January 2005
January 27, 2005
McCain, Feingold, and the pundits
By Bill Kraus
The consensus among the pundits is that the new federal campaign finance reform law did not work.
The consensus is wrong. Within the statute's limited objectives (many of its more expansive objectives were compromised out in the legislative process in search of a majority and to avoid a presidential veto) the law worked just fine. And it had a couple of desirable side effects. It drove the soft money out of the parties into the open where it could be identified and attacked. And it emphasized a fundamental truth about the reform issue.
The 527 excesses have even rattled the cage of the Republicans who are (or were) ideologically opposed to any reform. They find they have lost something they want and need: control of their own campaigns (and destinies). Clearly the 527s are and/or should be the next target for reform.
The other desirable side effect of the 2004 experience is that the rampant dodges around the law's intent in the 2004 election proved what those who are looking for reform have known all along: Campaign reform was, is, and always will be a work in process. It has to be an item on the permanent agenda, because the reformers likely will always fight the last war. The ingenious inventors of new ideas to make their money heard and to hijack campaigns with issue money will always be a step ahead.
So, yes, reform plays catch-up. But playing catch-up is better than standing still and being steamrolled by the parties, the 527s, and whatever is the next route to power that Big Money happens to find.
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January 25, 2005
Dumb DOMA
By Josh Healey
My parents divorced when I was 13. Amid all the anger and confusion that I felt, never once did I stop and think, “Hey, the reason my parents’ marriage fell apart is simple: gays.” Yet this is exactly the absurd logic used by the Republican and Democratic legislators who are supporting the wrongly named Defense of Marriage Amendment (DOMA).
Let’s be honest: denying gay and lesbian couples the ability to have their relationships legally recognized will not “defend” the 50 percent of heterosexual marriages that end in divorce, not even those of state Senator Dave Zien, a DOMA supporter who happens to be a three-time divorcee.
DOMA, which passed both houses of the Legislature last session and could be put to a statewide referendum as soon as April if it is approved again before then, would do more than ban already-illegal gay marriage, however. It would also invalidate “legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage,” including civil unions and domestic partnerships—thus granting Wisconsin the distinction of passing one of the harshest pro-discrimination laws in the nation.
One would think that a Democratic governor would be a strong leader in this struggle for equal rights. Yet while Governor Jim Doyle has stated his opposition to DOMA, he has barely put up a fight and did not even mention it in his State of the State address this month. Therefore, it is up to us, the people, as usual, to speak truth to power.
Action Wisconsin is sponsoring an anti-DOMA lobby day this Thursday, January 27, at the Capitol, followed by a 3:30 rally inside the rotunda. Make sure you come out to “defend” what is right.
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January 22, 2005
Bush’s liberty, Bush’s freedom
By Arvonne Fraser
Freedom, liberty, "evil is real," and the answer is an ownership society? Call me a mushy liberal if you like but President Bush's inaugural address certainly lacked warmth and any sense of compassion for or understanding of those less fortunate than he and his friends who reveled at the pricey inaugural events as Iraq goes up in flames and our soldiers die.
Despite his mentioning women having rights and his not welcoming "humiliation and servitude," I'm wary. "[C]ommunities with standards," scares me, as does his line "fire in the minds of men." A bully pulpit speech it certainly was.
While relying on men and women to "look after a neighbor and surround the lost with love" are lofty sentiments, I wonder how that squares with the ownership society and "the governing of the self." It implies to me that we only step in when disaster strikes rather than working together to prevent disasters. Do we really want to go back to the days Dickens describes so well in his novels of abject poverty alongside a rich aristocracy?
It is time progressives began seriously questioning the path this nation is being led down. It is time we begin analyzing what speeches like these really mean. It is time to think long term, look at the potential consequences of these words. While freedom and liberty are great principles, if carried to their extreme in an individualistic frame of mind with fire in the mind, watch out.
