If the mining bill fails, don't blame Dale Schultz. Blame the tone-deaf GOP leadership for failing to anticipate problems and deal with them in advance.
MADISON, WI (WTAQ) - The Wisconsin Senate Republican who broke ranks with his party and tried to kill the Assembly’s mining bill says he’ll meet with the finance committee co-chairs Friday afternoon on a possible compromise.
But Dale Schultz of Richland Center says he won’t compromise on the two things he wants in a mining package – preserving environmental protections, and keeping people’s rights to challenge DNR decisions.
The bill passed by the Assembly goes against Schultz’s stands on both counts. And without Schultz’s support, Senate leaders say they don’t have the votes to ratify the mining package that was approved by the Assembly in January.
Whether conservatives like it or not, Schultz is damn near invincible in his district. Nobody down in southwest Wisconsin cares about this mine. And the Senate GOP is likely destined for the minority in this summer's recalls. So for now, Schultz has all the cards.
The only real question is how badly the GOP leadership in the legislature wants to get this bill done.
6 comments:
Do you really anticipate the GOP losing more Senate seats in this summer's recalls? Last summer you attributed Kapanke's loss to the shifting demographics of his district and Hopper's loss to his extreme personal and professional incompetence. Which GOP Senators are likely to lose this summer and why?
Honestly Ordinary Jill,
If you are looking at performance numbers each of those 3 districts are better for democrats than the Hopper/King seat.
1 is incredibly swingy, and a second was solid D with a trend further towards R and is now swingy, the third was Solid D, trended R, then trended back D, so pretty swingy.
Note: I didn't include Fitzgerald's seat which is Strong R.
As I understand it from GOP sources in the district, Galloway's done a pretty awful job in sticking to her story from her campaign. She ran on her professional experience as a physician, but has barely done a thing on health care. Instead, she thought it'd be smart to make herself the Senate lead on concealed carry. No, Pam. Not smart.
I also understand she was ducking GOP events last summer, sometimes without notice, because she didn't want to deal with the protesters. Flaky.
My money says Galloway, Moulton, Waangaard, Fitz in order of vulnerability. My guess is the Dems pick up one, maybe two seats.
To clarify for Anonymous, I believe the Democrats have a good chance of picking up seats this summer. I was specifically interested in the Recess Supervisor's opinion, because he has been a recall skeptic in the past, and he is more plugged into the Republican grapevine.
Where is Walker's leadership? Why he not negotiating this himself? If it was Tommy in office, Tommy would be making it happen. The middle school media campaign of the Governor standing in front of a giant steel drum in a warehouse with a bunch of workers held hostage in Milwaukee or Green Bay is pathetic. The complete failure of the Walker jobs vision-losing jobs every month, an infective new Commerce department, moronic job statements, a list of uncompleted jobs bills as high as the Capitol, no venture capital bill whatsoever and now the great Walker mining disaster of 2012. Here is a thought on how to win the recalls actually accomplish something that the base isn't yelling about like abortion, wetlands or birth control.
I don't disagree with this assessment, but here's my question.
If Governor Walker is convinced that, for one reason or another, this bill can't get done, is it better to assume a passive role and cheerlead from the sidelines, or is it better to roll up his sleeves and get involved actively even if the end result is failure?
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