Three questions (in no particular order)

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A Wisconsin Political Fix
not just another blog
July 26, 2009

By Bill Kraus

1. It is pretty clear to almost everyone that we have a Rube Goldberg version of universal health care in this country. No one is left to die on the steps of a doctors office, a clinic, a hospital. Everyone gets treated. Late and inefficiently and expensively perhaps, but everyone who gets to a provider gets treated.

It is obvious that the people and institutions are well paid for treating all of us, insured or not.

The fact that this system is very expensive, more than twice as much per capita than health care costs in other industrialized countries, is well documented.

So if we were to change our system in ways that would reduce our costs even if what we changed to was socialized it would be rationalized as well and would cost less than what we have now.

So what are the extra trillions for?

If they are for keeping the insurance companies in the mix, my next question would be, Why would we do that? What is it that insurance companies bring to the table that has anything to do with delivering health care?

2. A lot of people seem to have noticed that a lot of stimulus money is going to governments and to the infrastructure maintenance for which governments at every level are responsible. Many of the people who have noticed this are not happy about it. My question is, “Have these people noticed that the private sector businesses and the people who lend them money and invest in their businesses are very reluctant to put money into what seems to be a dead market?”

Advertisers are not advertising. The only businesses that are still promoting their wares are pretty much in the fast food, virility, and Facebook sectors. Everyone else is looking at the wreckage of a consumer-driven, automobile-obsessed, housing-bubble market and trying to figure out where we go from here. Manufacturing? Manufacturing what? For sale to whom? Services? Services are pretty much taking in each others’ laundry.

The economists got what they wished for. They got people to start saving more and spending less. Another answered prayer gone awry.

Has anybody anywhere, not just anybody in the government who is throwing money around, figured out what the next American economy is going to look like and when it is likely to arrive?

3. Do those who talk about “recovery” think we are going back to status quo ante? Are they deluded?


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What a tangled wedge we weave

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A Wisconsin Political Fix
not just another blog
July 19, 2009

By Bill Kraus

The Rove-ite formula, which the GOP campaign management mercenaries swallowed whole, goes something like this: The way to win elections is to accumulate zealous interest groups, stack them up, and when this disparate collection gets to 51 percent, you win.

The interest groups of choice were not the Republicans’ traditional broad and fuzzy business groups and low-tax libertarians so much as the true believers whose mantras tended to be more social than governmental or economic.

The three favorites, chosen no doubt for their stridency, were: Right to Life, the National Rifle Association, and hard-line evangelicals.

After delivering a few election victories for the GOP, this strategy sprung some leaks.

Over-motivating the social-issue organizations, known as the base, created a couple of large, vociferous counter movements.

This was dramatically evident in Wisconsin in 2006 when the reaction to the anti-gay marriage amendment brought out enough young voters to cost the Republicans control of the state Legislature.

Even more striking was the revolt of the elderly and the moderates, who were appalled by the party’s animus toward science generally and the possibilities of stem cell research specifically.

Add to this the absurdity of the position on protecting the distribution of automatic weapons in our cities and suburbs on the contention that this is necessary to protect hunting and hunters’ rights elsewhere and to defend homesteads everywhere, and more “former Republicans” announced that they were not leaving the party, but that the party had left them.

The new Republican base exacerbated the departure of the swing voters by behaving like true believers have always behaved. They don’t discuss. They excommunicate.

Delegates to Republican conventions who suggest that abortion rights and gay marriage are not partisan issues and that gun control is more a geographical issue than a constitutional one are courting a tar and feathers exit.

The numbers are the nail in the wedgers coffin: They no longer add up to more than 51 percent.

Until and unless the party redefines itself as an organization of realistic problem solvers which, to take a prominent current example, proposes fixes for the health care cost virus that cripples the country’s competitiveness in this flat economic world, it is going to be a permanent minority disdained by the decisive, mildly partisan voters in the middle who want a government that works.

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State Budget Reform Measures Picking Up Support and Gaining Momentum

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Press Release

July 16, 2009

CONTACT:

Jay Heck – 608/256-2686

STATE BUDGET PROCESS REFORM MEASURES GAIN MORE
ENDORSEMENTS AND SUPPORT

Newspaper Editorials Back Reform; Citizens Must Also Weigh In

With one reform success under our belt in June and a new move toward elevating other needed political reforms in Wisconsin gaining traction, the "dog" days of Summer have been anything but sleepy.

