After news outlets reported Monday that Governor Scott Walker would not be challenging recall signatures, the governor quietly submitted a request asking that the state elections board accept challenges from an effort involving a Texas organization with a history of voter suppression.
It was not a happy Valentine's Day for the Heartland Institute's climate change denial campaigns. First, Heartland's plans for a $75,000 K-12 reeducation curriculum to turn America's children into climate change deniers was leaked to the DeSmog Blog along with Heartland's fundraising plan, which reveals support from the Charles G. Koch Foundation and a "free Koch summer intern."
Last week, the Center for Media and Democracy reported on the amusing mistake made by a Politico reporter who misidentified the blue Wisconsin state flag as a "union flag" that signaled President Obama's support for the Wisconsin labor struggle. The story rocketed around the state and caused many chuckles.
Late in the evening, on February 22, the Wisconsin Legislature turned back the clock gutting key provisions of Wisconsin's Equal Pay Enforcement Act (Act 20).
Rep. Chris Taylor (D-Madison), a long time women's rights advocate lamented: "It's like we're going back to 1912. We are fighting the same fight our mothers fought, just to be treated equally."
Senate Bill 202, authored by Senator Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend), passed on a party line vote. According to the Wisconsin Alliance for Women's Health, Act 20 sought "to secure equal pay for the thousands of working families who are denied fair pay due to wage discrimination based on race and gender." Specifically, the act was intended to deter employers from discriminating by opening an avenue to bring discrimination cases in state court with stiff penalties. Previously, victims were required to pursue lengthy administrative remedies through a state agency. SB 202 removed the compensatory and punitive damages for violations of Act 20, leaving it a toothless tiger.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald are pushing for radical changes in Wisconsin's current mining law to benefit a single out-of-state company.
Gogebic Taconite, based out of Florida, has proposed a massive twenty-one mile long iron-ore strip mine in some of the most beautiful and pristine land in the northern part of the state. Walker and the GOP are promoting the mining bill as the most important "jobs bill" of the session. Since Governor Walker's austerity budget kicked in on July 1, Wisconsin has lost jobs for six straight months, the worst record in the country.
The Assembly proposal (PDF) would make numerous changes to current law, including regarding how mines can affect waterways, wetlands and groundwater. The new bill drastically limits the time available to the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) for processing permit requests to 360 days. Similar permit requests in Minnesota took between two and four years. The new bill also places a two million dollar cap on the amount a company must reimburse the DNR for costs associated with processing a request. Any expense beyond the two million dollar cap would come from the DNR's budget. Similar mining permits elsewhere have cost between three and four million dollars, and the DNR already faces severe cuts.
One year ago this week, blogger Ian Murphy of the Buffalo Beast pranked Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker by posing as billionaire David Koch on a phone call. As the crowds at the Capitol protesting Walker's bill to end collective bargaining were increasing in size and volume, the fake Koch inquired how Walker's efforts to "crush that union" were going. Walker's fawning response helped rocket the Wisconsin protests into the national media limelight.
Now the real David Koch reveals that crushing unions is indeed at the top of his agenda. In an interview with the Palm Beach Post, Koch talks about Walker, unions and the historical importance of the Wisconsin recall fight.
Leaked documents show that the Chicago-based Heartland Institute is planning to spend $612,000 supporting Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and four GOP Senators in their probable recall elections. It is the second nonprofit group known to be active in the Wisconsin recalls, and comes as secretly-funded nonprofits are playing an increasingly important role in elections across the country.
Questionable challenges to recall petitions for Wisconsin State Senator Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) bear a resemblance to a "voter caging" scheme led by Tea Party groups in the 2010 elections.
With two rallies on Valentine's Day, students and teachers commemorated the first anniversary of Wisconsin's historic struggle against Governor Scott Walker's attack on the state's 50-year tradition of peaceful collective bargaining.
Walker introduced his proposal to end collective bargaining for most state workers on Feb. 11, 2011. On Feb. 14, 2011 the Teacher's Assistants Association, the graduate student union at UW-Madison, organized a march from the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus to the Wisconsin State Capitol to deliver thousands of Valentine's to Walker to protest the measure and planned cuts to the UW system.
A bill moving through the Wisconsin Legislature would make it more difficult to track and accurately tabulate campaign donations from businesses and industries in state elections. Critics say it could also hinder investigations of illegal campaign fundraising like the one that resulted in the conviction of a Wisconsin railroad executive last year and others that could be part of the current "John Doe" investigation into Governor Scott Walker's staff.
As Governor Walker sets a pace to collect more campaign money, from more corners of the country, than any candidate in Wisconsin history, State Senator Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend) is sponsoring Senate Bill 292 to no longer require that individuals donating to political campaigns disclose their employer. Current law requires that all donations of $100 or more include the donor's occupation and employer so that organized streams of special interest money to candidates can be identified and made transparent.
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