Uppity Wisconsin

The hits just keep on coming from Jeff Plale's finance report. We call it Pay to Plale.

Lisa Kaiser of the Shepherd Express  discovers a donation from a lobbyist for Koch (say Coke) Industries. We'll let her tell it:

Why is this so important?

Well, Koch is the biggest privately owned oil company in America. It also owns Georgia Pacific.

The profits from the Koch conglomerate also fund Americans for Prosperity, the nutty Astro-turf group hyping the tea parties. (Well, I'm not so sure the various tea party "patriot" groups want to be linked to AFP, but AFP's doing its damnedest to do it to look legit.)

Koch is also a primary funder of climate change-denying think tanks and other free market outfits like the Cato Institute.

Greenpeace reports:

Billionaire tycoon David Koch likes to joke that Koch Industries is, "The biggest company you’ve never heard of".

State Sen. Jeff Plale, a South Milwaukee Dixiecrat, has a serious challenge in the Democratic primary for the first time since he won the seat in a special election in 2003.  And his friends are digging deep to contribute to his campaign and help him stay in office.

Those friends are not the working folks of Cudahy, South Milwaukee, or Bay View, however.  They are, by and large, the special interests that he has served so well in the legislature.

Blogging Blue noted that a huge chunk of the $35,452 Plale reported raising in the last six months came from people connected to cable television and energy utilities, both of which he has served well at the expense of his constituents. But Zach Wisnieski's tally omitted some of the special interest money that came in smaller donations through conduits.

If you add in the conduit money, $8,100 of the $35,500 -- 23 per cent -- of the money Plale raised came from people connected to electric utilities.

The good news: State Sen. Jeff Plale is being challenged in the Democratic primary by County Supervisor Chris Larson, left, a much more progressive Democrat.

The bad news: Two liberal Democratic state reps from the district, Chris Sinicki and Jon Richards, back Plale.

Incumbency is thicker than ideology, apparently, and that's disappointing.

Larson's bid is an uphill one in the distict, which includes Milwaukee's East Side and Bay View and the suburbs of St, Francis, Cudahy, South Milwaukee and Oak Creek.

In previous liberal-conservative Dem primary matchups when the seat was open (Rosemary Potter v. Dick Grobschmitt and Joel Brennan v. Plale), the liberals won the city of Milwaukee portion of the district, but the conservatives (Grobschmidt and Plale) won by big enough margins in the suburbs, which also had a higher turnout, to win the elections.

The dynamic could change this year, with a hot Republican primary for governor that could mean only hard core Democrats vote in the Dem primary.

U.S. Rep. Ron Kind vowed Wednesday to decide "very soon" whether he will leave Congress to run for Wisconsin governor.

"The timetable is early this fall," the seven-term La Crosse Democrat told the Leader-Telegram editorial board.

When Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle announced 10 days ago he wouldn't seek a third four-year term next fall, Kind was one of the first Democrats mentioned as a potential successor.

Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton is the only Democrat who has declared her intent to join the race, but several other prominent party members are believed to be considering bids. In addition to Kind, that list includes Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, state Sen. Jon Erpenbach of Waunakee and Assembly Speaker Mike Sheridan of Janesville.

On the Republican side, Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, former U.S. Rep. Mark Neumann of Nashotah and Appleton businessman Mark Todd are already on the campaign trail, and former Gov. Tommy Thompson and Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen haven't ruled out bids.

Putting together the state budget is always a difficult process. But it is made more so by the deep budget deficit. A few weeks ago, legislative leaders and the Governor hammered out a deal. Later the deal was pushed through the legislature’s budget committee.

This week members of the Assembly are scheduled to vote on the budget. Behind the scenes members are told, “This budget is bad. We need to pass it as quick as possible and get out of town.”

In the Capitol, the culture is one of a few making the decisions and the many having their arms twisted to go along with the deal.

The culture of the Capitol has to change. Our job as elected officials is to take what’s happening in our districts to Madison. Once in Madison, we all have to be involved in making decisions. If we agree to deals we are not party to making, we not only give up our own power, we give up the power of the voters in our district.

We'll be starting coverage of the election returns at 7 PM.  You can join in with live blogging and commenting then. We're still moving around the information and looking for new sources - you can see the preview here.  

Reports on voting waits are starting to come in, and so far things seem to be looking good. - Well, they'd be looking good if the votereport.org servers were actually working - it looks like they've been clobbered by load and our maps are not updating.  Sigh.

Press release today from the state Democratic Party -- Another Republican ad full of half truths and full lies -

MADISON – The Democratic Party of Wisconsin today called on Green Bay-Fox Valley TV stations to immediately pull a negative political ad running by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) that contains false, misleading, and deceptive statements about Congressman Steve Kagen’s record.  

 

Just got an interesting press release from the Wisconsin Democrats and Mark Pocan re: Jeff Wood's becoming an independent.