There is increasing support and momentum for reforming the dysfunctional state budget process -- a process that, although completed on time last month, was done so largely in secret. Only now is the public discovering what was inserted in the almost $63 billion spending package behind closed doors.

Last week, Common Cause in Wisconsin (CC/WI) called for legislative action on state budget reform legislation, and for that action to occur this Summer and Fall. That call to action appeared as an opinion-editorial in the Sheboygan Press on July 15th: Community Conversation: Time for Wisconsin to pass meaningful budget reform bills. The statewide Wisconsin Radio Network also covered CC/WI's call for budget reform last week: Can budget process be reformed?

Other newspapers have chimed in as well with calls for the legislature to fix the budget process:

Last Sunday, the Wisconsin State Journal posed the question: At issue: Should party caucus meetings be open?, featuring both CC/WI's support of legislation that would force the Legislature to abide by the state's open meetings law, and State Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker's opposition to opening up all legislative meetings.

The Capital Times weighed in this week with a powerful editorial: Reform abusive state budget process calling for enactment into law the reform legislation CC/WI is touting.

Late last month, the Green Bay Press-Gazette also made the case for budget reform: Editorial: Legislative reform needed more than ever -- as have a number of other papers across the state.

More Wisconsin citizens need to weigh in on this issue and demand that budget reform legislation be added to the campaign finance reform legislation that is being considered and is expected to pass this upcoming Fall.

Call, write or e-mail both your State Senator and your State Representative and tell them to call for public hearings this Summer on Assembly Bill 143 and Assembly Bill 42 -- and urge them to support and pass these important measures this Fall.

To contact your legislators, go here. To find out who your State Senator and State Representative are, go here. If you tell your legislators that this is important and that you expect them to support these reforms, many (but not all) will respond affirmatively. If you do not, they will not.

Your voice is important!

In June, CC/WI led a successful effort to thwart Senator Russ Decker's attempt to cripple the investigative ability of the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board. (See: Jay Heck's victory for good government)

We can be successful, too, in this quest for much-needed state budget reform and in securing long-needed campaign finance reform. But our collective voices must be heard.

And to be heard, they must be loud.

Let your elected officials in Madison know that they are being watched and will be judged on their commitment to both opening up Wisconsin's budget process and removing all of the campaign cash grubbing from that process as well.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Common Cause in Wisconsin
152 W. Johnson Street, Suite 212
Madison, WI 53703

Want Good Government? Join Common Cause in Wisconsin!
Call 608/256-2686
Website: www.commoncausewisconsin.org
E-Mail Address: ccwisjwh@itis.com


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Redistricting with no benefits

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A Wisconsin Political Fix
not just another blog
July 12, 2009

By Bill Kraus

The way the system works now is that every 10 years the legislative leaders spend a lot of time and money cutting the state up into legislative districts. If they had their partisan way, the members of the majority party would create as many safe districts for their side as possible and let the minority party pick up what’s left. They can’t get by with this. So both sides make the map they want and then let the court decide which map is best or make a new map altogether. Very time consuming, contentious, and expensive.

What has evolved around this is a kind of win-win compromise. The winners being the legislative leaders who have to raise most of the money to fund increasingly expensive, majority-deciding races in competitive districts. The way to do that is to reduce the number of competitive races to the bare minimum.

The result of all this maneuvering is that about one-third of the races are so preordained that they are settled in July when candidates file their nomination papers. Only Dems file in some of that one-third, only Republicans in the rest. These candidates take the summer and fall off.

About another third of the races are settled in September in the primary election. If there are contests they are intra-party. Whoever wins the primary is unbeatable in the general election and gets token opposition or no opposition at all.

That should mean that a third of the legislative seats are decided in competitive races in the general election. Actually only about a third of that third are really competitive and draw most of the money.

This process decides two things:

1. The range of spending. In elections for state legislative offices this ranges from almost nothing in most up to ridiculous seven-digit levels for the handful that will decide which party will be in the majority. Being in the majority in these no-talk, no-listen, no-compromise times is inordinately important, which, of course, accounts for the obscene spending in those elections that will determine that status.

2. The other thing is who will win in 90 percent of the races. The voters are not really picking their candidates. Candidates are picking their voters. Almost all of the elections are rigged.

There are a few ideas kicking around under the dome that would change this. There are also a few redistricting models if we chose to follow examples in other states that would as well. The closest to being exemplary is also the closest geographically. Iowa has a dispassionate process that is worth looking at.

Nothing will come of any of this, of course, if redistricting reform is left in the hands of the beneficiaries of the current system who, alas, have the power to enact or ignore any ideas that threaten the status quo.

