decades and those dues are used to fund campaigns for Democrats, so right-to-work threatens the Democratic Party’s power structure — so the Democrats resorted to the courts.

Dane County Circuit Judge William Foust gave his fellow liberals the ruling they wanted. The ruling is so devoid of lucidity that it will definitely be overruled on appeal, but the rationale used is worth knowing as it reveals something of the liberal mindset. Foust’s reasoning is that since the right-to-work law allows employees to not pay union dues, it erodes the money given to the unions. And since the unions are obligated to negotiate on behalf of all employees even if they do not pay dues, the law violates the constitutional provision prohibiting the government from taking property without fair compensation.

Got that? In other words, by virtue of the fact that private organizations — the unions — choose to negotiate on behalf of workers, those workers must be forced to pay for that private organization. Never mind that it is not the government denying dues, it is free people choosing to not pay dues. Never mind that the unions do not have to negotiate for anyone if they do not want to. In Foust’s mind and in the minds of his fellow travelers, the money does not belong to the individual to do with what they choose. It belongs to the collective and the role of government is to force the individual to give it to the collective.

Thankfully there is little doubt that Foust’s ruling will be overruled, but this incessant cycle of irrational judicial challenge initiated by sore losers must be mitigated. Part of the problem is that Dane County is far more liberal than the rest of the state. This is a county where more than 100,000 people voted for avowed socialist Bernie Sanders last week. That’s almost 50 percent more votes than all of the Republican votes combined. It is a liberal county that elects liberal judges.

Republicans tried to reform this in 2011 when they passed a law allowing the plaintiffs in cases challenging state laws to choose venues other than Dane County, but that reform simply allows the plaintiffs to shop for a favorable venue. Liberals will sue in Dane County and conservatives will sue in Washington County.

Instead of allowing plaintiffs to choose a venue or having all lawsuits take place in Dane County, Wisconsin should enact a lottery system for lawsuits challenging state laws. There are 249 circuit court judges in Wisconsin who are elected by their respective county’s voters, each perfectly capable of adjudicating a lawsuit. The judges in Dane County do not have any special powers or abilities that make them superior to a judge in, say, Superior.

There will be some cost associated with such a system. Since the state government is in Madison, virtually all of the resources needed to defend such a lawsuit reside near the seat of government. There will be cost in transporting those resources to other counties to defend the state, but in an age of videoconferencing and telecommuting, those costs could be easily allayed if the court chooses.

Dane County circuit judges have had too much power in the function of state government for far too long. It is time to inject some judicial diversity into the process by allowing judges elected in other parts of the state to participate.

Presidential legacies

by | 0654, 5 Apr 1616 | , , | 19 Comments

My column of Spring Break musings in the West Bend Daily News is online. Here you go:

As his final term in office wanes, President Barack Obama is aggressively acting to define his legacy as Wisconsinites head to the polls to make their selections for the Democratic and Republican presidential nominee who will attempt to either cement or dismantle that legacy. At such a time, it is edifying to reflect on the fickle nature of presidential legacies.

Last week I was in Nashville, escaping the Wisconsin winter for a few pleasurable days with my family, and I took the opportunity to explore a little history. A walk on the grounds of the Tennessee State Capitol building provides an opportunity to visit with the state’s three presidents and reflect on their vastly different legacies.

After walking up the steps on the east corner of the lawn past the memorials to the indefatigable Sergeant Alvin C. York and the victims of the Holocaust, I came upon a modest statute on a pedestal of a stern man in a suit and long coat gazing toward the Cumberland River a few blocks down the hill. It is an effigy of President Andrew Johnson, who is often and loudly derided as one of America’s worst presidents.

Before becoming president, however, he was an accomplished and well-regarded man. Despite having never attended school and growing up illiterate, Johnson rose to become an accomplished businessman whose popularity and reputation for integrity lifted him to become mayor, a congressman, governor of Tennessee and a U.S. senator. After bucking his secessionist state as a staunch Unionist and being the only southern senator to keep his seat when the Civil War started, he was selected as President Abraham Lincoln’s vice president when he ran for his second term despite being a Democrat. The assassination of Lincoln found Johnson holding the most powerful office in the country at precisely the most critical moment in our nation since George Washington voluntarily and peacefully relinquished power.

President Johnson managed to do everything wrong. At first, he attempted to enact the lenient intent of Lincoln toward the former Confederates and opposed the 14th Amendment, thus angering the Republicans in the North. Then, after being the first president to be impeached on largely orchestrated charges from vengeful Republicans and passage of the 14th Amendment, Johnson’s strict constitutionalist reservations about using his veto pen allowed overly vengeful reconstruction policies to pass into law, thus roiling the South for decades and garnering the enmity of southern Democrats. Johnson ended his presidency in disgrace and largely remains a disgrace to this day.

Walking further up the northeast slope of the capitol brought me to the magnificent statue of General Andrew Jackson on a rearing horse as he raises his hat in salute toward the capitol building. The central location and scope of the figure befits the place held by Jackson in the history of our nation and of Tennessee.

President Jackson is arguably the most consequential, and controversial, president of the 19th century. The hero of New Orleans ushered in the Age of Jackson and continued to drive the American experience for half a century. Jackson’s vigorous, or tyrannical, exercise of executive authority, forced removal of Native Americans, aggressive implementation of the spoils system, defense of federal power over nullification, paying off the national debt and smothering of the United States Bank are just a few reasons that Jackson is both revered and reviled. As a side note, the repulsive campaign of 1828 reminds us that our republic has survived, and will survive, the repulsive campaign of 2016.

Walking a few more steps to the northwest into a shady grove of trees, I found an unassuming monument comprised of a small, unadorned square roof supported by four simple columns over a marble pedestal. It was the tomb of one of Jackson’s proteges and the 11th president of the United States, James Knox Polk.

By modern and 19th century standards, Polk should be considered one of our best presidents, yet he is an afterthought in history books. Polk was elected to office on a promise to only serve a single term and to accomplish four major goals: cut tariffs, reconstitute an independent U.S. Treasury, secure the Oregon Territory and acquire the territories of New Mexico and California. Through astute diplomatic skills at home and abroad, he accomplished all four campaign promises and fulfilled his commitment to serve a single term by being the only president to willingly serve a single term.

Under Polk, Texas became the 28th state and he successfully prosecuted the Mexican-American War, leading to the annexation of all or parts of California, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. It was Polk who expanded the United States from sea to shining sea for the first time.

Presidential legacies are a tricky business and Obama’s won’t be settled until at least a generation from now, if ever. And barring some electoral anomaly, one of the five people who have been barnstorming across Wisconsin asking for votes will also be forging a legacy of their own one day. Let us all hope and pray that it will be a legacy worthy of our great nation.

The West Bend School District’s turnover ‘problem’

by | 0545, 29 Mar 1616 | , | 1 Comment

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here it is:

One of the issues that has come to the fore in the election for the West Bend School Board is that of teacher morale. As with any large organization, some employees are not happy with how things are going and have poor morale. The School Board and district administration are tasked with understanding if poor morale is widespread or negatively impacting students to the point that changes in policy or leadership are necessary. Some folks in the community contend that teacher morale is a massive problem and cite high teacher turnover as a symptom of it. This begs the question, is teacher turnover a problem in the West Bend School District?

The short answer is: “no.”

Teacher turnover has been on the rise in the past few years in the West Bend School District. In the last school year, voluntary teacher turnover was about 6.7 percent. That is up from a little more than 4 percent in the 2011-12 school year and down from a spike of almost 9 percent in the 201011 school year.

