No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for the 'Politics – Wisconsin' Category

April 20, 2011

New NRE Poll – When will Prosser’s win be official?

by @ 17:42. Filed under Grand Theft Courts, NRE Polls.

Since JoAnne Kloppenburg has asked for a recount, and strongly hinted that she would pursue a post-recount judicial appeal if she doesn’t somehow overcome a 7,316-vote deficit, it’s time to fire up the NRE Polls once again. If you’re wondering why the answers are presented in the order I presented them, they are, in my humble opinion, in decreasing lprobability.

When will the Prosser victory over Kloppenburg be made official?

Up to 1 answer(s) was/were allowed

  • By hook and by crook, Kloppenburg will be declared the winner (34%, 37 Vote(s))
  • When Kloppenburg accepts her recount-affirmed defeat (25%, 28 Vote(s))
  • When the federal 7th Circuit Court of Appeals smacks down the state-level kangaroo court and SCOTUS upholds (15%, 16 Vote(s))
  • When the Abrahamson-appointed judge shocks the world and upholds the recount-verified victory, and the 4th District Courtn of Appeals upholds (11%, 12 Vote(s))
  • When SCOTUS smacks down the state-level kangaroo court (8%, 9 Vote(s))
  • When a federal district court smacks down the state-level kangaroo court and the higher federal courts uphold (4%, 4 Vote(s))
  • When the state 4th District Court of Appeals smacks down the state-level kangaroo court (4%, 4 Vote(s))

Total Voters: 110

Loading ... Loading ...

Revisions/extensions (6:32 pm 4/20/2011) – If you’re wondering why I don’t have the Wisconsin Supreme Court included in the poll, while the state-level appeal would eventually end up there, it would be before a 3-3 divided court due to either Prosser recusing himself as he would be a party to the suit or Prosser’s seat being vacant after July 31. If you doubt that the result would be a 3-3 split, just look at the liberals’ attempt to toss Justice Michael Gabelman after he ousted “Loophole” Louis Butler (who, ironically, is likely going to be the reserve judge Lawgiver-In-Black chosen by Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson to all-but-certainly deliver the outcome Abrahamson and her former clerk Kloppenburg have a vested interest in).

Behold the return of Grand Theft Courts

by @ 16:11. Filed under Grand Theft Courts.

It is still a bit early to officially bring the “Grand Theft Courts” category out of retirement, but in her press conference today announcing her decision to seek a full statewide recount, JoAnne Kloppenburg tipped her hand on what will happen after the recount affirms her loss to Justice David Prosser. She strongly hinted that her post-recount judicial appeal will seek to have the results from the entirety of Waukesha County, and not just the city of Brookfield, declared null and void.

Damn if I didn’t predict that.

Revisions/extensions (4:23 pm 4/20/2011) – Kloppenburg claimed that the Government “Accountability” Board will join her in court tomorrow to ask for a full hand recount of at least several counties, and she asked for a special investigator into the actions of Waukesha County clerk Kathy Nickoulas (the basis for my analysis of what will happen after Prosser wins the recount by somewhere between 6,816 votes and 7,816 votes, and likely closer to the 7,316 votes that it is now). I guess it isn’t too early to bring “Grand Theft Courts” out of retirement. Now if I could remember what I did with that graphic,….

April 18, 2011

Nobody’s Senator raised no money this quarter. In other news, water is wet.

Since The Hill decided to breathlessly report that Herb “Nobody’s Senator” Kohl raised $0.00 in the first quarter of 2011, Baseball Crank decided to ruminate on it, and Allahpundit put it in the Hot Air Headlines, I’ll explain why it means NOTHING for everybody.

Let’s first go back to the ends of 2004 (just under 2 years before Kohl’s re-election in 2006) and 2010 (just under 2 years before Kohl is up for re-election again). By the end of the 2003-2004 cycle, Kohl raised $2,148 in individual contributions, contributed $185,000 to himself, and had $1,493 cash on hand with no debt. By the end of the 2009-2010 cycle, Kohl raised $270 from individual contributions, contributed $281,500 to himself, loaned himself $1,000,000 and had a net of $4,348 cash on hand (after removing the $1 million in self-debt). The situations were, outside of Kohl’s early loan to himself this time around, similar 2 years out.

Next, on to the first quarter of 2005 and the first quarter of 2011. In the first quarter of 2005, Kohl raised…wait for it…wait for it…$195.00 in individual contributions, loaned himself $2,000,000, spent $34,000 on polling, and spent another $20,000 on various other expenses. In the first quarter of 2010, Kohl raised…wait for it, wait for it…$0.00 in individual contributions, spent $42,000 on polling, and spent another $9,000 on other expenses. Again, the situations were similar.

As for the entirety of the 2005-2006 election cycle, Kohl raised $11,342 from individuals, $450 from non-party PACs, $120 from the Democrat Party PACs, and loaned himself $6,250,000. Once again, Kohl proved that the bastardization of his opening campaign slogan of “Nobody’s Senator But Yours” to “Nobody’s Senator” is the operative phrase.

Whether Kohl decides to run again or not is at least as much predicated on the fortunes of his Milwaukee Bucks as the decision is on anything else, and certainly more than on his (lack-of-)fundraising prowess. We in Wisconsin have often joked that the Bucks are a once-every-six-years playoff contender, coinciding with their owner’s re-election cycle.

Wisconsin Supreme Court election – what now?

by @ 7:26. Filed under Elections, Politics - Wisconsin.

