Three cheers for judicial elitism!

As I've often been fond of saying, the best part of American government is the "for the people" part.

The worst part? The "by the people" part.

Americans today largely get the government they deserve. As a whole, they are ill-informed about the many facets of domestic and foreign policy that confront their elected officials. Hell, many of them can't even name the three branches of government. And frankly, Americans don't seem to want to be any better informed than they already are. They'd prefer to sit on the couch and watch TV.

Nowhere is our electoral inadequacy more prevalent than in judicial elections. One can see it in the despicable ads that Michael Gableman, Louis Butler, and their assorted friends have run in the last few months. Truly, neither man deserves to be elected tomorrow but sadly, one of them will be chosen. I'll quietly pull for Butler, if only because Gableman and his henchmen had the unmitigated gall to essentially criticize Butler for working as a public defender. Apparently to hachetmen and some conservatives, accused criminals don't deserve a competent defense - either that, or those who defend them are unqualified to serve on the bench. That's frightening, especially when such garbage is coming directly from a candidate's campaign.

The Wisconsin State Journal, however, hit the nail on the head when it suggested that Wisconsin move in the same direction many other states are moving, towards a system of merit selection for judges.

Judicial races are technically non-partisan, though our usual cast of partisan-leaning interest groups dumps hundreds of thousands of dollars into media blitzes. Those who would be judges deserve a better process than this. Judges shouldn't have to pander to voters. They shouldn't have to stoop to the kinds of accusations and tawdry media campaigns that politicians routinely embrace. And since conservatives will bitch and grumble about public financing and restrictions on 527s, the best answer is to simply take this matter out of the hands of the voters altogether.

Besides, voters don't have a flippin' clue what they're doing anyway. I'd bet $500 that most Wisconsin voters couldn't even name the last Supreme Court justice they voted for.

Voters don't need to decide everything. Democracy is hardly a perfect system of government, and some decisions are, frankly, too important to subject to this perverse brew of three parts campaign demagoguery and four parts stupid electorate.

Elitist? Yes. And so were our founding fathers.

Create a non-partisan committee to screen applicants, made up of individuals appointed by the legislative branch, executive branch, the bar association, and law schools. Require that all appointed individuals hold law degrees. Have the committee submit a list of qualified applicants to the governor. Have the governor select one, and subject that candidate to Senate confirmation. Give voters a chance to vote the judge up or down at the end of his/her first term.

When it comes to the judicial process, the overwhelming majority of voters don't understand how the courts are structured or what particular types of courts are responsible for. The only real way to determine a judge's judicial philosophy is to review opinions written by that judge, something nobody is going to do because there's a new episode of Top Chef on the television.

Just appoint judges already. Our courts will get more qualified judges and voters won't even notice there's one less thing to vote for in a spring general that 85% of them don't bother to show up for anyway.

Jim Kreuser wants a raise.

Isn't that why everyone runs for County Exec?

Not much suspense to Kreuser's announcement that he's running in the June special election for Kenosha County executive - rumors of his candidacy have been floating around since about three minutes after Allan Kehl was indicted in February for (allegedly) taking bribes from Dennis Troha.

What will be more interesting, of course, is how this shuffles the leadership lineup among Assembly Democrats. Kreuser's quotes in the article certainly make it sound as though he's not going to try and double-dip like his colleague, Bob Ziegelbauer.

It was rumored that Mike Sheridan had the votes lined up as early as last summer to take Kreuser out. So assuming Kreuser is victorious in June, what next? Richards? Sheridan? Pocan? Someone else? Do the Dems simply designate someone as a caretaker for the time being and wait until after November to make a final decision? Or will they risk fighting it out just months before a crucial election in which most observers expect them to reclaim the Assembly majority?

Interesting times. But regardless, best of luck to Rep. Kreuser as he looks to continue his public service, reduce his commuting expenses, and sweeten his pension all at the same time.

Obama rips a page out of the Romney playbook

Just like I ripped Mitt Romney's "I Have A Faith" speech, so too will I rip Barack Obama's "We Are All Racists Now" speech on Wednesday.

Obama's reluctance to push away from his goofy pastor Jeremiah Wright is no different than his reluctance in an earlier debate to push away from Louis Farrakhan. Heck, Obama's church gave its Trumpeter Award last year, named after Wright, to Farrakhan, a man the church said "epitomized greatness."