One cannot tell whether 6.7 percent is good or bad without some context. Unfortunately, it is difficult to compare raw turnover numbers because different statisticians calculate turnover differently. Does the figure include only employees who quit, or also those who were fired? What about retirees? Eliminated positions? You get the idea. Still, even with the rough numbers, West Bend’s turnover rate is comparable to other surrounding districts and well below the national average.

According to the March 19 Daily News, the West Bend School District has the second lowest turnover rate when compared to that of the Mequon-Thiensville, Fond du Lac and Port Washington-Saukville districts. Nationally, the turnover rate for teachers is anywhere between 15-18 percent, depending on which study you choose to cite. As a raw comparison, West Bend’s turnover appears to be below the average of most school districts in the country and in the immediate area.

It is true that the turnover rate has been rising every year since the 2011-12 school year. There was a spike of almost 9 percent in the 2010-11 school year, but that was an anomaly due to a change in district policy regarding health insurance for retirees that prompted a group of teachers to retire before the change negatively impacted them. But West Bend is not alone — the turnover rate for surrounding districts and those all over the state have been rising. This is an intentional consequence of the landmark reform, Act 10.

Under Act 10, local governments, including school districts, were partially liberated from the strictures of union contracts that dictated regimented wage scales and work rules. Under Act 10, school districts began implementing reforms that would have previously been very difficult. For example, the Mequon-Thiensville School District implemented a merit pay system for employees. In West Bend, the school district tied some performance metrics to employee compensation and enacted reforms like the popular walk-in health clinic.

But not everyone is comfortable with change and it always creates some friction in any organization. Anyone who has ever been a part of a dynamic organization has seen people become uncomfortable, or become uncomfortable themselves, and the corresponding dip in morale for those people.

On the other side of the equation, Act 10 has infused a modicum of freedom into the labor market for teachers. Prior to Act 10, the strict compensation scales were weighted heavily to tenure within a district, so if an experienced teacher wanted to move to another district, they would often have to start over at the bottom of the tenure pile. Act 10 allowed many districts to pay teachers based on merit irrespective of their tenure. This allows teachers to more easily move between districts without being penalized and for districts to recruit the teachers they want.

The West Bend School District, for example, has a very competitive compensation package for teachers. According to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, West Bend’s employees are paid an average total compensation of nearly $84,000, which is in the top 7 percent of all districts in Wisconsin, and have an average experience of 13.5 years. In a more competitive labor market, school districts must act to attract talented teachers with things like a good working environment, support structures, good leadership and, yes, better compensation. Good teachers are benefiting from Act 10.

In any organization of the size of the West Bend School District, there will always be employees who are not happy and are vocal about it. But there is nothing in the voluntary turnover rate that indicates there is a widespread morale issue in the West Bend School District. The vast majority of the teachers are doing exactly what they love to do and what we love them for doing — providing an outstanding education for our kids.

Vote For, Not Against

by | 0723, 22 Mar 1616 | , | 5 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here it is:

With only two weeks left until the April 5 election in Wisconsin, we are about to endure a withering political barrage that will not end until that blissful dawn April 6, when all of the presidential politicians, their courtiers and the locustal media move on to the next state. But April 5 is not only the primary election for the presidential nominees, it is also the general election for thousands of local elected offices and for the next justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Those local and state elections tend to have far more impact on our daily lives than the national races.

It is easy to vent one’s spleen at all of the reasons to vote against someone, and there sure are plenty of people to vote against this election season. I prefer to focus on the reasons to vote for someone. There are only three contested elections on my ballot this election. Here is whom I am voting for, and why.

There are four candidates vying for two seats on the West Bend School Board. I will be voting for Randy Marquardt and Ken Schmidt. Marquardt is the only incumbent on the ballot, having first been elected to the school board in 2010, and currently serves as the president of the Board. While I strenuously disagreed with Marquardt regarding the referendum to expand Silverbrook, his accomplishments on the board have been impressive.

Since Marquardt was first elected, the district has managed its facilities so that it is no longer in a constant state of crisis and is, in fact, saving money for the next big building need. The school district has implemented an extremely popular and successful walk-in clinic for employees, begun a charter school, expanded online offerings, added vocational courses and helped guide the district through some tumultuous shifts of educational policy at the state level.

Ken Schmidt is a newcomer to the ballot, but brings a wealth of experience in the community and education. Schmidt is a 36-year resident of the district and is married to a public school teacher. He also served as a member of the Board of Regents for Bethany Lutheran College for 27 years. He espouses a belief in being a good steward of the community’s investment in their schools and wants a systematic review of new curriculum programs and testing regimens to make sure they are improving educational outcomes.

Two candidates are vying for the State Supreme Court. Incumbent Justice Rebecca Bradley will be receiving my vote. Bradley was a private attorney for many years before her meteoric rise to the Supreme Court late last year after the untimely death of Justice Patrick Crooks. Having previously served as a Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge and on the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, her rulings were marked by their fairness and strict adherence to what the law is — not what she might think it should be. The fact that her opponents are seeking to smear her with salacious stories instead of attacking her actual performance as a judge is supplemental evidence of the soundness of her judgment. Bradley’s brilliant legal mind and respect for the proper role of a judge makes her the easy choice to keep her seat on the bench.

Both the Republican and Democratic presidential primaries are on the ballot in Wisconsin. I will be voting in the Republican primary and happily voting for Sen. Ted Cruz. The senator from Texas is undeniably one of the most intellectually brilliant candidates to ever appear on the ballot. He was the valedictorian of his high school, graduated cum laude from Princeton, magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, was the editor of the Harvard Law Review, national debating champion, clerked for Chief Justice of the United States William Rehnquist (from Milwaukee) and had a distinguished legal career before winning a seat in the U.S. Senate in 2012 as an insurgent outsider.

Cruz couples his towering intellect with a passionate conservatism that put him at odds with not only the Democrats in the Senate, but with his fellow Republicans whose ideology has slumped to the left. He is ardently anti-abortion, pro-Second Amendment, pro-civil rights, pro-fiscal sanity, pro-Constitution and pro-border security. He has a mastery of the important issues facing our country and a conservative plan to address each of them. Cruz would not only make a great Republican candidate, he would make a great president.

As the election season wears on and the narrative fills up with negativity and filth, it must be remembered that behind all of that blather are some truly impressive people whose service would make our communities, state and nation better. In-person absentee voting began yesterday at your local municipal clerk’s office and election day is on April 5. Get out and vote for someone.

 

Let the sun shine

by | 0726, 15 Mar 1616 | , | 6 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here you go:

We all got a glimpse of spring this Saturday with warm temperatures and bright sunshine before gloomy, cold rain settled into southeast Wisconsin on Sunday, but the nation is aglow this week as Sunshine Week commences, celebrating access to public information.

Access to public records sounds like a boring issue that only reporters and politicians care about, but it is a vital issue that is absolutely necessary for we, the people, to govern. As a self-governing people, we have to know what our representatives and employees in government are doing so we can make informed decisions. Without that visibility into the workings of our government, we would be unable to effectively govern ourselves.

But not all people in government like open records laws or strive to adhere to them. Some of them are up to no good, but some just don’t like the scrutiny. Sometimes that resistance comes in the form of legislation or regulations seeking to hide records. That was the case in a bill moving through the Wisconsin legislature that would have deemed some records from medical examiners to be excluded from open records requirements. Thankfully, that offensive language was dropped.

But some of the resistance comes at the point of executing an open records request. Government employees have been known to take an unacceptable amount of time to fill requests for records. They have also been caught charging ridiculously huge fees for records in order to discourage people from picking them up. Some government officials have been caught ignoring open records requests altogether or illegally destroying records.

It is a constant push by the public to ensure our records remain accessible and open for our perusal. To that end, Gov. Scott Walker issued an executive order directing state agencies to take some measures to ensure compliance with the state’s open records laws. Those measures include implementing standardized best practices for processing requests, defining and publishing standard response times for normal requests, clarifying the costs of requests up front, and requiring training about public records for all state employees. These measures will help further the goal of making it easy for the public to access public records.