In case you’ve been in a cave since mid-day Friday, the county-level canvasses of the election have been completed, and Justice David Prosser has a 7,316-vote (or a 0.4881-percentage-point) lead. The 3-business-day clock is running on challenger Joanne Kloppenburg’s and her campaign’s ability to ask for a recount of any or all of the wards in the state, with the costs to the counties being borne by the taxpayers as the margin is just under the 0.5-percentage-point cut-off. The word on the ether, or at least WISN-AM and the Jay Weber Show, is that the Kloppenburg campaign will have a press conference this afternoon, even though they do have until 5 pm Wednesday to inform the Government Accountability Board (Wisconsin’s state-level election authority) of their decision.

There are two choices the Kloppenburg campaign has at this point. They could decide to not ask for a recount, and let the pending GAB re-canvass be the final word. That would result in GAB announcing on May 15, the date assigned for the announcement, that Justice Prosser has won another 10-year term on the Supreme Court.

They could also decide to ask for a recount. It doesn’t matter how many or few wards they request, because, if they choose this path, the goal is not going to be to overcome the 0.4881-percentage-point lead Prosser has. No recent recount with at least 1.5 million votes at stake has resulted in a change of margin of more than 0.05 percentage points, even with a post-recount judicial challenge to boost the margin-of-change.

Assuming that the Kloppenburg campaign strategy is to “win” by any means possible, their goal, under this scenario, is to get a post-recount judicial appeal into what will amount to a kangaroo court, presided over by a reserve (retired, for those of you outside Wisconsin, and thus no longer accountable to the voters) judge appointed by Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, who has a thinly-veiled vested interest in a specific outcome. Their strategy will be to have declared, at a minimum, the city of Brookfield (which Waukesha County clerk Kathy Nickoulas forgot to report to the Associated Press on election night, but which was reported on the county-level canvass) incompetent to determine the affairs of Wisconsin the Kingdom of Dane. Assuming no margin change in a recount, tossing out the city of Brookfield results woudl give Kloppenburg an 87-vote “lead”.

Of course, if the recount finds a further net gain for Prosser (after all, the county-level canvass found, not counting Brookfield, a net gain of 117 for Prosser over the election-night numbers collated by the AP), they might be forced to have declared the entirety of Waukesha County incompetent to determine the affairs of the Kingdom of Dane. Tossing the entirety of Waukesha County would give Kloppenburg a 52,000-vote “lead”.

Any state-level appeal would probably be pointless on its own as it would first go to the Madison-based 4th District Court of Appeals. They would be expected to uphold whatever novel “judicial finding” the kangaroo court creates out of thin air to justify disenfranchising either an entire municipality or an entire county. At best, since either Justice Prosser would need to recuse himself or the seat would be vacant pending a final disposition, a further appeal to the Wisconsin Supreme Court would result in a 3-3 deadlock.

However, whatever novel “judicial finding” the kangaroo court would create out of thin air would almost certainly invoke an equal protection claim a federal court could latch onto. I would expect that, no later than the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, that claim would find a friendly judicial panel, and after tens of millions of dollars wasted under this scenario, the result would end up being what it is as of today – a Prosser victory.

The ball is in the Kloppenburg campaign’s court. I urge them to consider that, at the end of the day, they can’t win, and spare the state the pain and expense of a “by any means necessary” strategy.

Revisions/extensions (11:43 am 4/18/2011) – I swear that, while Kevin Binversie and I discussed the Butch Coolidge/Marcellus Wallace question, I didn’t crib from Kevin’s take (both his and mine are featured on this morning’s WisOpnion’s round-up). His close – “Because the worst fear the Kloppenburg legal team truly has, is not ‘losing’ a recount. It’s if Waukesha County is allowed to re-run its ballots through its machines again, and the numbers come out the same.”

Just as a reminder, if Kloppenburg opens the recount door, Prosser will be able to force a recount in any ward Klopenburg doesn’t have recounted before any judicial appeal. Given the last anybody heard of GAB’s investigation into Waukesha County was that the as-canvassed numbers from Brookfield were legitimate, one has to wonder if Kloppenburg wants to politically go down that road.

April 11, 2011

Tipping the hand of the largest post-election theft in modern history

by @ 14:52. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

WisPolitics reports that the Waukesha Democrat Party vice-chair, and Democrat representative on Waukesha County’s canvassing board, Ramona Kitzinger has retracted her statement from Friday saying the canvass in which the city of Brookfield votes were re-added to the unofficial total reported Tuesday was correct. All that is needed now to steal an election that was “won” by an order of magnitude larger than any previously stolen election since Reconstruction is a complicit Lawgiver-In-Black.

Revisions/extensions (5:12 pm 4/11/2011) – WisPolitics reports that, while the GAB investigation into what happened last week in Waukesha County continues, the final canvass numbers from the city of Brookfield matches what was reported by the city clerk on Tuesday.

With 71 of 72 counties canvassed…

by @ 13:08. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

In case you missed the big news of Thursday, Waukesha County clerk Kathy Nickolaus forgot to save the vote totals from the city of Brookfield on Tuesday night, turning what looked to be a razor-thin Joanne Kloppenburg margin into one favoring David Prosser by almost the margin-of-“free”-recount. WisPolilitics reports that, with just Milwaukee County to complete its canvass of the votes (and four three, with Kenosha now posted other counties yet to have the canvassed results posted to the GAB site), Prosser has a 7,304-vote lead.