Clearly, Obama wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wants the support of racist black leaders like this but wants to simultaneously keep them at a distance.

Now, I don't blame Obama for befriending the kooky racist pastor down the street. As Dick Morris pointed out, Obama likely needed his relationship with Wright for credibility. A half-black guy who grew up in Hawaii and abroad and went to a bunch of uber-elite private schools isn't exactly going to walk into the south side of Chicago with a whole boatload of credibility. Kissing up to Wright was probably smart for a young man looking to launch a political career.

At first, Obama was trying to sell us on the message that these statements by Wright were needles in a pastoral haystack. Problem is, much of the footage of Wright that has been broadcast has come from DVD's that the church sells. If Wright's diatribes were occasional and not representative of the body of his work, why would the church he runs elect to include them on DVD's?

So like Romney, Obama walks to the podium in front of a bunch of American flags, takes his right hand, and waves it wildly in an attempt to distract the media and America at large from the growing problem in his left hand. Instead of dealing with Wright head on, instead of explaining why he never felt compelled to confront his pastor about the egregious inaccuracies in his sermons, he tries to excuse Wright by saying, in essence, that we're all racists too. To prove it, he even throws his white grandmother under the bus.

The sole purpose of Romney's speech was to deflect questions about his faith and attempt to frame those who would ask such questions as being divisive and destructive to the process. Is that not exactly what Obama tried to do on Wednesday? He embraced Wright, said he was like family, and then told all of us that we should think about our own racism instead. He implied that we are the problem, not Wright.

Except I don't ever remember accusing America of treating its own citizens like subhumans. Or accusing whites of creating AIDS to wipe out minorities.

Can you imagine the public response if John McCain had a white pastor who made racist remarks, and then McCain referred to that pastor, as Obama did, as a part of him and a part of the country that he loves? The press would be irate.

Finally, at the end of the speech, Obama said plainly and without reservation that the answer to solving racism is, you guessed it, more government. If only we spent more money on schools and community programs, if only we spent more on health and welfare and education, then racism would magically end and we could all prosper.

Except we've been spending more on health and welfare and education for decades and it hasn't fixed the problem that Obama perceives. When it comes to empirical evidence, Obama's got nothing to offer. He does have a handful of feel-good platitudes, though.

There's nothing new about Barack Obama when it comes to content. He's just a prettier face selling the same, tired, government-can-solve-everything agenda that Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis peddled back in the 80's. If Obama's light on policy, it's probably because America has historically rejected his agenda at the national level.

So Obama's favorable numbers continue to plunge and he continues to lose ground to Clinton and McCain in national polls. His campaign continues to angle behind the scenes to prevent revotes in Michigan and Florida, two states he would likely lose. He's on pace to rack up a double-digit loss in Pennsylvania, a state that, along with Florida and Ohio, he's polling well behind McCain in. All this after just a few weeks of scrutiny.

Looks like the honeymoon is over and, save for guys like Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews, Obama's marriage with the press isn't going too well. It'll be interesting to see where Democrats are at in June, especially if Clinton is polling better against McCain - something that, given Obama's current track, is a distinct possibility.

Assembly Republicans turn in another fine effort on budget repair bill

I just wanted to offer a word of congratulations to the Assembly Republicans, for once again proving to the whole world what a bunch of weak-kneed wimps they are. Knowing full well they don't have the cohesiveness or the nerve to actually develop a proposal that cuts spending, they passed a budget repair bill just shy of midnight that does the following:

• pushes even more school aid payments into the next biennium
• effectively drains the rainy-day fund
• lowers the statutory balance requirement
• demands a $250 million lapse in state operations, but tells DOA to figure out where to do the cutting

I'll have to agree with incoming Assembly Speaker Jim Kreuser, when he agreed with me in calling this bill "intellectually lazy." A few days ago, I said that:

"Spending cuts can be, however, more responsible than both raising taxes and bonding. But cutting spending the right way means prioritizing. It means being willing to say that certain programs are less important than other programs, and it means selling that message to voters. Republicans are terrible at that. Too often, they rely on across-the-board spending cuts... Whether employed by Republicans or Democrats, across-the-board cuts are the refuge of the intellectually lazy."

Little did I know then just how brilliantly Assembly Republicans would deliver for me.