While some government officials actively resist the public prying into their business, most of them try their hardest to serve the public in good faith. As someone who has filed many open records requests over the years, I have found most government officials to be helpful and thorough in complying with my requests. It helps to know how to ask correctly, so here are a few hints.

First, know the rules. When filing an open records request, you are not required to give your identity or a reason for the request. You can if you want, but it is not necessary. Remember that your request is itself a record that is subject to the open records law.

Second, know what a record is, and is not. A record is almost anything, in any form, that has been recorded or preserved by an authority. It does not include things like drafts, notes, or things unrelated to the public’s business. The law requires the government to surrender records that it has, but if a record does not exist, it is not required to create something new. Also, not everything that passes through government must be kept, much less kept forever. A government is prohibited from destroying a record after someone has asked for it, but they are permitted to dispose of most old records after a period of time. Unless we are willing to spend a fortune to save everything forever, this is perfectly reasonable.

Third, be specific and reasonable. Yes, you can ask for every email sent by anyone in government over three years to go on some fishing expedition, but it will be timeconsuming and expensive to fulfill that request. Someone has to comb through everything to redact information that should not be made public. Try to narrow your request as much as possible and it will make it easier and more likely for you to get what you want. Remember that the bigger the net is, the longer it will take to fill it.

Finally, be nice. While answering public records requests is a part of a government official’s job, it is not their entire job. And they are just a person like you. I have often found them to be helpful and friendly if you are understanding and nice — especially with local government officials. If they are not, then get aggressive.

We need to keep pressure on ensuring our public records remain open through traditional means, but we must also push to utilize modern technology to make records more accessible. For example, the city of West Bend regularly publishes detailed spending reports by amount, department and vendor on their website for public scrutiny. If the public has a question about a particular expenditure, it provides easy access to know how to ask for more details. Putting more records online and making them searchable should be a consideration with every technological improvement our government makes moving forward.

An open government is a prerequisite of a selfgoverning people. As we celebrate Sunshine Week, may that sunshine burn bright and hot.

Voters to determine Supreme Court’s direction

by | 0627, 8 Mar 1616 | , | 32 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here you go:

The Wisconsin Supreme Court has agreed to review eight cases ranging from guns on public buses to open records to how low-income properties are assessed to how far a police officer’s “hot pursuit” can extend into a citizen’s home. With less than a month before Wisconsin voters head to the polls to choose a Supreme Court justice, the variety and reach of the court’s chosen case load reminds us how important voters’ choice is.

For example, in State v. Weber, an officer turned on his lights to pull over Weber for a busted taillight. Weber proceeded to ignore the officer, pull into his attached garage and head into his house. The officer entered the garage without a warrant and detained Weber. Weber subsequently pled no contest to felony drunk driving (it was not his first time driving drunk).

The question the court will decide is whether the officer should have obtained a warrant before entering Weber’s garage. Even though he was drunk driving, the officer did not know that at the time and was only pursuing him for the minor offense of a broken taillight. Should law enforcement be permitted to enter private property without a warrant for such a minor offense?

In Democratic Party of Wisconsin v. Wisconsin Department of Justice, the court will decide on the appropriate balance between the public interest in keeping a record hidden versus the public’s right to know under Wisconsin’s open records laws. In this case, the Democratic Party sought videos in which Attorney General Brad Schimel, who was a candidate at the time, conducted training regarding victims of sensitive crimes and how to prosecute internet sexual predator cases.

The Democratic Party wanted the videos because they thought there might be some embarrassing things in the video that could be twisted against Schimel during the campaign. The DOJ refused to release the videos, saying the public interest in protecting the identities of the victims and the techniques used by investigators and prosecutors of internet sexual predator cases outweighed the public’s interest in seeing the videos. The Democratic Party disagreed and appealed. The court must decide where the appropriate balance lies between these competing public interests.

In Wisconsin Carry Inc. v. City of Madison, the court will decide if the city of Madison violated the state’s concealed carry law when implementing a ban on guns on public buses. Wisconsin’s concealed carry statute prohibits local units of governments from enacting an ordinance or resolution regulating the ownership, transportation, taxation or carrying of firearms.

The city of Madison has banned people from carrying firearms on city buses, but claims the statute does not apply because it is a “bus rule” and not an ordinance or resolution and that the rule was enacted by the city of Madison’s Transit and Parking Commission — not the city itself. Wisconsin Carry sued the city, arguing — rightly — the statute is designed to prevent local governments from enacting gun laws more restrictive than the state as a whole.

The Supreme Court must decide how the statute must be applied. Of course, in this case, the Legislature could have easily clarified the statute before now, but they must certainly do so next year if the Supreme Court rules in favor of the city of Madison.

As the highest court in the state, the Supreme Court decides cases that govern how the laws apply to us, how far our government can reach into our lives, how transparent our government must be and countless other important matters. As such, the selection of each justice on that court is of critical importance. On April 5, Wisconsin’s voters will choose between two drastically difference candidates.

Wisconsin Court of Appeals Judge JoAnne Kloppenburg is running for the Supreme Court for the second time after being rejected by the voters five years ago. She is proudly a liberal’s liberal with a decidedly activist perspective regarding the role of a Supreme Court justice.

Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley was appointed to the court in 2015 and is on the other end of the judicial philosophy spectrum. She has demonstrated a healthy understanding that judges must act according to how the law is and not how they would like it to be.

Unlike the United States Supreme Court, the voters decide who sits on the state Supreme Court. Vote wisely.

Frustrating Trump

by | 0635, 1 Mar 1616 | | 22 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here you go:

Some of our worst mistakes have been born out of the frustration to do something. Frustration over the rising cost of health care pushed the country to lurch into the disaster of Obamacare. Frustration over the ongoing American cost of Iraqi peace lured our nation into a precipitous withdrawal and the rise of ISIS. The Republican Party appears on the cusp of making another horrible mistake by making Donald Trump their nominee.

The rise of Trump is born out of the frustration of many Republicans with the direction of this country and the perceived inability, or unwillingness, of the Republican establishment to alter that direction. Republicans are frustrated with the ongoing failure of the federal government to stem the tide of illegal immigration that continues to drain our nation’s resources and jobs — particularly in the blue collar construction and agricultural industries.

Republicans are frustrated with the ever-increasing scope and size of the federal government. Between the rogue EPA’s onerous regulations to the federal government mandating the parameters of our health insurance, the federal government has its grimy fingers digging into the most mundane aspects of our everyday lives.

Many people, including Republicans, are frustrated with an increasingly violently intolerant culture that demands conformity to liberal thought. There are aspects of our American culture that no longer permit robust and respectful discussion about issues like gay marriage, race relations or even environmental sciences. Instead, any deviation from the current liberal canon is met with accusations of hate speech, ostracization and protests.

In the stew of all of this frustration, Trump bobbled to the top with the promise to “do something.” What will he do? Trump’s prescriptions are generally fanciful ideas, coated in bluster, broiled in rhetoric and sold with a vat of ego on the side. For example, Trump promises to build a border wall and make Mexico pay for it. He promises to eliminate the “lines around the states” to fix Obamacare. Trump plans to “make a deal” to bring peace to the Middle East. Serious people can do little but roll their eyes at such dross.

Trump’s lack of substance can, perhaps, be forgiven as people often look to presidents for broad-stroke ideas, not detailed policy plans, but his history and background cannot. Trump is a lifelong New York liberal. He is ardently pro-choice, anti-Second Amendment and pro “yuge” government. That is, he was until about a year ago when he decided to run for president as a Republican. Now he espouses all of the appropriate views if you are dim enough to believe him.