James Wigderson and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial board don’t often agree, but they agree that given the current margin, a recount would be a waste of time and money. Of course, since a recount is the only gateway to get it into a court with a reserve judge appointed by Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson (side note; did Loophole Louis Butler remember to file to become a reserve judge after he was tossed from the Supreme Court), I don’t think Kloppenburg will go as quietly into the good night as her campaign’s private canvass of Waukesha County.

April 6, 2011

Goodbye Wisconsin, hello Kingdom of Dane

by @ 22:09. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

This one’s going to be rambling, partly because I’m out of practice, partly because I still feel like death warmed over, and partly because I’m still loopy from election-induced sleep deprivation. I also promise words that are not going to be safe for work. Most of my thoughts over the last 24 hours have been scattered across the ether, so it’s time to collate them in one place.

On August 1, the signs declaring Wisconsin The Kingdom of Dane closed to business on order of the Wisconsin Kingdom of Dane Supreme Court will go up as Joanne Kloppenburg will join and create a freshly-minted liberal majority. That will put an end to any further action by the still-sitting-for-now Republican majority in the Legislature and Governor Scott Walker, which were already stopped by the opening move by the Democrat Party of Dane County (which is the DPW and has been since 2002) to invalidate and (at least in the hopes of the Left) ultimately prematurely reverse their elections.

I’ve seen the movie of those who at least claim to be right of center showing up for one election and one election only, thinking the job is done, before. Indeed, I lived through the prequel, which featured the same leading politician, Scott Walker. Back in 2002, after an unconscionable 2000-era pension grab by the Milwaukee County politicians in power was discovered, we tossed out the county executive and replaced him with Walker. The bad news – we thought we were essentially done with that and failed to replace more than 6 of the 25 board supervisors with people who would vote to implement the changes Walker wanted. Ultimately, Walker was left with only 3 reliable votes of 19 on the board once it was resized and two election cycles happened.

Fast-forward to the present. While we gave Walker a Legislature who would not be, at the end of the day, a roadblock, we forgot to make sure that the Democrats could simply run away to stall things. Worse, when push came to shove, we once again forgot that the Left considers the judiciary, and especially the Supreme Court, THE END-ALL, and that this particular election could (and ultimately did) give them the launching point to return state government to the state which they see it: of the lawyers, by the Democrats, for the unions.

Looking over the county-by-county numbers, there is a serious warning light flashing at Sean Duffy. For all the focus, and rightly-so, on how it was Dane County that led the charge, the lowest drop-offs from Tom Barrett’s vote totals in November to Kloppenburg’s, and the highest from Scott Walker’s to David Prosser’s, happened not in Dane County or even in its geographical “sphere of influence”, but in northwest Wisconsin.

By the same token, the Fox Valley proved that their one-time infatuation with Steve Kagen was an abberation. Yes, I know Prosser is from Outagamie County, but the surrounding counties also had, on a percentage basis, more liberal dropoff than conservative drop-off.

For those who want to blame Walker, or the Brothers Fitzgerald for losing the messaging war, fuck you. No, FUCK YOU! Where the fuck were we (and yes, I include myself because I didn’t do long-form post after long-form post after long-form post) when Walker’s office released a week-long series of press releases detailing outrageous exploitations of the collective bargaining system that was dutifully ignored by the legacy press? Where the fuck were we when the Greater Wisconsin Committee threw the utility sink at Prosser? If there’s one thing we should have learned in the age of New Media, it is that WE are the messengers.

For those of you who want to blame the fact that the Brothers Fitzgerald never really did move on voter ID, much less as the first thing, or for moving on collective bargaining, once again, fuck you. Instead of the Left using collective bargaining as their rallying cry, they would have unleashed the same fucking tactics against voter ID with, as far as yesterday is concerned, more success. Indeed, any action on any idea on our agenda, or even inaction would have been used as their “spark”.

Even though the war, at least for the next 4 years, is lost, there are “skirmishes” (battles, really, even though only four people matter in the Kingdom of Dane and these skirmishes will be duly ignored by them) to be won in preparation for the next war – the 2015 Supreme Court race and the liberation of Wisconsin. That it took both the utility sink and a brain-fart-induced apathy for the Left to hit parity is at least somewhat encouraging, even in Wisconsin. It is especially encouraging for those in other states; the lesson of the day is to keep up the skeer because the Left never gives up.

April 4, 2011

Monday Hot Read – Kirsten’s “Solidarity Fever’s Fatal Effects”

by @ 13:26. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

Over at Piece of Work In Progress, Kirsten tells how AFSCME and SEIU sold their represented workers in Sauk County down the river. In exchange for 33 more months of forced union dues, AFSCME and SEIU both ceded more than what the budget repair bill would have forced (emphasis in the original, typo corrected):

So, according to each of the revised contract drafts (a representative sample of which you can find here), the county would have the power through 2013 to:

  • Implement a 0% pay increase each year
  • Hire and fire at will in the face of economic difficulty
  • Change or even abolish pay classifications
  • Determine type and level of healthcare coverage offered
  • Increase healthcare contribution levels over time
  • Set the level of pension contributions

The kicker – the SEIU and AFSCME sheep went along with it, while the clerical workers in the sheriff’s office turned it down.