The only hope is that legislative deafness has not reached pandemic levels.

A change in the system is cheap, desirable, and possible if enough of us make enough noise to force a change in the usually indomitable status quo.

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Now is the Time to Reform the State Budget Process

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Press Release

July 8, 2009

CONTACT:

Jay Heck – 608/256-2686

REFORM OF STATE BUDGET PROCESS SHOULD START NOW

Rescission of Legislature's Exemption From Open Meetings Law and
Ban on All Campaign Fundraising During State Budget Work
Should Both Be Enacted into Law

For the first time in 32 years, the biennial state budget has been enacted into law before the June 30th statutory deadline. Obviously, that is a good thing. But the process of constructing and deciding the 2009-2011 budget was as secretive as any budget process in memory. Most of the key decisions and changes were made out of the public eye, often in closed partisan caucus meetings that excluded both the media and other observers. Only authorized staff were present while legislators made key policy decisions.

And, while the Assembly Democratic leadership imposed a rule prohibiting all members of the Assembly from engaging in campaign fundraising while the Assembly was considering the budget, the prohibition did not include the leadership legislative campaign committees -- which in previous years have raised the lion's share of the campaign money during the budget period. The State Senate and Governor, meanwhile, raised campaign funds without hesitation during the entire budget process.

Common Cause in Wisconsin (CC/WI) strongly believes that the best time to reform the state budget process -- which almost everyone in Wisconsin agrees is deeply flawed -- is now, while the bitter taste of this past budget process is still fresh in the mouths of the public and of some lawmakers. An effective way to begin the reformation of the budget process would be to enact into law two measures that have been introduced in the Legislature. Both measures should be expedited and advanced by holding public hearings this summer -- and then considered and passed when the next legislative floor session commences in September.

The closed-door, secretive budget process is a problem that stems from the fact that the legislative partisan caucuses in which most of the important budget decisions are debated and decided, are exempt from the Wisconsin Open Meetings Law, enacted in 1976. Here is how the statute reads:

1.3.7. State Legislature. In General the open meetings law applies to the state Legislature. Sec. 19.87, Stats. The law does not apply to any partisan caucus of the senate or assembly. Sec. 19.87(3), Stats. The open meetings law also does not apply where it conflicts with a rule of the Legislature, senate or assembly. Sec. 19.87(2), Stats.

As a consequence of the above exemptions to the law, the public is often shut out of the most important budget decisions. Clearly, this is a law that has long been in need of change. CC/WI supports ASSEMBLY BILL 143 -- which simply put, would rescind the Legislature's exemption from the state's open meeting laws -- passed by the Legislature thirty three years ago. It is bipartisan legislation introduced by State Representatives Cory Mason (D-Racine) and Dean Kaufert (R-Neenah). Other sponsors include Reps. Terese Berceau (D-Madison), Gordon Hintz (D-Oshkosh), Roger Roth (R-Appleton) Jeff Wood (I-Bloomer), and Sen. Alan Lasee (R-De Pere).

CC/WI also strongly supports Assembly Bill 42, bipartisan legislation that would prohibit elected state officials and their campaign committees from fundraising during state budget deliberations. Rep. Mark Gottlieb (R-Port Washington), the Assistant Minority Leader, is the principal author of the measure which applies the fundraising ban to the legislative campaign committees -- which do most of the fund raising during the budget period -- and extends the fundraising restriction for the governor and lieutenant governor to include the period immediately after the general election when they are involved in drafting the governor’s proposed budget. This is a version of the budget fundraising prohibition measure first suggested by CC/WI to then-State Senator Lynn Adelman (D-Waukesha) who introduced it for the first time in Wisconsin in 1997. Other states -- including Minnesota and even Texas -- have a similar common sense measure like this in place. Wisconsin must not delay enactment of AB 42 any longer.

At a CC/WI State Governing Board Meeting in February, Assembly Majority Leader Tom Nelson (D-Kaukauna) and Rep. Jeff Smith (D-Eau Claire), the Chair of the Assembly Committee on Elections and Campaign Finance Reform, both said that the Assembly leadership supports AB 42. Further, while Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker (D-Weston) and Governor Jim Doyle have expressed support for this measure in the near past, Decker appears to have withdrawn his support. On June 16th, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported: "Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker (D-Weston) doesn't want to approve the proposed [ban on campaign fundraising during the budget] law, which a bipartisan coalition of Assembly members support, saying current laws are adequate because legislators have to disclose who is funding their campaigns."