Trump’s personal and business life is also revealing. The story to his personal wealth is a long story of hustling, shady business practices, bankrupting others and outright frauds like Trump University. His personal life is a deviant jumble of mistresses and divorces.

Trump is everything Republicans have stood against for decades, but they are about to nominate him for president because he is speaking to their basest emotional frustrations and too many Republican voters have lost faith in the establishment.

Sometimes, however, the consequences of “doing something” for the sake of an emotional salve to untreated festering frustration is far worse than the disease. Should Trump win in November, he would not only be a bad president, he would be a dangerous one. His morals are unmoored by philosophy, religion, custom or even common decency, and his tempestuous ego will not be fettered by the strictures of the Constitution. Frustration and anger are not governing philosophies.

But more likely, should Trump be the Republican nominee, President Hillary Clinton will be sworn in next year (for you Bernie Sanders fans, the nomination process is rigged for Clinton). Trump has not yet garnered a majority of Republicans and his strong unfavorable ratings make a general election victory virtually impossible absent an utter collapse by the Democrats.

Furthermore, there are many conservatives, of which I am one, who will not vote for Trump in November under any circumstances. A President Trump presents too much of a danger to the republic and the conservative movement for me to even hold my nose and cast a vote in his favor. And while some Republicans will still turn out and vote for their senators and congressmen, many will not. The result could be a catastrophic loss for the Republican Party losing the White House, Senate and threatening the House. But if the Republican Party nominates Trump for president, they deserve a catastrophic loss. Unfortunately, the country will be worse for it.

There is still a little hope that Republicans will get their act together and nominate someone worthy to be our president, but the window of hope is closing rapidly.

A decade of discussions

by | 0638, 23 Feb 1616 | , | 2 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here you go:

Earlier this month, I passed a milestone of sorts. On Feb. 7, 2006, The West Bend Daily News debuted a column from a local writer who was making a few ripples in the emerging pool of online media — me. After 10 years, 520-ish columns and almost 400,000 words, we have discussed a lot of issues together. It is enlightening to look back to those first few columns and see how much has changed, and how much has stayed the same.

My very first column was about the Washington County sales tax. It was implemented in 1998 as a temporary measure to fund some critical county capital projects. In 2006, the projects had been paid off and the County Board was to vote on whether or not to extend the tax or let it expire as intended. My advocacy for ending the county sales tax as intended went unheeded and Washington County continues to pay a sales tax today that was implemented as a “temporary” measure.

In another early column, I lamented the first anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling in Kelo et al v. City of New London in which the court ruled that the government could use the coercive power of eminent domain to confiscate private property not only for public projects, but for private projects that might lead to increased tax revenue. It was a tragic ruling that fundamentally eroded Americans’ property rights.

The uneasiness of Americans with this court-instituted government power is acute, as Donald Trump’s history of passionately supporting the aggressive use of eminent domain for the benefit of private developers has become an issue in the presidential election. Furthermore, the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, who dissented in the Kelo decision, has reminded voters that the balance of the Supreme Court is on the ballot in November, too.

Virtual schools filled an early column, too. In 2006, they were still relatively new in Wisconsin. The notion of offering an education completely online instead of in a traditional school setting was a radical thought. It also threatened the entrenched power of the education establishment, so WEAC, the state teachers’ union, sued on the grounds that parents were not permitted to have such a large role in their kids’ education because the parents are not licensed teachers. The lawsuit was thrown out of court, WEAC is a shadow of its former self and virtual schools have continued to expand and offer families diverse educational options to fit their lifestyles and their children’s learning styles.

Last week, thousands of people supporting illegal immigration protested in Madison. Ten years ago, I wrote about our horribly flawed immigration system and the greatest victims of that system — illegal aliens. Because they are in our nation illegally, they are abused and exploited by businesses, landlords, political opportunists and others who extort illegal aliens with the threat of deportation. It has been 10 years and nothing has changed.

In that column, I wrote, “Illegal immigrants should not be made citizens, nor is there any reasonable way to deport them en masse, but the fear of their absence is folly. Through tighter border security, more aggressive enforcement of laws against illegal immigration, reforming the legal immigration laws to make them sensible and stiff penalties for businesses who exploit them, we can fix our illegal immigration problem.” That remains true.

In 2006, I also wrote about the looming debate over the Taxpayer Protection Amendment, the weaker child of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, which had failed to pass in 2004. Both TABOR and TPA were constitutional amendments that would have restricted the growth of government. While there were several versions and varying proposals, the TPA would have essentially restricted the increase of government spending to inflation plus population growth. The goal of both TABOR and TPA was to keep our government from growing faster than our ability to pay for it.

While the TPA was a fairly modest proposal to rein in government spending, it failed to pass. Since then, the population of Wisconsin has increased by 2.4 percent, median household income has decreased by 8.1 percent, but state and local government spending has increased by a whopping 23.8 percent. With the utter failure of Wisconsin’s politicians to restrain their spending within the confines of the taxpayers’ ability to pay, perhaps the next legislature will have the courage to take up TABOR again and protect future generations from their elected leaders’ largesse.

Many things have changed in the last 10 years, but many things remain the same. One thing that remains the same is that this column continues to appear every week in these pages to discuss current issues. I look forward to looking back 520 more columns from now and reading about what was going on way back in 2016.

Thank you all for reading.

 

Missed It By That Much

by | 0711, 17 Feb 1616 | , | 0 Comments

I missed an anniversary. On February 7th, 2006, my first column ran in the West Bend Daily News. That’s 10 years of columns – 500+ for a total of over 350,000 words. The blog predated the column by about three years. I had been blogging for a while and gaining some notoriety. At that point, blogs were still a relatively new medium and newspapers were trying to figure out how to keep relevant in the internet age. Conley management made the decision to reach out and include some prominent local bloggers, like James Wigderson and me, on their opinion pages.

The article introducing me to the pages of the Daily News said:

The Daily News Opinion page just got a little more locally opinionated on Tuesdays.

A new column by Internet blogger Owen B. Robinson of West Bend is beginning today.

For Robinson, opinion writing is an extension of his nature.

“I care about issues. I have a philosophy and approach to the world that I would like to see spread.

“Why do people write opinion columns? Because they’re opinionated and they think they’re right about everything.”

Not much has changed. And to prove that not much has changed, below is my first column. It was advocating for ending the county sales tax, which continues to live on. And Herb Tennies is retiring this year.

In 1998, Washington County was in a bit of a pickle.  Several large capital improvement projects, like an expansion of the University of Wisconsin Washington County, the courthouse addition, and new Highway Department facilities, were looming and there wasn’t going to be enough tax revenue to pay for them.  In the face of a crisis, the County Board did what governments always do – they raised taxes.

In this case, the new tax came in the form of a half penny county sales tax.  They also designated part of the sales tax to be used for debt service, but that didn’t kick in until three years ago.  Since 1999, the sales tax has removed over $49,400,000 from the pockets of people who choose to spend money in Washington County.  Since the new sales tax was primarily for one time expenses, the County Board put in a provision that says that the County Board can vote to stop collecting the tax in 2006 – this year.  If no vote is taken to stop the tax, then the tax will continue indefinitely.

In September of last year, the County Board passed an advisory resolution to continue the tax by a vote of 21-6.  The advisory resolution was necessary to gauge the board’s intentions on the tax so that county officials could properly budget.  Obviously, the board’s intention is to continue the tax.

A week from today, on February 14th, the County Board will vote on how to allocate this soon-to-be-perpetual tax.  The current plan is to spend 40%-50% of the revenue on debt relief and property tax relief, and the remainder on new capital spending.  The ratio will shift in later years and more of the revenue will be spent on property tax relief.