March 31, 2011

Lawgiver-In-Black Sumi has declared La Follette the Übergovernor

That is the net effect of the latest pronouncement from Dane County Circuit Judge Judge Maryann Sumi, who has also declared herself superior to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which back in 1943 declared that no court has jurisdiction over the publication of an act, even if that act was, arguably, passed in a manner contrary to the state constitution.

March 29, 2011

$100,000 per commuting beneficiary is still too much

by @ 18:12. Filed under Choo-choos, Politics - Wisconsin.

I’m disappointed to learn that Scott Walker has applied for at least $150 million in Porkulus funds for the Hiawatha Milwaukee-to-Madison line to turn that into a “bit faster than car speed” line. Despite it being one of Amtrak’s top 10 lines and setting a new ridership record of 783,060 riders one-way passenger trips in FY2010 , it still needed a $5.5 million subsidy (90% covered by OtherPeoplesMoney in the form of federal money with a very-minor Illinois contribution) last year.

Once one strips away the 100 people per weekend day from even the projected 850,000 one-way passenger trips, that leaves roughly 1,500 daily commuters who rather like the idea of paying less for getting down to where they really want to be than the average parking rate in downtown Chicago while sucking the difference between what they pay and what it costs out of your pocketbook.

Reinforcing the “Act 10 is law” argument

by @ 0:36. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

Yesterday, the Wisconsin Department of Justice filed motions for both the repeal of Judge Maryann Sumi’s temporary restraining order and the withdrawal of its emergency appeal of the case because it asserts Act 10 is now in force and has been since Saturday. I’ll provide the Cliff’s Notes version:

  • With regard to the actual publication of an act, the Secretary of State has but one role – within one working day (i.e., a weekday that is not a state-recognized holiday) of the deposit of an act in his office, designate a date of publishment that is within 10 working days of its enactment. It is the Legislative Reference Bureau, which must publish on that designated date, or if there is no date designated, within that same 10 working-day window, that accomplishes the publication.

    As there is no statutory mechanism for that date to be changed after the first working day after deposit has passed, the “good faith” attempt by Doug La Follette to rescind the assigned date following Sumi’s TRO does not have any statutory weight.

  • As Dane County DA Ismael Ozanne failed to name the Legislative Reference Bureau in his attempt to overturn established case law barring judicial restraint on the publication of an act, it published the act in accordance with state law, and “(t)hat bell cannot be unrung now”.
  • As for the argument that it is a post-publication notice (one that can be as late as 10 days after the date of publication set by the Secretary of State and the act of publication by the Legislative Reference Bureau) by the Secretary of State in the official state newspaper, the Wisconsin State Journal, that is publication for the purposes of the constitutional requirement to publish, the DOJ notes the distinction in the state statutes between the actual publication of the act and a post-publication notice that includes the date of publication to knock that argument down.
  • As for the argument that a failure by the Secretary of State to designate a date of publishment (or specifically in this case, attempt a recession of designation), the DOJ asserts that, when the various mandates on the publication of an act are read together, the intent of the Legislature was that, unless specified in the act, it is to take effect no later than the day after ten working days after enactment, with a Secretary of State-exercised option to make that date earlier. I’ll quote from the request if this is not the case (emphasis in the original):

    To read these statutes any other way would permit a Secretary of State to delay publication of the act, thus granting far more power to the office of the Secretary of State than the Legislature intended when it imposed a series of ministerial, non-discretionary duties on the office. It would also effectively nullify the statutory directive to LRB to publish acts based upon the time the governor approves of a bill, and not when the Secretary of State acts. And most significantly, it would deprive the legislative of its prerogative to pass laws and put them into force. Goodland, 243 Wis. at 468 (“If a court can intervene and prohibit publication of an act, the court determines what shall be law and not the legislature…. This it may not do.”)

The ball is now squarely in Sumi’s court (no pun intended). If she were honest in her opposition to the act, she would vacate the existing TRO and replace it with one that blocks enforcement. Something tells me, however, she is going to try to retain her ill-conceived seizure of power for herself, the remainder of the liberal wing of the judiciary, and Doug La Follette.

March 25, 2011

The Dems and Sumi enjoined the wrong entity – UPDATE – Or did they?

by @ 17:41. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that despite the injunction placed on Democrat Secretary of State Doug La Follette prohibiting him from publishing Wisconsin Act 10, the non-partisan Legislative Reference Bureau has published it. Perhaps a review of Wisconsin Statute Chapter 35.095(3) is in order:

(3) PUBLICATION. (a) The legislative reference bureau shall publish every act and every portion of an act which is enacted by the legislature over the governor’s partial veto within 10 working days after its date of enactment.
(b) The secretary of state shall designate a date of publication for each act and every portion of an act which is enacted by the legislature over the governor’s partial veto. The date of publication may not be more than 10 working days after the date of enactment.
(c) Copies of each act or portion of an act enacted by the legislature over the governor’s partial veto shall be available on or before its date of publication to subscribers under s. 35.87 who pick up their documents. At appropriate intervals, the officer designated under s. 35.87 shall certify to the secretary of state that each act or portion of an act was available to subscribers on or before its date of publication.

Prior to the injunction, La Follette designated today as the date of publication of Act 10. At that point, his role over the publication of Act 10 ended. Therefore, as of tomorrow, Act 10 is the law of Wisconsin.

I will note that there is now another act of notification La Follette must do according to statute. According to Wisconsin Statute Chapter 14.38(10)(c), he must “(p)ublish in the official state newspaper within 10 days after
the date of publication of an act a notice certifying the number of each act, the number of the bill from which it originated, the date of publication and the relating clause. Each certificate shall also contain a notice of where the full text of each act can be obtained.” That notification, however, does not affect whether the law can be enforced.