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January 21, 2005
A campaign system only an incumbent could love (part seven of seven)
By Bill Kraus
Over the course of the last 30 years a campaign system has evolved in this country that is driven by money, beholden to special interests, and has alienated independents and political moderates of all persuasions. While the 2004 election (estimated cost $1.2 billion) was no kiss for Christmas, I still think the Wisconsin gubernatorial election of 2002 illustrated the depths to which we have descended even more dramatically.
In that election, Jim Doyle was convincingly elected by 19 percent of the eligible voters at a cost of $8.50 per vote.
I have identified seven culprits and events that got us to this pretty pass, and I have enumerated them over the course of the next seven weeks. Thank you for reading.
Culprit(s) number seven: We The People, are the ultimate and most culpable culprits.
When the parties' role was reduced by the Watergate reforms, we were either happy because we never liked them anyway, or relieved because we would no longer have to go through the caucus, convention agonies that were part and parcel of becoming party powerful.
If we noticed what the Supreme Court decreed in the Buckley v Vallejo case, we did not react.
We probably applauded or were at the very least mildly amused by Herb Kohl's creative campaign. Certainly we liked the fact that he was financing it all himself and we were not being asked to chip in.
Most people thought hired guns had always run political campaigns, and in many places they had. But in those few precincts, like Wisconsin, with a long history of volunteer, citizen politicians, the money flow made it possible to hire the campaign managers as well as the grunt workers in middle management. The displacement was gradual and virtually unnoticed by all but the activist few who were reduced to sending money and, if they were notable, putting their names on letterheads the content of which was devoted to raising even more money.
Nobody protested loudly enough or offered a financial solution to the Milwaukee Journal company's decision to give up power for money. Newspaper coverage of politics was shrinking along with the numbers of readers. Ho Hum.
The Machiavellian maneuvers of legislative leaders to acquire, retain, and expand their power is an "inside politics" game that few understand, fewer observe, and hardly anyone cares about. The fact that power is finite, and theirs expanded meant that someone else's shrunk. Ours.
By doing little and caring less we chose alienation over action. We took a pass on politics. Since we did not vote, those who did, many of whom were special interest voters, became even powerful and their agenda items rose to the top above less emotional general interest concerns.
Because we gave up the game, because we did not respond to viewers with alarm whether in the press corps or in the goodie-two-shoes organizations, it quickly became obvious to the incumbents in legislatures, county boards, and city councils in particular that they could blow us off.
We had the ultimate power, and we gave it up. Almost without a whimper.
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January 19, 2005
A state of no reform
By Don Jones
In a mass e-mail, the Doyle campaign recently highlighted newspaper quotes praising the governor's State of the State speech and asked recipients to respond with their own reactions. Here is the reply I sent to the governor's campaign:
You asked, in your e-mail, to tell you my thoughts about the State of the State speech and its coverage.
Until the governor decides to keep his promise to press for campaign reform (finance, Elections Board, Ethics Board) the rest is, essentially, useless.
He brushed over reform by simply naming it and deferring it -- again.
Failing to demand -- and lead the fight for -- clean government is a huge disappointment; he should be ashamed.
It is now 744 days since his inauguration and no reform has been accomplished.
Jim does not merit, nor will he receive, any support from me in this campaign until a tough reform bill is passed and signed into law.
(Don Jones was executive director of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin from 1983 to 1987.)
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January 16, 2005
SOS
By Mike McCabe
One newspaper account of Governor Doyle's State of the State address said the governor "threw down the gauntlet for Republicans" in a "spectacle that dramatically showed the partisan divide" at the Capitol.
If Doyle's speech is what passes for throwing down the gauntlet nowadays, that speaks volumes about how entrenched one-party rule is at our state Capitol. In a state whose motto is "Forward," the people with all the power only know how to push the rewind button.
The newspaper article said Republicans "sat silent and grim-faced with their hands folded" during the governor's speech. But inside, the rewinders had to be doing cartwheels.