Given that the original reason for the tax has long since passed, why does the board want to continue it, you ask?  I’m glad you asked.

Some time ago, I called my county supervisor, Herb Tennies, and asked him the same thing.  He was very friendly and took a great deal of time to speak with me.  It’s a shame that he’s completely wrong.  He gave three basic arguments.

First, he said that approximately 25% of sales tax revenue comes from people outside of the county.  So, he argued, people from outside of the county are subsidizing Washington County, which is a good thing.

While this may be true, it is also true that 75% of the tax is still paid by the people of Washington County.  Furthermore, isn’t it a tad inappropriate to force people from outside the county to pay for our county government?  After all, the people of Washington County are the ones that use the county services, so we should pay for them if we want them.

Second, Mr. Tennies said that the sales tax is used to prevent property taxes from increasing.  He said that he will only vote to continue the sales tax if 50% of it is used for property tax relief starting in 2009.

It was silly to use one tax to offset another tax.  After all, the tax burden is the same.  It just comes from a different pocket.  It must also be noted that property taxes are tax deductible for federal taxes.  The sales tax is not.

Beyond that truth, we have too often been told that one tax will be used to reduce another tax and then seen both taxes go up.  The resolution says that 50% of the sales tax is to be used to reduce property taxes in 2009, but that’s three years away.  It only takes one vote by the board to change that.  Frankly, I will be shocked if 50% of the sales tax will be used for property tax relief in 2009.

Herb’s third reason for wanting to continue the tax was that the county needs the money.  He listed off a few projects for which they “need” the money.  It didn’t seem to occur to him that the county could “just say no” to some of the spending.  This mind set of his is far too typical in government and is why our taxes are so high.

Ifwe continue to leave this revenue stream in front of politicians, they will continue to find excuses to spend it.  This reminds us of two cardinal rules of government:

1) Any money left in control of government will be spent.

2) Any tax created will never be removed, even if the original justification for the tax is gone.

The reason that the County Board gave the taxpayers for levying a sales tax has long since expired.  This County Board should honor its promise to the taxpayers and vote to kill the sales tax.

Thanks for reading, folks.

Justice Scalia slips the surly bonds of Earth

by | 0631, 16 Feb 1616 | , | 6 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here it is:

Justice Antonin Scalia, the intellectual mainspring of the conservative wing of the Supreme Court appointed by President Ronald Reagan, is no more. Known for his brilliant opinions and clarity of expression, Scalia occupies a rare space in American legal history with the likes of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis Brandeis, Hugo Black and John Marshall.

With Scalia’s passing, the balance of the Supreme Court has been thrown into the political sphere. While it may feel unseemly to discuss the jurist’s replacement before his family has had time to grieve, it is necessary for our Republic to begin the discussion. The result of that decision will likely shape the high court for decades to come.

Before contemplating the ramifications and political consequences triggered by Scalia’s untimely death, we must lament the fact that those ramifications and political consequences are so gigantic. It was never meant to be. Our nation’s founders did not intend for the federal government to be such a large institution that has so much impact on our daily lives. Nor did they intend for the Supreme Court to be the final arbiter of all American legal and cultural matters. The Supreme Court was intended to be one of three balanced, equal branches of government charged with upholding the very limited scope of the federal government the Constitution created.

Yet that is no longer the case and we must deal with the reality in which we live. The Supreme Court has become a powerful institution whose decisions reach into every part of our lives, from deciding who may marry whom, what guns we may keep and bear, when it is acceptable to kill an unborn child, what health care we may use and much more. The reality is that we have granted nine lawyers in Washington, D.C., almost unlimited power to issue decrees big and small to an allegedly free people.

Most recently, the power of the court has been roughly divided between four judicially conservative justices who seek to interpret the Constitution according to its original meaning, and four judicially liberal justices who view the Constitution as a living document that allows for judicial interpretation leading to desirable outcomes. Then there is one justice who sits in the middle, but usually leans toward the conservative wing of the court. Of course, the balance of the court is not fixed and has often swung far to the left — as it did in the first ruling about Obamacare.

Scalia was the bedrock of the conservative wing of the Supreme Court. His passing means that a liberal President Barack Obama has the opportunity to appoint a liberal replacement and tip the balance of the court decidedly more liberal. Unfortunate as it is, the person who replaces Scalia will likely be more important and have more long-lasting impact on American society than the person who replaces Obama.

Fortunately, we are already deep into an election year to elect Obama’s replacement. There is no constitutional requirement that Scalia’s replacement be selected immediately, nor is it uncommon for the court to conduct business with a justice or two absent. The business of the court can continue apace until an appropriate replacement is found.

With that being the case, the next Supreme Court Justice should be chosen by the next president. By preserving the appointment for the next president, the American people will have an active and immediate voice in selecting not only the next president, but also the balance of the Supreme Court. Given the importance of the issues that are adjudicated by the court, the serendipitous opportunity for the American people to choose both their next president and the makeup of the Supreme Court is not one to be ignored. Every senator — both Republican and Democrat — should assure the American people they will not confirm an appointment until the people have had the opportunity to let their will be known through the vote.

As a final note, Scalia had a fulfilling and consequential legal career. He was married to Maureen for 55 years, and had nine kids and 28 grandchildren. He died in his sleep after a day of quail hunting with an unshakable faith that Jesus had assured his eternity. We should all hope to be so fortunate.

Clear Choices for West Bend School Board

by | 0653, 9 Feb 1616 | | 4 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Please note that there is a factual error in the column. I identified Kris Beaver as the treasurer for Tiffany Larson when, in fact, he is the treasurer for Jenn Donath. I rearranged the column a couple of times before sending it in and that fact got mixed up. That’s the explanation, but it’s no excuse. I apologize to Tiffany Larson for the error.

Here it is:

There are five candidates running for two seats on the West Bend School Board this spring. On Feb. 16, the voters will narrow the field to four candidates, with the two winners being elected April 5. Voters in the school district are fortunate to have a relatively varied group of candidates.

Before we whittle down our choices, each of the candidates deserves a hearty “thank you” for being willing to serve on the school board. Though not without rewards, serving on a school board is a time-consuming, frustrating and often thankless job. Those who are willing to step up in service to their community are to be commended, even if they do not win the opportunity to do so. I enjoyed meeting with each of the candidates and hearing their passion for our school district.

As the only incumbent on the ballot, Randy Marquardt knows full well what public service entails. Marquardt has been a member of the School Board since 2010 and currently serves as the board president. Marquardt’s leadership has been commendable. Under his leadership, the West Bend School District has opened an on-site clinic for staff and teachers that has helped control the district’s health care costs while providing a popular service for the district’s employees.

During Marquardt’s tenure, the district has also opened the Pathways Charter School, started a 4K program, expanded Silverbrook Intermediate School, expanded vocational offerings and much more. Perhaps most impressive is the news we no longer hear. When Marquardt first ran for School Board, the district’s facilities were in a constant state of crisis due to previous board decisions to defer major maintenance needs. These recurring crises prompted multiple referendum requests that drove community division. Marquardt ran on a promise to address the district’s facilities issues and has delivered on that promise. Maintenance is no longer being deferred and the district is even setting aside money every year for the eventual replacement of Jackson Elementary without need for another referendum.

Marquardt’s consistent conservative leadership has earned him another term on the school board.

The remaining four candidates are running for School Board for the first time. Jenn Donath is a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and frequent parent volunteer at McLane Elementary. Donath is a member of the steering committee for the recently formed Benders for Better Public Education group. She considers teacher morale and poor communication to be some of the biggest issues in the district. Donath proudly defends her decision to sign the petition to recall Gov. Scott Walker and ardently opposes School Choice. Donath’s views on education and the district’s priorities stray too far from my own to earn my vote.