Revisions/extensions (10:53 pm 3/25/2011) – I’ve been gone a few hours, and some further things have fallen into place. First, I’d like to thank Allahpundit for linking here. Much appreciated, AP.

While I was out, the gang at WisPolitics (and specifically, the Budget Blog) have been busy throwing cold water on the matter. First, they dug up a letter sent by La Follette to the LRB telling them to not publish Act 10 today or on any date until he sets a new date.

That throws into doubt whether the bill, even though it is published, can take effect. In a letter to Assembly minority leader Peter Barca (D-Kenosha), Wisconsin Legislative Council staff attorney Scott Grosz noted that State Statute Section 991.11 “states that every act that does not expressly prescribe the time when it takes effect shall take effect on the day after its date of publication as designated under s. 35.095 (3) (b), Stats.” Indeed, Grosz cited LRB chief Steve Miller as saying that Act 10 will not take effect tomorrow because of a lack of date from either La Follette or a specific written date in the Act.

R&E part 2 (7:35 am 3/26/2011) – Rick Esenberg weighed in on the matter late last night (or at least later than my feed reader’s last update from Shark and Shepherd – Google #FAIL). For those of you hopping in here from Hot Air, Esenberg is a faculty member at Marquette University Law School and a lawyer. The money quote from Esenberg, who is of the opinion that it is law as of today:

One’s initial reaction is that it has been satisfied. The Secretary is required to designate a publication date and he did so. The “publication activity” then becomes the responsibility of the LRB. But Secretary LaFollette did attempt to rescind his designation of the publication date. The issue now becomes whether that means anything.

The statute does not say that he has the power to rescind the publication date. Indeed the statutory framework does not seem to contemplate that there can be a publication date that is distinct from the date that the LRB publishes. There is a single date that is to be specified by the Secretary but that, in any event, must be accomplished by the LRB within ten days of enactment. The best reading of 35.095(3)(a)and (b) is that there is a single date of publication because there is no act of publication that is required of the Secretary to make the law become effective. The LRB seems to think that the Secretary has some further publication obligation that is related to the Act’s effectiveness. But there does not seem to be anything that can fairly be called that. All he can do is pick another day for something that the LRB had to do by today.

The Secretary is supposed to inform the LRB of its obligation. The LRB is supposed to carry it out. If you want to stop publication (which, under Goodland, a court may not do), you had better sue the LRB.

In any event, Secretary LaFollette was not ordered to rescind his designation of a publication date by Judge Sumi. Her order only enjoins him from doing something – publishing – that he had no power to do. Perhaps recission of the date is to be implied from her order but one would have expected both the DA and the judge to be more precise about that.

At the end of the day, it’s possible to argue that the law will not go into effect tomorrow but the greater likelihood is that it will.

R&E part 2 (12:37 am 3/29/2011) – I posted some non-lawyer analysis of the Department of Justice motion to vacate the TRO, specifically dealing with the alternative world where the Secretary of State is an Übergovernor and the judiciary is the Überlegislature.

March 24, 2011

Stall tactics – appellate edition

The 4th District Court of Appeals left in place Judge Lawgiver-In-Black Maryann Sumi’s temporary restraining order preventing publication of the budget repair bill while certifying to the Wisconsin Supreme Court a pair of questions relating to said temporary restraining order:

  1. Whether striking down a legislative act—also known as voiding—is an available remedy for a violation of the Open Meetings Law by the legislature or a subunit thereof.
  2. Whether a court has the authority to enjoin the secretary of state’s publication of an act before it becomes law.

It is a given that the members of the 3-person panel, Brian Blanchard, Paul Higginbotham and Paul Lundsten, are stalling until the remainder of the local units of government finish rushing to completion contracts that are unnecessarily benefitial to the unions. The only question is, in voting “present”, Blanchard, Higginbotham and Lundsten are simply afraid of the voters in Madison (the main area served by the 4th District) or are trying to stoke the anti-Prosser flames a bit higher by forcing the Supreme Court to deliver the smackdown.

March 17, 2011

Thursday Hot Read – Tom Blumer’s “Equal Recall”

by @ 18:15. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

I’m actually doing a bit of a homer nod here because I am the e-mailer in question. Tom Blumer wrote about how the duelling recall efforts are playing nationwide, and the fact that, to the LeftStreamMedia, the only recalls that are happening are being organized by the Democrats. With a modification for events that happened since I sent the e-mail Monday night (specifically, a DailyKos/PPP poll) as relayed by WisPolitics’ JR Ross on Jay Weber’s show yesterday, here’s my take on who is actually vulnerable, in order of decreasing vulnerability (updates in italics, some of the original text was edited by Tom):

– Dan Kapanke (R-32nd) – Given the two college towns (La Crosse, Eau Claire) and the Mississippi River shoreline in his district, I don’t know how he ever won election. Indeed, he was beaten in the Congressional race in November. Ignore the fact that there were, until Mike Huebsch was chosen as Administration secretary, 2 Republican Assemblymen out of the 3 Assembly districts that make up the Senate district – both of them were liberal “Republicans”, and the one that is still in the Assembly voted against the budget repair bill. Further, Kapanke has been the target of multiple incidents of personal property damage.

