Legislature for Sale, Governor Doyle Isn't

Governor Doyle today VETOED the bad rent-to-own bill. While the legislature was for sale to the rent-to-own special interests, Governor Doyle stood with consumers and did the right thing.

Thank you once again for your strong consumer record Governor!

TP Act Apparently Not Ready for Public Consumption

The Republican “Taxpayer Protection Act” (TP Act) seems to be dying a slow death in the Wisconsin legislature. This is the same bill as the formerly named Taxpayers' Bill of Rights (TABOR).

The bill strictly limits spending on state, local and other units of government, to the degree that it could affect police and fire protection, education and more. Colorado has a version of it that has really hurt their state. Now the GOP in Wisconsin want to follow that ill-founded lead.

However, word is that there are more than enough Republicans who don’t like the measure in its current form that it may never see the light of day this year.

Further proof: The proponents are still afraid to hold public hearings on the bill. Instead, they continue to have invitation-only meetings about the bill. Hmmm…isn’t that how President Bush handles his public relations? Stacked crowds of happy people, clearly in the 37 percent that support his administration?

Senate author Glenn Grothman’s comments about the private hearing versus a public hearing?

“To be honest, we learned a lot more from the invitation-only meeting," Grothman said.

Check out the most recent Milwaukee Journal Sentinel coverage of their private meeting.

So remind me, what has the legislature done this year to help relieve your property taxes, make health care more affordable or provide ethical reform in State government?

Tell Governor Doyle to Veto the Anti-Consumer Rent-to-Own Bill

The anti-consumer rent-to-own legislation (SB 268) is a bad, bad bill. It is anti-consumer in that it does not disclose full interest costs to consumers who purchase this way, and it exempts rent-to-own businesses from the Wisconsin Consumer Act for purposes of repossession allowing it after only one weak attempt of contact. Rent-to-own businesses are predatory businesses ripping off the poorest in our state.

The bill isn't right or left. It has more to do with the culture at the State Capitol of pleasing those who make campaign contributions. Rent-to-own centers and their suppliers are big donors. Poor people are not.

Every session this bill dies with bipartisan opposition. The special interests raise it on the last day of session to confuse the legislature, as they did again this year. Usually, that doesn't work. This year it did.

On March 14, a group of twenty legislators - in a bipartisan manner - asked Governor Doyle to veto this measure.

Now you can tell Governor Doyle we don't want more Rent-to-Own Centers in Wisconsin.

The Right Moving Right Off the Cliff?

The last few days has brought a number of interesting signs that the “Right” in this country may be wrong. Let me share the following…

* Opposition to gay marriage is dropping in the United States. According to a recent Pew Research Poll, fewer people oppose the idea than did one year ago. We already know the majority of people support civil unions for gays and lesbians, showing even further how far off the Constitutional Amendment on the ballot this fall in Wisconsin really is.

* In South Dakota, where state government is trying to essentially ban abortions, public opinion is running counter to their actions. In a tracking poll on the performance of their Governor who signed the measure, his approval ratings dropped from 72 percent the last sixth months to 58 percent immediately following the ban. His disapproval rating went from 23 percent to 38 percent. People seem to get it.

* And from the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, it seems Oral Roberts University graduate Rep. Mike Huebsch (along with Rep. John Gard and others) received $250 from strip club owner Ambrose Schwartz. Schwartz owns the 4 Mile Gentlemen’s Club. Seems that “family values” only goes so far…and I guess that far is the bank. Did that come in the form of a check or a pile of wadded up singles? Just curious....

Is it the end? Is it the apocalypse? Is the new Capitol address 666?

Or are people finally figuring out that the right has been wrong too many times?

Accenture Strikes Out…Again

Just one look at this front page article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel makes you wonder what the heck is going on with Wisconsin’s attempt to put together a federally-required Statewide Voter Registration System.

In previous posts I’ve offered my insight on this debacle.

But the kicker in this article is State Elections Board Director Kevin Kennedy saying if we stop working with Accenture now, despite their totally blowing the January 1st deadline to have the list in place, we wouldn’t be up with a list until AFTER 2008.

What?

Kevin, Kansas – one of the three other states to cancel their contracts with Accenture – met the federal mandate only nine-months later with another vendor.

I thought Kennedy was this year’s head of a national association of election officials…doesn’t that include Kansas?

Accenture has screwed this list up and needs to be fired. Maybe it's also time for someone else to take over this project.

Legislative Inaction Kills Compassionate Care for Rape Victims Act

While the flurry of activity that occurred two weeks ago passed a lot of meaningless and bad bills, a lot of good bills didn’t pass.

One of those bills, AB305, didn’t even get a public hearing in either the Senate or Assembly health committees.