Tiffany Larson was compelled to run for the School Board after her husband, Ron Larson, was not selected for the East girls basketball varsity coaching job he wanted last year. In the wake of that decision, Ron Larson resigned as West Bend East’s junior varsity boys basketball coach and Booster Club president — presumably in protest. Tiffany Larson considers the hiring process to be a symptom of a flawed decision-making process by the district’s administration that opened a crack in the door for her School Board candidacy.

Like Donath, Larson considers the most pressing issues in the district to be teacher morale and a failure of the district’s leadership to address that morale. She is heavily supported by the Benders for Better Public Education group and other prominent liberals in the community — including the liberal former board member Kris Beaver, who serves as her campaign’s treasurer. As with Donath, Larson is too liberal to earn my vote.

The final two candidates offer a conservative choice for voters but come from different perspectives. Bob Miller is a 1995 graduate of West Bend West with kids in the district. As selfprofessed band geek who loves driving the bus for West Bend’s band, Miller’s priority is to keep the district moving in the positive direction of the past few years. He supports a diversified educational offering, including technical and mechanical opportunities, and wants to bring social workers back into the district by reprioritizing spending.

Ken Schmidt is a 36-year resident of the district and husband of a public school teacher. With a Masters in Social Work from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and 27 years as a member of the Board of Regents for Bethany Lutheran College, Schmidt’s priorities are to improve educational outcomes through a systematic review of the curriculum programs and testing regimens utilized by the district, continue to put away money for future building needs, and encourage parent and employee input. Schmidt believes in being a good steward of the taxpayers’ dollars and first became active with the school district because of concerns for the financial management of the district.

While Miller and Schmidt are both solid conservative choices, my second vote will go to Schmidt. His greater experience with oversight of an educational institution and focus on fiscal discipline tipped the scale for me.

The only other election on the ballot for most people in the West Bend School District is the primary for Supreme Court Justice, in which incumbent Justice Rebecca Bradley is the clear conservative choice. In-person absentee voting is available until Friday. Please take a few minutes and vote to keep the West Bend School Board moving in the right direction.

Choice spreads throughout Wisconsin

by | 0641, 2 Feb 1616 | , | 4 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here it is:

Wisconsin has long been a state in which labor unions have thrived. With the state’s strong manufacturing and mining background, it always seemed natural that many Wisconsinites would be members of a union. As it turns out, it wasn’t so natural after all.

The most recent report about union membership from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that union membership in Wisconsin dropped precipitously in the last year. Between 2014 and 2015, membership declined by a whopping 29 percent to the lowest level in modern times. This was the largest single-year drop in union membership of any state in the union. Only 8.3 percent of Wisconsin’s workers are union members.

While the data does not attribute the cause of such a decline in union membership, it is not difficult to discern the reason. In 2015, the Wisconsin Legislature passed right-to-work legislation and Gov. Scott Walker signed it into law.

Prior to 2015, Wisconsin was a forced-unionization state. If a labor union convinced a company’s workers to unionize, then people who worked for that company were required to be members of the union as a condition of employment forevermore. Generations later, workers were still required to be a member of the union even though they never had the opportunity to vote on it.

Right-to-work is common in other regions — particularly the South — and is a simple concept based on workers’ rights. It says that a worker cannot be forced to be a member of union as a condition of employment. Workers can, of course, join a union of their free will. But just as the government should not force a person to be a member of the Masons, Rotary, Republican Party or other private organizations to work, nor should it force a person to be a member of a union as a condition of their employment. With the freedom to choose, 83,000 Wisconsin workers chose not to be a member of a union last year.

The last time Wisconsin had such a large drop in union membership was after the passage of Act 10 in 2011. In the year after Act 10, total union membership in Wisconsin dropped by almost 16 percent. Act 10 was essentially rightto- work for most government workers, but it did not go into effect until after the contracts in place at the time expired. As such, many unionized workers did not have the choice to leave the union for several years after Act 10 was passed.

When looking at union membership in Wisconsin since the passage of Act 10 and including the passage of right to work last year, union membership declined almost 38 percent as Wisconsin’s workers decided that being a member of a union was not right for them.

While it is wonderful to see the progression of liberty in Wisconsin as most of us are allowed to exercise our First Amendment right to belong to a private organization without the intervention of our government either way, there remains one bastion of forced unionization left untouched by both Act 10 and right to work. Police and firefighters are still forced to be in a union if they want to serve the public in either of those capacities.

When the new Legislature begins its session next year, it should take up the task of extending the same right to choose to police and firefighters as has been extended to the rest of Wisconsin’s workers. There is no reason why some of the best among us — our first responders — should not have the same ability to exercise their freedom of association as the rest of us. Given the nature of their jobs, maintaining their unions might well be in their best interests. But that should not be determined by the people who did the job 80 years ago when they were first unionized. It should be determined by the people doing the job today.

The case for self-insuring state employees

by | 0729, 26 Jan 1616 | | 0 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. I’ll warn you… it’s a bland topic. I tried to spice it up as much as I could.

Gov. Scott Walker’s fifth State of the State speech last week was primarily a defense of his leadership to date and was most notable for its lack of grand ideas that have defined his tenure. Walker did, however, highlight one initiative that should be advanced. Wisconsin should self-insure its employees’ health care.

Wisconsin spends about $1.1 billion per year to provide health insurance for its employees in 18 separate health insurance plans. A study by Segal Consulting commissioned by the state Department of Employee Trust Funds last year determined the state could save about $42 million per year by self-insuring.

In doing so, the state takes on the responsibility of collecting premiums, managing health plans and paying claims. This puts the state at financial risk should the cost of claims exceed the premiums collected, but it is a small risk given the number of state employees to be covered.

This is why governments and businesses self-insuring their employees has become a very common and increasing trend — especially since the passage of Obamacare.

In 2013, 58.2 percent of American workers with health care coverage were in self-insured plans, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute. That is up from 40.9 percent in 1998. Most of the businesses that self-insure are large companies with 1,000 or more employees. These include some of Wisconsin’s keystone businesses like Briggs & Stratton, Kohler, Kwik Trip, S. C. Johnson & Son, Schneider National and others.

Self-insurance is also common in governments. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 46 states self-insure at least some of their employee health care plans and 20 states self-insure all of their health plans. In Wisconsin, many of the larger cities and other governments self-insure, including Madison, Milwaukee, Appleton, Green Bay, Brown County, Milwaukee County, Washington County, Waukesha County, Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District and others.

The switch to self-insure is not an easy one. For the state to accomplish it, it would have to triple cash reserves to cover claims and either build a department to administer the plan or contract one or more private companies to do that administration. But while transitioning the state to self-insurance is not a task to be taken lightly, it is certainly not an untrodden path.

While state taxpayers stand to save millions by selfinsuring, the source of those savings is more interesting. According to the study, the state would save $11 million in administration fees and $11 million that constitutes the current insurance providers’ profits, the lion’s share of the savings — $18.3 million in 2018 and more in subsequent years — would come from the state avoiding Obamacare fees. The study did not include savings from the Obamacare excise tax on health insurance that is scheduled to start in 2018 on some of the state’s current plans. Yes, the vaunted “Affordable” Care Act is anything but affordable.

The opposition to the state self-insuring is coming primarily from the folks who stand to lose out if the state takes this step. The organizations representing the insurance companies that provide health insurance plans for the state’s employees and some union leaders who fear a decline in coverage are voicing opposition. But some folks are also concerned about disrupting Wisconsin’s private health care market by such a huge shift in the landscape. Such points are not without merit, but they do not justify state taxpayers spending at least $42 million per year more than they should to provide health care insurance for their employees.