– Jim Holperin (D-12th) – His district is the mirror opposite of Kapanke’s. All three Assemblymen in the district are Republicans. It also is one of 4 districts where there is a local effort, and it’s the one that has had the most threats directed against it (to the point where one business ordered the recall organizers to not set up there after receiving threats, and not the boycott variety).

– Dave Hansen (D-30th) – The district is slightly less Republican than Holperin’s, but once again, all three Assemblymen are Republicans. Again, there is an active local recall committee.

– Randy Hopper (R-18th) – On paper, he “shouldn’t” be vulnerable. In generic terms, the district is middle-of-the-R spectrum. However, the district is home to several prisons (think corrections officers), and Hopper is not particularly well-liked, especially by his soon-to-be-ex.

– Robert Wirch (D-22nd) – Despite the fact that 2 of the 3 Assemblymen are Democrats, this district is a toss-up. The top-line races were virtually identical to the statewide races. Once again, there is a local group at work.

Luther Olsen (R-14th) – I didn’t have this on my radar initially, but a DailyKos/PPP poll seems to suggest he’s vulnerable to the generic Dem. Much like the neighboring Hopper’s district, on paper, Olsen really “shouldn’t” be vulnerable. The fact that Olsen is “not exactly” a conservative, however, points to one of two things, both potentially troubling for Olsen – either the district is more liberal than the “top-line” races suggest, or Olsen could be vulnerable to a challenge from his right.

– Alberta Darling (R-8th) – I probably shouldn’t include this as a “vulnerable” district, but the North Shore suburbs are a bit “funny”, especially since it is right next to the UW-Milwaukee campus. The main reason the 2008 election was close was Darling had a health issue at a time that was aggressively used against her. Of note, the same DailyKos/PPP poll that suggests Olsen is vulnerable gives Darling a comfortable advantage over the generic Dem.

March 11, 2011

The last, desperate, gasp to delay the budget repair bill

by @ 17:26. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

H/T – Kevin Binversie)

WisPolitics is reporting that Secretary of State Doug La Follette will be taking the full “10 working days” (which excludes Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays per state statute section 35.095 (1) (c)) he has under state statute section 35.095 (3) (b) to publish what is now Wisconsin Act 10. Since the state Constitution states no act is in force until it’s published, that gives the unionistas and their bought-and-paid-for local units of government two more weeks to ram through sweetheart deals.

I wish David King had been able to make it a clean sweep.

Walker signs budget-repair bill, rescinds layoffs

by @ 10:13. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

Since I’m borrowing Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story as the initial source, I’ll also borrow their headline. With a few strokes of Gov. Scott Walker’s pen this morning, the clock has now run out on unions and local units of government attempting to get one more round of one-upsmanship upside the taxpayers’ wallets. The budget repair bill, which limits public-employee collective bargaining to base pay (except for public-safety employees) is now law.

Shortly before Walker signed the bill into law, he also rescinded the planned layoffs of 1,500 state workers slated to begin on April 1. WLUK-TV has posted (H/T – Kevin Binversie) the letters delivered to the heads of the unions informing them that the layoffs will no longer be happening.

As Jim Geraghty tweeted for an alternate headline – “Walker, Wisc. GOP save or create 1500 jobs”.

March 10, 2011

Down go the public unions

by @ 16:14. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

After two hours of contentious debate, punctuated by lame attempts by the Democrats to stall the inevitable, the Assembly passed the budget repair bill on a 53-47 vote. It now goes to Governor Walker for his signature, and he said he will sign it as soon as he he is legally able to. That time frame is a question of how quickly the Assembly Clerk and the Legislative Reference Bureau can enroll the bill and present it to Walker for his signature.

Last call for WEAC

by @ 10:28. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

(H/T – Kevin Binversie)

The Wisconsin State Journal reported just this morning that WEAC is urging school boards to rush through contracts effective through 2013 before Scott Walker is able to sign the soon-to-be-passed budget repair bill that severely restricts collective bargaining priviliges for public unions. Meanwhile, the Wisconsin Association of School Boards is urging caution for its members, pointing out that even though the generalities of how the significant reduction in shared revenue are known, the specifics are still up in the air, and that it is unwise to lock themselves into two-year contracts.

Of note, the Madison story has a number the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel did not have last week – 50-100 school districts rammed through contract extensions the last 2 weeks. While the WSJ notes that WEAC is now asking its locals to accept concessions, the early contract extensions, including the one in Racine, did not contain any.

March 9, 2011

Budget endgame – Dems checkmated

by @ 20:52. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

After weeks of being held hostage and lied to by the Fleebag Fourteen Senate Democrats, and ultimately told that the only way the Dems would be coming back was if they were allowed to unconditionally win, the Brothers Fitzgerald had enough and figured out a way to do the budget repair bill without the 20-Senator requirement for a bill that is fiscal in nature. After passing the substitute amendment through a conference committee (which, for those of you out of state, means that it cannot be altered in any way), the Senate Republicans passed it through their chamber, which is still lacking the 14 Democrats, on a party-line 18-1 vote, with Dale Schultz (WEAC-No Talk Radio Here) being the lone dissenter. The bill will now reportedly go to the Assembly tomorrow, with the Assembly starting up at 11 am.