Doyle again pledged to rid the state of its $1.6 billion budget shortfall without raising taxes. Meaning big cuts in services. Meaning another big tuition hike for students and an even more stratified UW System. Meaning heavier reliance on fees, making the way we pay for government services ever more regressive.
There are more than 600,000 people without health insurance in Wisconsin, and hundreds of thousands more who are a pink slip away from not being able to take their kids to the doctor. But there was no clarion call for health care reform in Doyle's speech.
Unemployment has reached 59 percent among African American males in Milwaukee. Seventy-five years ago, a 25 percent jobless rate was called a Great Depression. What do you call 59 percent? The governor didn't call it anything. And he did not offer a way out, either.
The reason for these oversights is, of course, the worst kept secret in Wisconsin politics. Uninsured people do not make campaign contributions. Neither do unemployed black men.
But many who have no such worries do. Which explains why the governor's speech also paid no heed to something he called a "top priority" and even a "sacred commitment" while he was running for the job -- campaign finance reform.
All in all, the state of the state Capitol is bankrupt.
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January 14, 2005
A campaign system only an incumbent could love (part six of seven)
By Bill Kraus
Over the course of the last 30 years a campaign system has evolved in this country that is driven by money, beholden to special interests, and has alienated independents and political moderates of all persuasions. While the 2004 election (estimated cost $1.2 billion) was no kiss for Christmas, I still think the Wisconsin gubernatorial election of 2002 illustrated the depths to which we have descended even more dramatically.
In that election, Jim Doyle was convincingly elected by 19 percent of the eligible voters at a cost of $8.50 per vote.
I have identified seven culprits and events that got us to this pretty pass, and I will enumerate them over the course of the next seven weeks. Stay tuned.
Culprit(s) number six: Chuck Chvala, Scott Jensen and legislative leaders before and since.
With the need for money increasing to cover the costs of mounting television marketing campaigns, the legislative leaders did a couple of things to get or maintain the majorities they covet. First, they redistricted in ways that would create as many safe seats as possible so they would have enough money to concentrate on winning the few remaining swing districts. Then they used their considerable leverage on the flow of legislation to separate the factions and interest groups from their money.
This money went to legislative campaign committees run by the legislative leaders or to candidates that legislative leaders designated. It is worth noting that this kind of coercion falls short of extortion or bribery because the money did not go into the leaders' pockets. It is also worth noting that it is very hard to outsmart legislative leaders. There was a brief moment in the late 1970s when the money bypassed the leadership and undermined their power. That bypass was quickly closed.
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January 12, 2005
Neglecting the basics
By George Rogers
Out of everything that might be regrettable about Election 2004, that George W. Bush and John Kerry did not have much to say about the environment might be worst.
We have come a long way, and sometimes the wrong way, from the Earth Day enthusiasm of the early 1970s. Progress has been made in cleaning up the water and air and protecting endangered resources, but there is a lot more to do and it would have been nice to hear our presidential candidates throw some ideas out there.
A recent report to Congress said carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are the likely explanation for global warming over the last two decades. This is significant because the report was sent by James R. Mahoney, a Bush administration official and director of government climate research.
Mahoney said “the best possible scientific information” backs up the greenhouse gas theory. That is quite a change, since the White House had been sweeping the issue under the rug. In June 2002 an administration document suggested global warming had a human cause, but President Bush dismissed it with the comment that it was “put out by the bureaucracy.”
Meanwhile, little is done at any level of government to control urban sprawl, an issue of paramount importance to the environment in general and to outdoor people in particular. What is the point of protecting a hunter’s right to own guns if houses are in every woodlot and the property is off-limits to shooting?
(George Rogers is the retired publisher of the Stevens Point Journal.)