In Walker’s State of the State, he expressed his goal to take savings generated by self-insuring and spend that money on K-12 education. Doing so is likely a political calculation by Walker to gain support from Democrats for the change in health insurance and to give legislators a spending boost for education as most of them ask the voters to re-elect them in November.

While politically smart, it is bad policy. Dumping more money into government spending for the sake of spending more money is never good policy. Given that Walker has increased state government spending in each budget he has signed, this is an opportunity to return savings to the taxpayers. If taxpayers want to spend more on their local K-12 schools, we can do so through our local school districts via referendum, if necessary.

Campus carry bill should be a no-brainer

by | 0558, 19 Jan 1616 | , | 2 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here it is:

The Wisconsin Legislature is back in session for a short time before they go home for the year to run for re-election. This November, a third of the Senate and every seat in the Assembly is on the ballot. Normally this session is a quiet one in which only mundane and procedural initiatives are addressed as legislators seek to avoid controversy before asking the citizens for their votes.

Some legislators, however, are willing to risk controversy in order to advance bills to better Wisconsin. Senate President Mary Lazich, R-New Berlin, and Rep. Robert Brooks, R-Saukville, introduced a bill last week to allow more latitude for people licensed to carry a concealed weapon in Wisconsin to carry their weapons on K-12 school grounds.

Under current law, people who are licensed are permitted to carry their weapons in most places in Wisconsin, including college campuses, restaurants, stores, taverns and any private property unless the owners prohibit it. But they are not allowed to carry their weapons on K-12 campuses at all — even locked and unloaded in their vehicles. It is a crime to do so.

Lazich’s and Brooks’ bill would allow licensed people to carry their concealed weapons on campus grounds and leave it up to local school boards to decide if they would allow people to carry their weapons in school buildings.

The immediate problem the bill seeks to solve is that roughly 5 percent of Wisconsinites are licensed to carry concealed weapons and they become instant felons if they drop off their kids at school with a gun with them. There is no rational reason why parents who carry a weapon, who pose no danger to anyone who is not trying to harm them, should have to surrender their constitutional rights or run afoul of the law just to drive through a parking lot while transporting their kids.

But the bill also addresses the larger problem of blanket prohibition of firearms in schools. By allowing local school boards the latitude to define the parameters by which people will be allowed or prohibited to carry weapons in schools, those school boards would have more tools available to them for addressing school safety while being responsive to their constituents’ wishes.

For example, a school district could allow only former military or law enforcement personnel to carry their weapons. Or perhaps allow it for everyone, but only after registering with the office. Or maybe only allow district employees to carry weapons. Or the school district could maintain an absolute ban on weapons. Whatever the case, the proposed law would put that decision into the hands of locally elected leaders.

As expected, the anti-liberty crowd has gone into full fever pitch at the mere suggestion of allowing guns in schools. Mayor Tom Barrett, who presides over the city ranked as the seventh most dangerous in America in 2015 (up from 10th place in 2014), went as far as to call the measure “insane,” as if his prescriptions to mitigate violent crime have been successful.

We have heard these lamentations before. We heard them before concealed carry was passed into law in 2011. We heard them before Texas allowed open carry this year. We have heard them every time people seek to exercise and protect their Second Amendment rights. And those lamentations and predictions of doom have universally failed to come true. In fact, even now, 18 states already allow guns in schools with no or minor conditions and there have not been any negative consequences in those schools.

All constitutional rights are subject to some restrictions. The standard should be whether or not the government has a vital interest in restricting a right. In this case, there is no data to support the contention that allowing licensed concealed-carry holders to carry their weapons on campus decreases safety. In contrast, there is some reason to believe that allowing campus carry would enhance safety by allowing a good guy with a gun to mitigate the damage caused by a bad guy with a gun.

Unfortunately, the Republican leadership in the legislature has already signaled that this bill is not likely to see a vote in this session. They are not willing to risk controversy — even if the facts and tenets of liberty are on their side. If that proves to be the case, let us hope this is one of the first bills brought up when they are ready to get back to serious lifting of the people’s business.

 

John Doe prosecutors violate opponents’ privacy

by | 0649, 12 Jan 1616 | , | 3 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here you go:

We knew the John Doe prosecutors had abused their power and authority in their remorseless pursuit of Wisconsin conservatives for being politically active, but the revelations of last week still took one’s breath away with the sheer scope of their sleaziness.

For a quick background, the socalled John Doe II investigation was an illegal undertaking that came after prosecutors were told to shut down the first John Doe investigation. Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm and special prosecutor Francis D. Schmitz were illegally pursuing exclusively conservative political activists for coordinating with candidates, which several courts have ruled is not even a crime. Most recently, the Wisconsin Supreme Court, in a firmly worded ruling, ordered the John Doe II investigation shut down and the collected materials be destroyed.

As part of their ruling, the Wisconsin Supreme Court also ordered the prosecution to inform everyone from whom they collected “evidence” about what records they seized in either John Doe investigations. Schmitz’s court filing last week informed the court that he had completed the task and sent out a stunning 159 notices to people and organizations.

Many of the target of the investigations are choosing to remain anonymous because they likely do not want their lives disrupted anymore, but thankfully, some are telling their stories. One of those is a long-time Wisconsin conservative activist who owns a media consulting firm, Brian Fraley.

Fraley was informed by Schmitz that he had seized four years — from Jan. 1, 2009, through Oct. 19, 2013 — of virtually everything Fraley had done online. That included all emails (including personal emails, emails with his attorney, emails about his health care, etc.), tax returns, online passwords, bank statements, credit card statements, health records and more. The prosecutors obtained all of this by subpoenaing Fraley’s Internet provider and Google, and never even told Fraley about it until now — more than two years later.

There are a tremendous number of outrageous aspects to the prosecutor’s actions, but let us highlight the big ones. First, Schmitz, in his continued insubordination to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, did not even comply with the order to inform people what he and his cronies had seized. Schmitz’s letter to Fraley said that he had seized information from a time period, but did not contain a catalogue of what was taken or held. Nor did it contain information about who had access to Fraley’s private information, how many copies there were, or where it was being held.

Second, the scope of the data collection is truly offensive. Bear in mind that Fraley was never a target of the investigation and had not been accused of doing anything wrong. Yet the prosecutors collected a vast amount of personal information about him and his family that would make the National Security Agency blush. The scope indicates the prosecutors were simply fishing for something — anything — with which to slander conservatives. In doing so, they blatantly abused their power and invaded a private citizen’s privacy to an intolerable degree.

Third, for part of the time period of the data collection, Fraley was writing for the John K. MacIver Institute for Public Policy and was particularly vocal in criticizing the Government Accountability Board (GAB), the rouge government agency that the Legislature is disbanding in a few months. The GAB worked in concert with the John Doe prosecutors in hunting conservative activists in the state. The fact that a rogue government agency partnered with partisan prosecutors to secretly scoop up years worth of personal information from one of their critics is beyond troubling — it is scary.

It is easy to discount the seriousness of what happened to Fraley as just another political hullabaloo, but it could happen to any of us. A rabid prosecutor used a secret process to scoop up years of personal information of a political critic without notifying him even though he was never accused of any wrongdoing. Imagine if it happened to you. Imagine a prosecutor was rifling through every email, tax return, medical record, chat, text, Internet search, browser history and more for something — anything — to use against you. And even if the prosecutor can’t find any crimes, his office has not been above selectively leaking sensitive and embarrassing snippets to the media. Still think it is not serious?

Chisholm and Schmitz have shown just what a motivated, vindictive, unethical prosecutor can do with the secrecy afforded by the John Doe laws. Late last year, the Legislature acted to reform the John Doe process. They should revisit that legislation and scrap the John Doe laws completely. If someone has committed a crime, then let them be prosecuted in the light of day with the full armor of their constitutional protections. Forty-nine other states do just fine without the John Doe laws and so should Wisconsin.