JR Ross at WisPolitics did a quick comparison between the version that previously came out of the Joint Finance Committee, which was stalled by the Fleebag Fourteen, and the version that came out of the conference committee:

These items were removed from the JFC version:
-changes to the earned income tax credit
-a $79 million reduction in the lapses required from the DOA secretary
-$165 million in debt restructuring
-increasing funding for MA programs to close funding gap through end of fiscal year
-the sale of state power plants (emphasis added)
-increasing funding for Corrections to close gap through end of fiscal year
-reallocation of group health and pharmacy benefit reserves
-audit of dependent eligibility under benefit programs

For those wondering about the potential 1,500-state-worker layoffs slated for April if nothing were done, do not quote me, but judging by the differing gross closing balances ($65,115,300 in the JFC version, $158,853,200 in the conference version, both including a $65,000,000 required statutory balance), it looks like they won’t be necessary.

The Democrats appear to be pinning their last hopes on the short notice provided for the conference committee. However, the provision in state law that generally requires a 24-hour notice also allows for that notice to be as short as 2 hours if there is “good cause such notice is impossible or impractical”. That has never been adjudicated, but in Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald’s statement, he said that the Legislative Reference Bureau, which includes non-partisan lawyers hired for the speicific purpose of helping legislators draft bills, effectively signed off on the bill.

Revisions/extensions (10:40 pm 3/9/2011) – Via WisPolitics’ Budget Blog, here is what Senate Chief Clerk Rob Marchant had to say about the short notice provided for the conference committee meeting:

There was some discussion today about the notice provided for the legislature’s conference committee. In special session, under Senate Rule 93, no advance notice is required other than posting on the legislative bulletin board. Despite this rule, it was decided to provide a 2 hour notice by posting on the bulletin board. My staff, as a courtesy, emailed a copy of the notice to all legisaltive (sic) offices at 4:10, which gave the impression that the notice may have been slightly less than 2 hours. Either way, the notice appears to have satisfied the requirements of the rules and statutes.

I thought you might find this information to be useful.

Thanks.

Rob

Revisions/extensions (7:08 am 3/11/2011) – I probably should have caught this when WisPolitics did and before Kevin Binversie started sending people here, but the LFB changed their summary on Thursday morning to note that the potential sale of the state power plants and a change in the Earned Income Tax Credit, not discussed in the Wednesday summary, were part of the bill, and that a “Study of Potential Modifications of the Wisconsin Retirement System and State Employee Health Insurance Options”, which was discussed by the LFB, was not part of the bill. Importantly, LFB director Bob Lang noted that the bill language itself remained the same throughout the process, which means that what the conference committee, the Senate, and the Assembly voted on was, to the letter and punctuation, the same.

March 7, 2011

Egg’s business at Walmart, Culver’s and Menards to pick up

by @ 13:31. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

Jim Hoft received some information on a Wausau branch of WEAC-led boycott of businesses that refuse to kowtow to them, and indeed in some cases, actively supported Scott Walker. Included are both the list of businesses displayed in the teachers’ lounge at a Wausau high school and copies of two different form letters to be delivered to non-complying businesses. This is after the local TV station (WSAW-TV, Channel 7) refused to run with the story after being fed it first.

Bonus item – The Wausau Tea Party got their hands on the “Wisconsin-as-a-fist” signs being doled out by the thugs from both the Wisconsin AFL-CIO and the Rock Netroots.

Now I’m off to gas up at Kwik-Trip, grab lunch at Culver’s, and get a dinner of Johnsonville brats and Sargento cheese from Walmart.

February 28, 2011

Monday Hot Read – Bob Ziegelbauer’s “Governor’s budget repair plan has merit”

by @ 12:07. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

(H/T – Kevin Binversie)

The lone independent in the Assembly and Manitowoc County Executive Bob Ziegelbauer penned a column for the Manitowoc Herald Times-Reporter yesterday:

Total compensation — wages plus fringe benefits — for public sector employees has been out of whack for long a time. It’s a systematic problem, one we can’t ignore.

When the economy went down, state and local government kept spending as if everything was normal. But, the truth is that when things went bad, nearly everyone in the private sector took a big, permanent, financial hit almost immediately and are only now working their way back.

Public sector employees were protected from the pain by continuing tax increases, mediation arbitration and the political power of their unions. As unemployment got worse, the gap between their total compensation and the rest grew farther apart. Now, we need to adjust, to realign that as soon as possible. The longer we wait, the harder it will be.

Reality is going to hit home tomorrow, as the FY2012-FY2013 budget is expected to have over $1 billion in cuts to shared revenue.

February 24, 2011

We’re number four – 2009 state/local taxes edition

by @ 17:55. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin, Taxes.

(H/T – Kevin Fischer)

The Tax Foundation has just released its analysis of Fiscal Year 2009 state and local taxes, and because Wisconsinites pay 11.0% of their incomes in state- and local-level taxes, we had the fourth-worst tax burden in the nation as of last year. That represents an increase of 2.2% from the 10.7% of income Wisconsinites paid in 2008, when Wisconsinites’ tax burden was 6th-worst. By contrast, the average American paid 9.8% of his or her income in state- and local-level taxes in 2009, a drop of 1.2% from the 9.9% of income paid in 2008.

Since the Tax Foundation looks at the taxpayer side of the equation rather than the taxer side, they break down what Wisconsinites pay in-state versus what Wisconsinites pay out-of-state. In fact, in explaining this, they mention Wisconsin as one of their examples – “When Illinois and Massachusetts residents own second homes in nearby Wisconsin or Maine, local governments in Wisconsin and Maine will tally those property tax col­lections, but we will shift those payments back to the states of the taxpayers.”