AB305, authored by myself and Sen. Judy Robson, would require all hospitals in Wisconsin to provide information about and access to emergency contraception to rape survivors. If taken within 12 hours of unprocted sex, they are 89% effective in preventing a pregnancy. NOTE: This is not an abortion pill. Emergency contraception would have no impact on a current pregnancy. It is merely a higher concentration of birth control pills, which are already legal in Wisconsin.

In a 2001 study, less than half of the hospitals in Wisconsin even tell a rape survivor about emergency contraception, much less dispense it.

Surely, someone who has just experienced the trauma of a rape should not have to go through the additional trauma of shopping around to find comprehensive health care to avoid an unintended pregnancy.

The bill had a “people’s” public hearing in Milwaukee yesterday sponsored by Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin where about 40-50 people attended to show their support for the bill. Testimony was intense. Survivors of rape expressed their strong support for the bill as they told their stories.

Surely, if we have time to pass on tax credits to special interests, allow 8-year-olds to hunt and ban civil unions and same sex marriage that is already banned, we would have time to pass a common sense measure to help survivors of rape.

The public gets it. In an August 2004 poll of 500 voters in Wisconsin, 81 percent favored requiring emergency rooms to make emergency contraceptives available to rape victims.

Why is it always so hard to get the legislature to understand what the public really wants?

Reminder...Wisconsin Blog Summit Tomorrow

For those of you who blog or are thinking about blogging, I urge you to attend the Wisconsin Blog Summit put on by Wispolitics.com. It is tomorrow, March 18.

Yours truly will participate in a panel on the political impact of blogging.**2:45 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. Moderated panel discussion: Impact of blogging on election 2006. Participants: Ed Garvey of FightingBob.com, Charlie Sykes of WTMJ-AM, state Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, and Brian Fraley, GOP strategist and blogger.

Hope to see you there!

God vs. God: Is Spongebob Really Going to Hell?

I really enjoyed this column by William Wineke of the Capital Times from March 3rd.

Let’s let the religious extremists fight it out over who is more likely to be attacked by a cloud of locusts. Who is more extreme, the Family Research Institute or Focus on the Family?

I hope they are as united and articulate when it comes to their fight for banning civil unions in Wisconsin.

Anonymous Posts….to Allow or Not to Allow?

I need your feedback.

I have been pretty open about not being a fan of anonymous feedback. I want to leave my blog open to get input, comments and criticism, but I don’t want to let people with an ax to grind or a special interest access to ramble on and on and on without credibility.

For example, one person – anonymously – left eleven anonymous comments yesterday in an hour and a half. All were junk, quite honestly. So they clog up the comment posts, and I really don’t like removing comments because it seems like I’m editorializing.

But surely, if someone has something important enough to say, shouldn’t it be with their name to give it credibility, as my post has mine?

Help me with this. My inclination is to start not allowing anonymous posts. I think they are valueless and often written cowardly and with bias.

What do you think? Leave me a comment, preferably not anonymously….

Quiet After the Storm

This has been a real quiet week following the flurry of State activity last week.

Over 150 bills were “debated” between both houses of the legislature last week, as the rumored final real week of session passed on March 9. Most of them were junk bills, so Rep. X or Sen. Y could claim they did something for their $45,000 a year salary, plus per diems.

So what does the rest of the year bring us?

TABOR II, or the TP Amendment ("Taxpayer Protection Amendment"): This is sure to rear its ugly face before June. The high profile issue for the GOP must be acted on this session or it will take years more to get the matter to the voters. If the GOP can’t get their act together on this, there is little hope for getting their act together this fall.

Ethics/Campaign Finance/Electoral Reform: If the trial of last week didn’t send one more message to legislators to act on reform, I don’t know what else will. Public opinion polls show six percent of the public think their representative represents them. Yikes. If we don’t act on some form of meaningful reform - and not just “reform” with poison pills attached to snag a Governor’s veto - many people in the legislature will be finding new jobs come January.

Capital Gains/Inheritance Taxes: The Republican’s “death tax” was on their agenda for 2006, but not a peep has been spoken of it since it was unveiled. Has the GOP lost their stomachs to help the richest five percent in the state? Or is it just another broken promise?

Health care: Right, like this legislature is going to deal with a real issue.

So, what did I miss? If your main issues are hidden guns in public places, making civil unions and same sex marriages even more illegal and blocking pharmacists from providing your prescription, you’ve got some friends in the legislature. But if you are a real family caring about real issues, my guess is you’re under whelmed with the Wisconsin legislature. I hope you’ll remember that later this year.