Obama goes after 2nd Amendment rights

by | 0645, 5 Jan 1616 | , , | 30 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here you go:

Previous presidents were rightly relegated to lame duck status in their final year of office as members of Congress begin to look ahead to the next president’s priorities. Fresh off his annual vacation in Hawaii, President Barack Obama has found a way to overcome his lame duck status by simply usurping Congress and unilaterally taking action on his priorities.

After months of study on how to undermine federal law and centuries of constitutional protections, the president is planning to roll out a series of executive actions designed to undermine Americans’ Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. While Obama has not revealed the specifics yet, anti-Second Amendment zealots close to the administration are saying that he will take executive action to enact regulations on the private sales of firearms and dump more money into enforcement agencies.

Obama is justifying his executive overreach by complaining that Congress has failed to act on gun control in the wake of highly publicized murders committed with firearms over the past few years. There are two things wrong with Obama’s justification. First, Congress did act. In the wake of the killings in Newtown, several gun control bills were offered and, after consideration and debate, Congress said no. What Obama is frustrated by is not that Congress failed to act, but that they did not do what Obama wanted.

The second problem with Obama’s justification for action is that it is no justification at all. Nowhere in our Constitution does it allow the executive branch to make law because the Legislative branch decided not to. In fact, our Constitution intentionally set up a process that requires both houses of the legislative branch and the executive branch to all act to pass a law. That system of checks and balances was designed by our founders to protect the liberties of Americans from the ravages of tyrannical rule. In this case, Obama’s agenda was checked. He did not like it, so he is planning to act unilaterally. Such are the actions of a tyrant.

The main action Obama plans to take is to manipulate rules and legal definitions to require background checks on the private sale of firearms. Obama will spin this action by saying he is “closing the gun-show loophole.” The so-called gun-show loophole is an invention of the anti-Second Amendment zealots to stir up opposition.

There are only three types of firearms sales. The first are sales by licensed firearms dealers. These sales are already heavily regulated and the sellers are required to conduct a background check before releasing the firearm to the buyer. Incidentally, the vast majority of sellers at gun shows are licensed dealers that already conduct background checks — as are online sellers.

The second kind of firearm sales are the illegal ones. Even in private sales, it is illegal for felons and crooks to purchase a firearm for the purpose of committing a crime, but it happens all the time. The vast majority of the crimes committed with guns are committed by a relatively small minority of repeat criminal offenders using firearms that are obtained illegally, possessed illegally, or both. The executive action Obama is planning to make will have absolutely no impact on these kinds of sales.

The third kind of firearm sales are private sales. These sales are anything from the investor who sells the occasional firearm out of her collection to the guy who trades his old shotgun for his neighbor’s snow blower. The law does not require a background check in these sales, but the anti-Second Amendment activists want to change that. The executive actions Obama is planning to make are targeting these kinds of sales with more regulations and cost, even though guns used in crimes are rarely obtained in these kinds of sales.

The reason that anti-Second Amendment folks target private firearm sales for regulation is because it would create a de facto national gun registry. Americans have rightly opposed efforts to create a national gun registry in the past because it is a precursor to all kinds of onerous restrictions, including outright gun confiscation. It is vastly more difficult for the government to confiscate what it does not know people have.

Lest we forget, the founders did not write the Second Amendment into our Constitution to preserve our right to hunt or protect ourselves. The reason for the Second Amendment is written right into the Declaration of Independence: “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” The Second Amendment is one of those new guards.

In a nutshell, the actions Obama wants to take will not actually do anything to combat the problem of crimes committed with firearms that he cites as the reason for acting. And we have a president who is acting to unilaterally and unconstitutionally restrict the people’s constitutional right that was specifically put in place to protect the people from presidents acting unilaterally and unconstitutionally.

Obama may only have a year left in office, but he can do immeasurable damage to our nation and our liberties in that time that will take years to undo — if ever.

Wisconsin is still a property tax hell

by | 0819, 29 Dec 1515 | | 4 Comments

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here it is:

As we finish up 2015, many of us are making the yearly trek to City Hall to pay our property tax bills. As one of the “big three” taxes in Wisconsin, property taxes continue to be very high. Wisconsin has the fourth highest property tax burden in the nation, according to the Tax Foundation. There has been some positive movement, however, and Republican legislators are continuing to make efforts to help Wisconsin property tax payers.

According to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the estimated property tax bill for a median-valued home in Wisconsin increased 0.6 percent in 2015, but that is after four consecutive years of property tax decreases. Overall, property taxes on a median-valued Wisconsin home are down about 4 percent since Gov. Scott Walker was elected and Act 10 was passed.

The property tax impact on individual Wisconsinites vary greatly depending on where one lives. Act 10 gave local governments some great tools to control spending and taxes, but those tools are only as good as the local elected officials who wield them. Those of us in West Bend are faring better than average. As I look at my property tax bill, which includes taxes for the city of West Bend, Washington County, West Bend School District, Moraine Park Technical College and the State of Wisconsin, the average tax rate is down about 5 percent since 2010 — more than the state average.

The reason residents of West Bend are faring better than most Wisconsinites on their property tax bills is because our local taxing jurisdictions have been exercising some fiscal discipline, using the tools available from Act 10, and keeping taxes from increasing while maintaining quality government services. It is true there is a lot more they could do to benefit the citizens they serve, but they are doing better than most.

Some state legislators are continuing to look for ways to follow up the gigantic success of Act 10 with ways to control property taxes. Sen. Duey Stroebel and Rep. Michael Schraa have proposed a bill that would limit the ability of school districts to manipulate the referendum process to their advantage.

Currently, state law limits how much school boards can increase property taxes, but the school boards can ask the voters to exceed those limits through a referendum. School boards have typically asked to exceed the limits for large capital projects, but some have also asked for more taxes for normal operating expenses. But the key is that the school board must make the case to the voters and the local district voters get to decide.

The problem is that some school boards have sought to manipulate the referendum process to engineer a “yes” vote. With any referendum, the voters can vote “no” repeatedly, but they only need to vote “yes” once. So what some school boards have done is to propose a ridiculous referendum knowing it will likely fail. Then they ask for another referendum in short order that is still ridiculous, but slightly cut down to give the veneer of reasonableness. They repeat the process until the voters are worn down and vote for the referendum.

Some school boards also schedule referendum votes on odd dates — like the middle of January — when nothing else is on the ballot and the special interests are far more motivated to show up at the polls. All of these little sleights of hand by some school boards warp the process and are designed to juice what is supposed to be a fair, reasoned local debate about whether or not to increase taxes more than state law allows.

Stroebel and Schraa’s bill would do two main things. First, it would require school boards only schedule referendum votes during a normally scheduled spring or fall election. This is a common-sense measure that not only ensures the highest possible turnout for the vote, but also protects taxpayers from having to pay for an abnormal election schedule.

The second thing the bill would require is for school boards to wait at least a year between referendums. This is another common-sense measure that prevents voters from being hammered with repeated referenda until a recalcitrant school board gets its tax increase. It also encourages school boards to be more thoughtful before putting a referendum to the voters. If they only get one shot per year, they are more likely to put their most reasonable, carefully thought out proposal up the first time instead of playing games.

These simple changes to the referendum process still allow ample local control for citizens of school districts to raise their taxes if they so choose while still providing some protections for the rest of the state and federal taxpayers who pay for 53 percent of all school spending. If Wisconsin is ever going to get out of the top five states with the highest property taxes, it will take much more aggressive discipline from local elected officials as well as further reform from state lawmakers. This bill is a good, if small, next step.

Login | Register

Archives

Categories

Pin It on Pinterest