Sanctioning a bunch of smoke-and-mirrors and telling the Democrats to make the hard decisions isn't leadership. It's an absence of leadership. Assembly Republicans don't understand that taking a bunch of fiscally irresponsible ideas, throwing them together, and calling them fiscally conservative because they don't raise taxes isn't authentic and it's not genuine. Even conservatives have figured this game out. And it's precisely why voters are marching Republicans into the minority right now.

Moderate voters are offended that Republicans seem to spend more time on Mark Honadel's worthless English-first bills and Leah Vukmir's ridiculous constitutional amendments on the right to health care they can barely afford than anything actually important to them. Conservatives, on the other hand, are offended that Republicans are too afraid to cut anything. One group is abandoning Republicans because they address the wrong issues. The other abandons them because they can't even uphold one of the core principles that the party has used to define itself for generations.

Could life be any better for Wisconsin Democrats? Probably not. They don't even have to do anything right to beat the Republicans. They just have to sit back and watch Republicans punch themselves in the head.

Also, my congratulations to Steve Nass, for being the one member of that caucus who had the nerve to call bullshit on the whole arrangement. I don't always agree with Nass but, just like during the budget, he seems to be the only person in that caucus who gets that it's bills like this that cause voters to believe that there's no leadership coming from Republicans in Madison.

Scott Walker for County Exec... for at least a couple more months. Maybe a year?

Scott Walker recently cut a new ad on property taxes (watch it above) that would actually be effective, if the guy who wrote the script didn't botch the whole ad by having Walker use the phrase "... if I have the honor of being your County Executive for the next few years."

Uh, hey ad man. That's terrible wording, and only calls attention to what everyone already knows - Walker will ditch this gig for the first chance at higher office that pops up. So you cut an otherwise decent ad about property taxes and economic development, and then you screw the pooch by including that phrase? Couldn't you just say "if you reelect me as your County Executive?" Or are all Republican consultants in Wisconsin really that oblivious these days?

Sure, maybe Lena Taylor wants to run for AG in 2010. Who knows? But that hardly frees Walker to admit he's just using the County Exec gig as a holding pen for whatever he wants to do next.

Too good to be true

So a Democrat who made his reputation by busting corporate corruption and prostitution rings apparently likes high-priced hookers himself. Congratulations, Eliot Spitzer. Good work.

I enjoyed your apology today, Governor. First of all, why'd you drag your wife up there? Haven't you embarrassed her enough already? And way to not take questions. You must've learned that from Sen. Obama.

Secondly, why is it that so many talking heads are shocked by this? Didn't we all learn something from guys like Mark Foley and Larry Craig? All too often, the people crusading the hardest against an issue are those who are overcompensating for their own personal peccadilloes.

Finally, on behalf of Republicans, thanks for not resigning, Governor. You're not Larry Craig. Nobody gives a flip about Idaho. But you're the governor of New York, a state that could well be in play in November. So please, let this drag out. We can't wait to hear the wiretaps and see the text messages. We can't wait to see what you're charged with. Because you're a public figure, big guy. You will be charged.

So take your time, Client #9. We've got all the time in the world to let you drag your party through the mud.

Budget Debacle, Part Deux

This afternoon, Governor Doyle is expected to kick off Budget Debacle, Part Deux, by making public his plan to clean up the mess left behind by last year's budget fiasco. As you'll recall, that embarrassment was a result of two major factors: Republicans who are, at their core, terrified to cut anything, and the tendency of both parties to swipe money from segregated accounts to avoid major confrontations about taxes and spending.

So now we're here, five months after that process concluded, looking for another $400+ million to make ends meet. Brilliant stuff, folks.

Fiscal responsibility isn't difficult. It just requires paying for what you spend. Of course, when one looks at America's towering credit card debt or the foreclosure "crisis" that is forcing millions of Americans who have overspent their means to pony up their homes, it's easy to figure out why politicians can't spend money responsibly. Neither can the people who vote for them.

Here's a quick lesson for legislators. In virtually every case, raising taxes or cutting spending is a more fiscally responsible approach to governance than what you end up doing - raiding segregated funds for extra cash and then backfilling those holes with bonding. Your bonding brilliance often increases the real cost of money by upwards of 30% over the lifetime of the repayment period.

Bonding can be responsible in instances where the purchased good will be used for many years - like with buildings or roads. Wisconsin's problem is that it has money set aside for those activities (smart) which it now raids constantly to pay for present expenses largely attributable to entitlement programs (dumb).