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January 11, 2005
Ashcroft notwithstanding
By Stacie Whitacre
In late 2003, I attended the Milwaukee County Democratic Party annual dinner/fundraiser at Miller Park, and had a nice discussion with Senator Feingold regarding his aspirations for higher office. At the time, I was wondering if he was gunning for the vice-president slot. He, of course, denied it vigorously, and said he was concentrating on representing Wisconsin in the United States Senate. Now, however, someone appears to be floating trial balloons for a possible presidential run in 2008. (The Journal Sentinel even had a bit of a write-up this week.) Feingold, via his surrogates, has shifted his rhetoric from vigorous denial to “no comment.” Whether or not that means anything is anyone’s guess, but it is fun to speculate.
I like Russ, and I am glad he’s my senator. In fact, there is a part of me that wants to keep him in the Senate--while greater parts understand if he wants to leave for his national aspirations. He is principled, he actually reads proposed bills, and he is a nice guy to talk to while schmoozing at the .300 Club.
I do wish he would have voted down Ashcroft, and I hope he will vote down Gonzales -- but I understand that he generally grants presidents extremely wide latitude in selecting their cabinet members. I only hope that a future Senate will grant President Feingold the same latitude.
(Editors' note: Stacie Whitacre maintains The Vast Dairy State Conspiracy Web log.)
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January 7, 2005
A campaign system only an incumbent could love (part five of seven)
By Bill Kraus
Over the course of the last 30 years a campaign system has evolved in this country that is driven by money, beholden to special interests, and has alienated independents and political moderates of all persuasions. While the 2004 election (estimated cost $1.2 billion) was no kiss for Christmas, I still think the Wisconsin gubernatorial election of 2002 illustrated the depths to which we have descended even more dramatically.
In that election, Jim Doyle was convincingly elected by 19 percent of the eligible voters at a cost of $8.50 per vote.
I have identified seven culprits and events that got us to this pretty pass, and I will enumerate them over the course of the next seven weeks. Stay tuned.
Culprit Number Five: The (Milwaukee) Journal Communications company.
The decline in political participation was accompanied by a dramatic decline in political literacy. Newspaper readership began to slip along with newspaper coverage. In Wisconsin the two state newspapers became one and then none. The most undesirable side effect of this phenomenon was that another role player, the print press, lost power, the power to validate. Candidates became self slating, self funding, and self validating. The candidate with the most money and the best ads became the candidate to watch. Sound bites for couch potatoes. A bad combination.
And the road to incumbent arrogance and even corruption was open. One thing a 10 person Capitol bureau for the two state papers did for us was make the incumbents turn square corners.
With political coverage declining and subscriber counts falling the non-aligned independents had to rely on television and talk radio for political news. Television has its virtues, but covering talking heads is not one of them, and politics is mostly talking heads. Talk radio, of course, is mis-named; it is mostly shout radio.
So the Jeffersonian dictum--if you have a choice between a free press and free elections, pick the press--came into play. With coverage and readership (and voting percentages) in decline, corruption was sure to follow. And it did.
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January 3, 2005
People, People everywhere
By Dustin Beilke
As registrations for the People's Legislature have climbed and word of mouth has spread, news coverage has followed.
It is my understanding that early registrations for the conference are now approaching 700, making the organizers' goal of 804 (one more than the number of registered lobbyists in the state) look like a real possiblity.
The always reliable Capital Times has covered the People's Legislature the best so far, with articles here and here. Surprisingly, however, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Wisconsin State Journal have also given the event its due here and here. The State Journal devoted the heart of its op-ed page to the event on Sunday, with side-by-side essays from two of the events' organizers. Several other newspapers from throughout the state have devoted some space to TPL, with some even pledging to attend. There has also been extensive broadcast coverage on Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television, Air America, WORT, WOJB, WIBA, the Wisconsin Radio Network and elsewhere.
The list of organizers, sponsors and endorsers includes Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Libertarians and Greens. Perhaps this broad base has freed the media to cover something they would have otherwise ignored if the participants had been less, shall we say, palatable. Hundreds of people talking about what government needs to do to serve the public interest ought to attract the attention of the media, but all but a few Wisconsin news outlets saw fit to ignore Fighting Bob Fest III, where more than 4,000 showed up.
It will be interesting to see where things go from here.
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