With that in mind, let’s take a look at what Wisconsinites paid in in-state taxes. In 2008, we paid a per-capita $3,356 in in-state taxes (10th-highest overall), representing 8.1% of $41,454 in per-capita income (5th-highest overall). In 2009, that increased to $3,418 in per-capita in-state taxes (9th-highest overall), representing 8.5% of $41,4321 in per-capita income (4th-highest overall). That was a $62 increase in per-capita taxes paid (making Wisconsin one of only 17 states where this increased), while per-capita income dropped $1,133, which resulted in an increase of the tax burden in terms of income by 4.7%.

What did the average American see in own-state tax burden? In 2008, the average American paid $3,163 inside their own state, or 7.1% of their $44,294 income. In 2009, the dollar amount dropped to $3,097, but because the income dropped to $42,539, the burden increased to 7.2% of income, or a 0.6% increase.

As for Kevin’s notation that we’re worse than California, we indeed passed them in 2009 in terms of income (i.e. ability to pay). In 2008, California and its local units of government took 8.6% of Californians’ income, and in 2009, that dropped to 8.4%.

In fact, the three states that exacted more from their citizens in terms of income were Connecticut (8.5% of income), New Jersey (8.7% of income) and New York (9.6% of income).

As Kevin said, “Enough.”

Revisions/extensions (3:15 pm 2/26/2011) – I probably should have also mentioned Minnesota’s and Kentucky’s rankings. While Minnesota’s state and local per-capita take from its residents was a bit higher than Wisconsin’s at $3,520 (7th-highest nationally), the fact that each resident has an average income of $45,220 makes the percent-of-income take quite a bit better at 7.8% (6th-highest nationally).

Meanwhile, Kentucky’s state and local takes from each of its residents was a mere $2,227 (37th-highest nationally). Even its 3rd-lowest per-capita income of $32,959 didn’t raise its percent-of-income dramatically, as the 6.8% of income taken by Kentucky was 25th-highest.

I can’t speak for Shoebox, but I’m sure the lower taxes in Kentucky had something to do with his move to a warmer climate.

February 23, 2011

Just Wonderin’

by @ 20:03. Filed under Budget Chop, Politics - Wisconsin.

Boy, it’s been a week of non stop fun hasn’t it?  Employees have been threatening their employers to the point of physical harm and the President sides with the employees.  Have we gone through the looking glass and I didn’t notice?

The employees have backed down from their “hell no we want mo’…money” to “can’t we compromise?”

So you want to compromise huh?  Well, let’s see….

  • They claim to be fighting for worker’s rights.  Would that include the right to fail?
  • They claim to be fighting to protect teachers’ rights.  What to they think about parents’ rights to educational choices.  Would they support vouchers?
  • They claim to be fighting for a voice for students and schools.  Aren’t they they same group who complain when parents aren’t involved with students and schools?  Don’t parents and taxpayers get a say about the students and schools?
  • They claim that rallies and demonstrations prove support for them.  I can only assume that they believe the passage of Obamacare was an abuse of power based on even larger rallies and demonstrations?

I wouldn’t compromise a lick with this group.  Through their actions they’ve shown that they are either thugs or condone thuggery.  It’s time to put parents and school boards back in charge of education. 

Keep on Governor Walker!

Wednesday Hot Read – Christian Schneider’s “Of Course It’s about the Money”

by @ 7:52. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

Christian Schneider grabbed a spot at NRO’s Corner and explained what the fights in Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio are all about for Da Unions and Da Rats:

But to say these protests are merely about collective-bargaining rights is to say The Godfather is a movie about Italian food.

Since the early 1970s, public-sector unions have been a powerful political force in Wisconsin, as they are in many states. The unions collect dues from their members (up to $1,100 per member per year), which they then use to elect members sympathetic to their causes. In the last two elections, the state’s largest teachers’ union spent $3.6 million supporting their candidates.

Walker has attempted to change that framework, allowing government workers to opt out of paying union dues — which, he has said, he thinks may offset the increased health and pension contributions he’s asking of employees.

And it is this provision that has the unions most up in arms. They know that, given the option, many of their members would choose not to write out a check for union dues. This, in turn, would strangle their election spending, leaving them scrambling for funds and, consequently, influence.

Christian went on to explain how MPS’s decision to acquiesce to MTEA demands in the mid-1970s to pay retiree health care benefits (ultimately a major contributor to the demise of General Motors and Chrysler as private entities) led to an unfunded actuarial liability of over four times the district’s entire annual $1 billion-plus budget, which, if fully-funded on an annual basis, would represent a full 20% of said budget.

February 22, 2011

Sgt. Schultz strikes again

by @ 22:52. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

WisOpinion has a copy of an op-ed penned by former Senate “Republican” “leader” Dale “No Talk Radio Here” Schultz saying he will introduce an amendment restoring full collective bargaining rights after June 30, 2013. Not-so-coincidentally, June 30, 2013 just happens to be the end date of the series of the next-to-be-negotiated WEAC contracts, and the changes in bargaining rights (including yearly contracts) don’t apply to contracts already entered into. I guess that $500 WEAC PAC gave Schultz last year, along with the $1,000 they gave him in 2006 and $1,000 in 2002, the only significant money to go to an individual Republican lately from WEAC, just might have had something to do with that knife in the back. I don’t think Schultz, whose last major action was to torpedo the Taxpayer Protection Amendment, is bright enough to use that as bait to lure a couple of Dems back to Wisconsin.

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