Rent-to-Own Wisconsin Legislature

One of the many bills hidden in yesterday’s massive calendar was a bill to open the floodgates and allow more Rent-to-Own businesses in Wisconsin (SB 268).

In my opinion, these businesses are parasitic, preying on the poor in our state. While not quite as bad as the check cashing industry, they are close. To be fair to the Rent-to-Own centers, I’ll say this. Rent-to-Own centers are not as bad as check cashing businesses. But that is like saying Genghis Khan was not as bad as Adolph Hitler.

The bill would allow the businesses to mark products up 2 or 3 times their value and sell at what equivalent interest rates would be of 120 percent and more, yet never disclose the interest rate. Instead, a confusing “disclosure” form shows you payments and final payment along with five other numbers, sure to confuse even the more sophisticated consumer. A bad credit card will get you twenty percent interest, “Get it Now” type businesses charge up to 29.9 percent, the mob gets around 60-90 percent and Rent-to-Own centers will earn 120 percent and more.

For example, I called one such center. The outright price for a certain name brad dvd/vcr combo was $160.00. Online I found the same unit for $70.00. After making weekly payments of $9.99 under the agreement, you will have paid the final price of about $360.00 when the contract ends. But if you miss a payment after paying $320.00, watch out.

Under this bill they also get exempted from the Wisconsin Consumer Act for purposes of repossession, making it real easy to take the product back if you are a little behind in payments after only one request, no matter how much you've already paid. If the purchaser is Latino and they don’t speak English, but the call for a late payment is in English, too bad. The repo man will be at your door…legally under this bill.

It used to be most Democrats and some socially conscious Republicans were able to block these bills in the past, but due to pressure from one of Wisconsin’s larger furniture manufacturers that alliance is dead.

The bill now goes to the Governor. So far, it looks like he will support it. And that is unfortunate.

But this is yet one more example of what happens at the tail end of session, when the special interests work overtime and the media is pressed to cover only a story or two.

Fighting Bob would be ashamed of the Wisconsin legislature. I know I am.

Voting Reform Killed in Wisconsin?

In what may likely be the final week of legislative session for the year in Wisconsin, the Republican majority just sent a compromise bill to provide meaningful election reform in Wisconsin to die in committee.

Authored by the non-partisan Legislative Council and negotiated between both political parties and the Governor, this bill provides real reform in a number of areas including providing more penalties for election fraud, making it easier for members of the military to be able to vote and making it harder for felons to illegally vote.

The bill passed the State Senate by a vote of 33-0. The Republican leadership in the State Assembly “special ordered” the bill for today, in order to make sure the bill is voted on.

Suddenly, someone over there must have decided to kill election reform…or at least kill it with poison pill amendments down the road.

The Wisconsin legislature has done nothing meaningful to enact electoral reform, campaign finance reform or ethics reform this session. Today, by sending the bill back to committee on the likely final real day of session, it dies in its bipartisan form.

Score one more job not done by the continually dysfunctional Wisconsin legislature.

Wyoming to Cancel Accenture Contract?

There are rumors circulating that Wyoming may be the most recent state to cancel its contract with Accenture for creating their statewide voter registration system.

An anonymous tip was passed on to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign yesterday saying Wyoming was going to cancel. I also received an email from an out-of-state election official that someone from Accenture was searching “Wyoming cancels Accenture Contract” on a website for election administrators, seeing if the word was out yet.

Further, a call to election officials in Wyoming brought a response that something would be announced in the next few days.

If my count is right, that means of the four states that contracted with Accenture, only Wisconsin remains. Kansas, Colorado and Wyoming will have all told Accenture to take a walk.

Kevin Kennedy, what is your response? Is Wisconsin right and everyone else wrong? Or is it time to go to Plan B?

Ugly Bills in Final Days of Session

Since it appears the Republican leadership wants to essentially finish working for the year by March 9th, the legislative calendars this week have been full. Unfortunately, they have been full of bad legislation as well.

On Tuesday, the State Assembly had over fifty bills to vote on, including a bill to teach abstinence only (SB286), a bill increasing penalties for possession of ecstacy tenfold as well as creating a felony conviction (max 3.5 years prison) for a second charge of possession of ecstacy after any first drug possession charge including marijuana (AB989), a bill making it harder to house sex offenders in Milwaukee County (AB974), a bill to take DNA and store it from anyone charged with lewd and lascivious conduct (AB990), a bill furthering “virtual” charter schools (AB1060), new tax breaks for businesses who make engines (SB103), a bill to blow the cap off of vouchers in Milwaukee (AB618) and a bunch of bills affecting people’s rights to sue, pay impact fees and much, much more.