It's like Wisconsin politicians use the envelope system of budgeting, but constantly grab money from other envelopes to put into the envelope marked "bills due." They constantly underfund that envelope, but it's the one that has to be paid first. So what do they do? They end up stealing from all the others. Of course, that ends up destroying the long-term stability of their finances. When major purchases are necessary, they don't have any money saved. So what do they do? They break out the credit card.

Bad idea.

Given free reign, Democrats would just raise taxes to pay for everything. Republicans would argue that's irresponsible, but within the context of government, everything would be paid for. So even though their plans are sometimes terrible, they're usually responsible from a fiscal standpoint.

The problem with Assembly Republicans is their recent refusal to lead or develop any plan of their own. The Assembly Republicans already function as a minority party. They have no broad agenda to appeal to voters. Rather, they focus their efforts on currying favor with interest groups and trying to obstruct Democratic legislative efforts.

Last summer, Republicans could've presented a thoughtful, responsible alternative to the Doyle budget. But instead of coming up with serious ideas for restructuring state government, they opted in their budget deliberations to engage in a bunch of smoke-and-mirrors, balancing their budget through a series of untenable and politically impossible maneuvers. In the process, they were forced in the endgame to swallow a mostly-Democratic budget that, in their own view, wasn't good but simply sucked less than the original Doyle budget.

The thing Republicans need to do to restore their own credibility with their base is to actually be proactive. Develop a counterproposal and market it aggressively instead of lazily sitting back in those leather desk chairs and throwing out tired criticisms of Democratic ideas. Yeah, maybe the hospital tax isn't the best idea, but you know what? It's a long-term, recurring source of revenue. If you aren't going to cut anything, it's probably a better alternative than staging another raid on the envelope marked "transportation." Ditto with closing the Las Vegas loophole.

Spending cuts can be, however, more responsible than both raising taxes and bonding. But cutting spending the right way means prioritizing. It means being willing to say that certain programs are less important than other programs, and it means selling that message to voters. Republicans are terrible at that. Too often, they rely on across-the-board spending cuts. The problem with that is that approach is that it punishes the efficient as well as the inefficient. Such a strategy actually encourages state agencies to pad their budgets because it gives them something to cut in the event they are targeted in such a broad, unfocused cost-containment strategy.

Whether employed by Republicans or Democrats, across-the-board cuts are the refuge of the intellectually lazy.

What do I expect to happen? Sadly, what always happens. The state will delay some new programs and probably raid a whole bunch of envelopes to pay the bills. Instead of asking voters to pay now, by raising taxes or sacrificing some services, politicians will just bond it all and pass the buck on to future generations.

Sometimes I think they should all be fired.

Gableman wanders into the lion's den

Sometimes you see things and can only slap your head in bewilderment at the thought process involved in arriving at an outcome.

This Sunday, Justice Louis Butler and Judge Michael Gableman are debating in Dodgeville. That, in and of itself, is not so ominous. The debate, however, is sponsored by the Iowa County Bar Association and Grassroots Citizens of Wisconsin.

On the Grassroots website, this event is listed right after the Feingold listening session in Barneveld, and just before a public forum to discuss Healthy Wisconsin and a reminder about the monthly peace vigil at the Iowa County Courthouse. This would be the same Grassroots group that some Capitol staffers begged RPW to take seriously back in 2006 before they plowed Steve Freese and Gabe Loeffelholz into the history books.

Of course, RPW largely ignored those concerns because nothing bad could ever happen to Republicans in an election. Republicans never lose. Which is why Freese runs a museum now and Loeffelholz is doing... well... whatever he's doing.

From a strategic standpoint, nothing good could possibly come from a nominally Republican judicial candidate participating in a debate organized by a group run by avowed progressives. Now, if Gableman is doing this out of an honest desire to engage in dialogue, even in potentially hostile environments, I suppose that's somewhat admirable - even if it's a terrible political decision.

But it's still a terrible political decision, something that Republican strategists in Wisconsin have become increasingly good at making in recent years.

Dave Hansen just did the thing we all hoped he wouldn't do.

He just completely and totally exploited the memory of his deceased granddaughter Ellie to benefit his re-election efforts. I bring you this missive from the Hansen office:

To: All Legislators
From: Senator Dave Hansen
Date: March 3, 2008
Re: Ellie's Law - LRB-3272/4
Deadline: 5:00 PM, March 4.