Despite this outrageous Decker flip-flop, the Legislature should press forward and make this measure a priority. Assembly Speaker Mike Sheridan (D-Janesville) and Decker -- or other State Senators in defiance of Decker -- should make reforming the state budget process a priority now and put Assembly Bill 143 and Assembly Bill 42 near the top of their list of reform legislation to pass and get enacted into law this September.

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Jay Heck
Executive Director
Common Cause in Wisconsin
152 W. Johnson Street, Suite 212
Madison, WI 53703

Want Good Government? Join Common Cause in Wisconsin!
Call 608/256-2686
Website: www.commoncausewisconsin.org
E-Mail Address: ccwisjwh@itis.com


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Parsimony's residue

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A Wisconsin Political Fix
not just another blog
July 6, 2009

By Bill Kraus

The lurch from a wants economy to a needs economy, where parsimoniousness has taken over for the credit-card driven profligacy that we had come to know and love, has created a whole new endangered species list that has nothing to do with snail darters.

Everybody knows about the fall from grace of the automobile and the bankers and a few reckless insurers, along with anyone in the construction business, particularly home construction.

All that discretionary stuff people used to buy to fill up their McMansions has pretty much gone the way of the McMansions themselves.

It would seem that those of us who are waiting for these former lynchpins of the economy to come back are in for a very long wait indeed.

What should not be overlooked are some other one-time favorites that are no longer the beneficiaries of our fiscal generosity.

Any business that depends on healthy advertising and promotion spending is on life support.

To take an example at random, sports events are beginning to wonder where the next big purse will come from. The Greater Milwaukee golf open, which was rechristened the U.S. Bank Open, will certainly go back to its old name now that U.S. Bank is on the government dole and will probably go away altogether. Lining up sponsors for these kinds of events when the sponsors have to borrow money to pay to get their names in lights is not working.

Trade and professional organizations of all kinds, sizes, and shapes are finding that their place on their members’ priority lists is at or below the cutoff line.

Worthy charities are suffering. The NY foundation that puts on a big annual dinner to raise money for research on Lou Gehrig’s disease canceled this year’s gala because its managers calculated that it would do no better than break even.

Do-good organizations are doing a lot less well, too. Now that those catalogue companies that haven’t run away altogether have run to the internet for sales, if it wasn’t for pleas from political, social, and economic advocacy groups and the regular stream of offers from Bank One’s credit card division, I wouldn’t get any mail at all.

This brings up the question of whether every dark cloud has a silver lining. Campaign spending hasn’t been put to the test yet. There have been no serious campaigns since the economy hit the wall, the super-rich became merely rich, and the nickel and dime donors’ piggy banks went on empty. Is there any reason to think that politics will be spared? At the very least, those candidates who have become accustomed to eight-digit campaign spending might have to scale back to seven digits, perhaps even the low-seven digits.

Too bad about that for the TV-ad addicted campaign managers, because the once-lush and mighty TV broadcasters have a lot of space and time they will be selling at bargain prices.

No one seems to know what the new economy will look like, but it is becoming increasingly clear that it will not be a simple reincarnation of the old economy. And the most important reason it will not is because of dramatic changes in our priorities.

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Common Cause in Wisconsin - In the News

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July 2009

• July 8, 2009 - Bob Hague, Wisconsin Radio Network
  
  Listen as CC/WI executive director Jay Heck talks about the need for reform of the state budget process -- including the removal of an exemption to Wisconsin's Open Meetings Law.



• July 15, 2009 - Editorial, The Capital Times
  
  Reform abusive state budget process
  
  Even if Wisconsin does not clean up the veto abuse mess immediately, there are a variety of less ambitious but still important reforms that can and should be implemented.
  
  Legislators could start by opening up the budget process. As Jay Heck of Common Cause in Wisconsin notes, "(The) process of constructing and deciding the 2009-2011 budget was as secretive as any budget process in memory. Most of the key decisions and changes were made out of the public eye, often in closed partisan caucus meetings that excluded both the media and other observers. Only authorized staff were present while legislators made key policy decisions."
  



• July 12, 2009 - Mark Pitsch, The Wisconsin State Journal
  
  At issue: Should party caucus meetings be open?
  
  “I don’t think many people have confidence in a product that emerges from secrecy,” said Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause in Wisconsin. “It’s bad for the process and ultimately bad for the legislators because people ask, ‘What are you hiding?’ ”
  
  Heck also said it is “incredibly irritating” for lawmakers to exempt themselves from a law they require other government entities to follow.
  

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