But if you read the Wisconsin State Journal today, the local section only mentions the voucher bill. (They do cover the death penalty bill from the State Senate also)

Tomorrow, we will take up ninety bills as well as any others that get sent over by the State Senate. Likely included are a bill to have a referendum on the death penalty (SJR5) and a bill to allow rent-to-own businesses to rip off Wisconsin's most needy(SB268). And that's just for starters.

Democracy? Not even close.

Live auction for special interests? Hey bidder, bidder, bidder...

Come to the Wisconsin Blog Summit

For those of you who blog or are thinking about blogging, I urge you to attend the Wisconsin Blog Summit put on by Wispolitics.com on March 18.

Yours truly will participate in a panel on the political impact of blogging.

**2:45 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. Moderated panel discussion: Impact of blogging on election 2006. Participants: Ed Garvey of FightingBob.com, Charlie Sykes of WTMJ-AM, state Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, and Brian Fraley, GOP strategist and blogger.

Hope to see you there!

Civil Union and Same Sex Marriage Ban Debate Highlights

I know this is a bit late, but I thought I’d share some of the highlights and lowlights of the Assembly’s debate on Tuesday on the Constitutional amendment to discriminate in Wisconsin.

* As the debate started, the outer doors of the Assembly chambers were in lockdown, with only legislators and staff allowed to pass. This highly unusual move was requested by Republican leadership to Assembly Sergeant Rick Skindrud. Why? Was the terror level for homeland security increased? Was there a terrorist threat made to the Capitol?

No, but there were about thirty clergy and others who opposed the Constitutional amendment in the audience.

Rep. Marlin Schneider even confronted John Gard in the hallway about this. Gard's response? "Go to hell, Marlin" according to the Green Bay Press Gazette.

What was Gard afraid of? People raiding the chambers giving fashion advice? Or just facing the public on a mean-spirited and ill conceived constitutional amendment?


* Another unusually insightful moment was when Rep. Jon Richards introduced two constituents of his in the audience. He introduced a World War II veteran, to the standing ovation of the entire Assembly. Then Richards introduced his male partner of 49 years, and the applause was one-sided from the Democrats only. The Republicans sat silent in their seats, showing their predisposition to the fear and discrimination the amendment breeds.


* The only Republicans to debate the merits of the measure were the author, Rep. Mark Gundrum, and Rep. Eugene Hahn. Hahn’s debate centered on the need to follow the Bible – or as he stated, the B-I-B-L-E. He spelled it out as to not say the word aloud.

Gundrum, for his part, briefly answered a few questions about the bill, but finally let a little of the real conservative red meat on this issue out as he talked about his fear of multiple people getting married in the Netherlands. He also heard there were “polyamorists” in Wisconsin. I responded that the only people who think about group relationships seem to be the far right, and they could find fetish videos to match their interests.


* Republican Rep. Gregg Underheim, the only Republican to oppose the measure, gave the speech-of-the-day in calling on his colleagues to not take rights away from any group of people by amending our constitution. What’s next he asked? People who may believe in the strange practice of eating the body and drinking the blood of a person they worship? That could be considered an odd practice to some, at some future point in history. Well done.


* Finally, I was heartened to see a pick up of eight votes in the final vote, including several people changing their vote from last session. As we find out more about how this bill will possibly negatively affect not only civil unions and marriage, but also access to health care and domestic violence laws, people see this as an extreme measure that goes beyond the mainstream of Wisconsin.


The measure now goes to the voters. Will Wisconsin be the fair state that it always has been and reject this piece of legislative extremism? Or will Wisconsin join other backwater states that put family law and discrimination in their state constitutions? It is up to us. What say you?

Republicans Swing and Miss on Taxpayer Revolt

Congressman Mark Green and Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker must really be embarrassed today.

Yesterday, the State Senate's “Select Committee on Taxpayer Protection Amendment” had their first real public hearing on the bill in the Republican stronghold of Pewaukee. The hope? It was to get a bunch of conservatives out to talk about the need for TP.

Both Walker and Green, along with the legislative majority, did their best to get people out to support their newest version of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR), now the Taxpayer Protection Act (TP).

Green put out a release calling for a “Wisconsin Taxpayer Tea Party”, encouraging people to come to protest, while Green would be giving out tea. Cute.

And Walker put out a release urging “everyone who is concerned about Wisconsin’s current level of taxation” to come to the hearing and be heard.

The result of their efforts? Well, 230 people appeared against the bill, and only 30 appeared for the bill according to Capitol insiders.

Talk about a silent protest. Well, maybe it was quiet because everyone was too busy drinking tea.

Or maybe even people who live in more traditionally Republican areas realize that measures that have good names, but are short on details are a bunch of crap, especially in the final weeks of session of an election year.

I just wonder who will take the credit for turning out the thirty people?