I am introducing this legislation on behalf of my granddaughter who tragically passed away last summer as the result of a back-over accident. Nothing can bring our dear Ellie back, but my daughter and her husband and the rest of Ellie's family and friends would like her memory to help prevent other accidents like hers.

LRB-3272/4 requires driver education courses to teach students the hazards of leaving young children unattended in vehicles, of motor vehicle blind spots, of backing motor vehicles around small children, and of accidental activation of power windows. The bill also requires DOT to develop and administer a child safety program regarding vehicle hazards to young children. The legislation finally requires the department to include with license renewal notices a one page informational sheet reminding licensees of these hazards.

My family and I believe this legislation also complements a federal bill recently signed by President Bush. That legislation, the Cameron Gulbransen Kids Transportation Safety Act, requires the federal DOT to issue new safety standards in these areas, as well as maintain a database and conduct a public safety campaign.

Because the end of the legislative session is near, this bill has a very short deadline. If you would like to cosponsor LRB-3272/4 please reply to this e-mail or call Eric in my office by 5:00 PM on March 4.

For the record, Sen. Hansen, I don't even think you're all that vulnerable this fall. Some people would disagree with that assessment, and that's fine. But the fact that you're circulating this bill TEN days before the end of session can only lead people to believe (somewhat logically) that this is more about you wrapping yourself in the cloak of your granddaughter's tragic death than it is about making a legitimate effort this session at enacting public policy.

Dave, you've been in the Capitol for over seven years now. You know how the place works and the timelines on which it operates. The idea you're pitching isn't rocket science. This is a four-page bill that a drafter could write in his or her sleep. You could've had your staff draw this up with LRB the week after it happened and had something introduced a week after that.

In fact, based on the LRB number on this draft, 3272, this bill was probably done well before Thanksgiving, possibly as early as September. (In the future, know that you can disguise that by requesting that the bill be re-drafted as a /1. It's also a good way to bury drafter's notes and memos from lobbyists and donors about the bills you're working on.)

Instead, you're dropping it into the hopper a week and a half before session ends. Seriously, what choice are you giving people but to assume that this is just an attempt on your part to remind everyone that people should feel bad for you? If you were serious about this bill as public policy and not as a stunt, why did you leave this sitting in a file cabinet until such time that you knew there was almost no way it could pass this session, then pulled it out, slapped your granddaughter's name at the top and circulated it for public consumption?

Furthermore, if it wasn't about you Dave, why not have one of your Dem colleagues introduce it? After all, haven't we seen one legislator after another get chastised this session for introducing bills based on their own personal lives and experiences?

Maybe talk to Luther Olsen about that. Or Sheryl Albers. She got put through the wringer by the Wisconsin State Journal for a week over a doggie divorce bill that was inspired by a dog that was dead long before the bill came around. At the time, Mike McCabe said "When you work on legislation that hits really close to home, that raises serious questions about whether you are looking out for the interests of all the people in the district or looking out for your self-interest."

Gee, wonder if Mike will be consistent enough to say the same about your bill?

Frankly Dave, I think I learned all this stuff in driver's ed, so I'm not really sure why a mandate is necessary. And on top of that, if it's really a concern, maybe you should send EVERYONE back to driver's ed to learn these things. Clearly you needed the lesson. And I don't say that to be rude. I say that to be objective. You screwed up and now you think the answer to the "problem" is a government mandate that, if passed, wouldn't effectively be phased in at 100% for another sixty years.

Look, I feel bad for you Sen. Hansen, and I feel bad for your family. But not only is this bill largely without merit, it's designed and timed to let you exploit your granddaughter's death to benefit your campaign.

You can call me a cynic if you want. But you can also call me right. This is a spade and someone has to call it.

Bies, Lasee vie for King of the Hill honors

Propane Safety Act expected to become law

Spurred by Ellison Bay blast, bipartisan bill results

By Deb Fitzgerald
deb@doorcountyadvocate.com


Bipartisan legislation prompted by the propane-related Ellison Bay explosions in July 2006, is on its way to Gov. Jim Doyle’s office, where it’s expected to be signed into law.

The Propane Safety Act passed unanimously in the state Senate Feb. 19 and by voice vote in the Assembly Feb. 27.

The companion bills were introduced by Rep. Garey Bies, R-Sister Bay, and Sen. Alan Lasee, R-De Pere. (Full article here.)

So can we call this one "Hank's Law"?