Huebsch Strips Rep. Jeff Wood’s Committee Chairmanships, Proving GOP Can’t Tolerate Moderates, says Pocan

 

 

Madison--On behalf of Assembly Democrats, State Representative Mark Pocan (D-Madison) today reached out to Rep. Jeff Wood to offer a place for him in the big tent that the Democrats have in the Assembly.  This occurred after Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch stripped Wood of his committee chairmanships because Wood declared his intention to run as an Independent this fall.

 

“The Democratic Party is a big tent for anyone who wants to move Wisconsin forward.  Unlike the Republican Party in the Assembly which has purged its last moderates from their ranks, we welcome independent thinkers to our Party,” said Pocan.

Introducing a new blog aimed at taking control of the state assembly:

Today seems like a great day to kick off a 16-month project to blog about retaking the majority in the Wisconsin State Assembly for Democrats. After the Democratically-controlled Senate passed, on a party-line vote, their own version of a biennial budget, the Republican-controlled Assembly is considering tonight a regressive budget that seeks to make Wisconsin a terrible place to live (in the next few days or so, I'll include things about the GOP budget and Democrat's budget - and highlight how radically out of touch state Republicans are with not only the people of Wisconsin, but also with reality). Just in case you're up for a little prep reading, you can check out what the Republican budget looks like too.

This from the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign

Note that although it's not perfect, and it's not all-inclusive by any means, it's a step in the right direction.

WISCONSIN DEMOCRACY CAMPAIGN E-LERT

In this update:
1. Doyle to sign ethics reform bill tomorrow
2. Up next: Campaign finance reform
3. Supreme Court race taking shape

Governor Jim Doyle will sign the ethics reform bill into law tomorrow morning, marking a happy ending to a long, tough fight to revive meaningful enforcement of high ethical standards and accountability in state government. To see newspaper coverage of the near-unanimous approval of the reform measure by the Legislature, go here. For television coverage, go here. To read the editorial on the subject that appeared in this morning's edition of the state's largest newspaper, go here.

There's been a little bruhaha today because the state Republicans have been distributing a flyer in which Rob Kreibich (who was at one time an Eau Claire Channel 13 reporter) throws his support behind Dave Zien (R) over Pat Kreitlow (D). Well, no big surprise there. -- Update - I have added a link to a statement from Pat Kreitlow on the ad.

The point of contention, though, is that they used Channel 13's and NBC"s logos in the flyer, which may or may not be legal. And it certainly adds to the confusion that a few people in the area seem to be getting about the two former Channel 13 employees, and which is which (geez, if you ever talked to either of them you'd be able to keep it straight, I think - Kreitlow, Kreibich - Democrat, Republican - Black, White - all fine distinctions).

According to Rolling Stone, our very own James F. Sensenbrenner is the second worst congressperson in the US, closing in quickly on Denny Hastert. This is particularly embarrassing, as in one of my past lives Hastert was my representative.

No politician better embodies the zealotry of the 109th Congress than Sensenbrenner, chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee. His solution to hot-button issues is always the same: Lock 'em up.

This article is a sidebar to the primary article about the current Do-Nothing Congress. Read both articles - it'll make you want to vote more than you already do.

I'm beginning to find it a little disheartening that Rolling Stone is becoming one of the better investigative journalism sources in the US. Where the hell is everyone else?

I'm normally a fairly positive person, and God knows I hate to regurgitate anything that Nancy Reagan said, but here it is:

Just Say No!

It's been a difficult time for progressives. The house and senate and presidency have been firmly controlled by the Republicans. Corruption in Washington has reached levels that are incomprehensible to me. There's a new story every day, so it seems. We've become embroiled in a war that most of the country does not support, and the war has killed as many as 650,000 people in a foreign country. We made up a reason for invading the country, and continue to make up excuses for our war, our conduct, our history of torture (and saying that it's justified).

The Republican party is proudly pointing to the "economic progress" of the country. There's been plenty of economic progress for the people with money, for the people with investments, for the friends of the Republicans. But damn little for any of the rest of us. For most of the country. For the poor, for the middle class, for the people we used to think were the backbone of America. They give us answers like fences, Health Savings Accounts (if you can't afford to take your kids to the doctor, it's a cinch you can't afford those).

My wife and I attended the Chippewa Valley Candidates Forum last night in Eau Claire. The forum was intended to be particularly focused on issues affecting women.

Although I suppose we are somewhat biased, we both felt that the Democratic candidates made their points much better than the Republicans, and that their opinions were much more carefully thought out. Every time one of the Democratic candidates made a point, the challenging Republican candidate had very little to say. I'd say that in general the Democratic candidates were much more supportive of women's issues. Health Care was the big topic of the evening's discussions, and although the Democrats had many good ideas on improving health care delivery in the state, none of the Republican candidates offered any constructive ideas at all.

I'm including the photographs of the candidates at the forum so you can see for yourself. Click on Read More to see the pictures ----