A recent story in Governing magazine used Wisconsin as the poster child for the rise of partisanship in state legislatures. It’s an excellent story about a disturbing trend.
“No matter how much lip service is given to bipartisanship as a virtue, the reality in Wisconsin, as elsewhere, is that external and internal pressures have made bipartisan cooperation all but impossible to achieve,” the story concludes. A choice quote from Democratic Senate President Fred Risser is more pointed: “You get the parties together in caucus and it’s like a pack of wolves. They follow the leader, right or wrong.”
Although Democrats have a modest majority in both houses, writer Alan Greenblatt notes, they’ve grabbed three-quarters of the slots on the all-important budget committee, leaving Republicans with little power. Republicans have responded by working harder on retaking the legislature in this fall’s election than on helping solve the state’s problems. Legislators now spend as many hours a day in closed partisan sessions as they spend on the floor.
Beginning the mid-1990s, “it was no longer enough to defeat your opponent,” state Sen. Mark Miller (D-Monona) told the magazine. “You had to crush them.”
Why is the legislature so much more partisan than it was 20 years ago? The story offers a number of reasons:
-The rise of big money campaigns. A typical state Senate campaign that cost $50,000 two decades ago could cost as much as $1 million. This makes legislators more dependent on special interest lobbyists for donations and on party leaders to help raise money, and makes these lawmakers less likely to vote independently.
-Special interest group spending, which has helped drive up the cost of campaigns. These groups don’t back moderates, instead favoring liberal or conservative ideologues.
-“Two prominent talk-radio hosts in Milwaukee who keep conservatives in line.” (Charlie Sykes and Mark Belling will be thrilled to read this.)
-The rise of bloggers, who tend to see everything through an ideological prism, and deride legislators who don’t. Rep. Robin Vos (R-Racine) says one reason he avoids meetings with the other side is that bloggers may twist statements out of context.
-The decline in the number of Capitol reporters – who are more likely to distinguish facts from partisan spin jobs.
-The trickle-down effect of Washington’s big-money politics to state Capitols.
The story also suggests the two biggest special interest groups, the Wisconsin Education Association and Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, are less likely to support candidates from the other party than in past years. That might be a small factor, but in truth, the WEA’s occasional support of a Republican candidate and the WMC’s of a Democratic candidate were always notable exceptions.
One factor that the magazine might have missed: the sheer increase in state spending, which has continued for decades under both Democratic and Republican regimes. There is far more state funding and far more state programs at stake than 20 years ago. As a result, the number of lobbyists and amount of their campaign spending has grown ever bigger.
Fake News About Mayoral Takeover
A story in last week’s Shepherd Express claimed that Wall Street hedge managers are part of a secret conspiracy favoring mayoral takeover of Milwaukee Public Schools in order to privatize the schools. It’s complete nonsense, the sort of fake news that any smart reader will see through.
The key people pushing for mayoral takeover of the schools has been no secret: It includes Gov. Jim Doyle, Mayor Tom Barrett, Common Council President Willie Hines and a number of Milwaukee-area Democratic legislators, including state Sens. Lena Taylor and Jeff Plale and state Reps. Jason Fields and Rep. Jon Richards. None of them have offered any support for privatization in their statements. Nor does the proposed legislation have any language that would in any way privatize the schools.
Ah, but there’s an obscure Wisconsin branch of a national group called the Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) that favors a mayoral takeover. It is part of a national group based in New York that has board members who are hedge fund managers. The Shepherd offers no evidence that these “hedge fund heavies” even know this city exists, much less that its school system faces a governance issue.
That leaves the story propped on the thin reed of Katy Venskus, who lobbies for the state branch of the DFER. Venskus is the interim state director of the group. She has no office and apparently operates out of her home (no doubt in its most smoke-filled room). She tells me she has put in about 25 hours lobbying for the mayoral takeover bill. And she’s the puppet master pulling the strings on this legislation?
Even if Venskus had swayed any legislators on this issue (and the Shepherd provides no evidence she has), passage of a mayoral takeover bill doesn’t open the way to more voucher or charter schools, as the story suggests. There are separate statutes governing choice and charter schools, and the bill would have no impact on this.
The Shepherd makes much of the fact that Venskus has also worked for the pro-voucher organization, School Choice Wisconsin. But this group has taken no stand on the mayoral takeover bill. (Nor is it likely to, as it might alienate some legislators who favor school choice but oppose mayoral takeover.)
Venskus also lobbies for AT&T. By the Shepherd’s logic, that might mean it’s behind the mayoral takeover, too. After all, who would be more comfy with hedge fund heavies than AT&T corporate executives?
The Buzz
State Sen. Ted Kanavas (R-Brookfield) is a polished politician whom some expect to run for governor some day. That doesn’t mean, however, that he isn’t taking the long view of the political process. Indeed, there may be no legislator in America whose vision looks back further in history.
Kanavas has introduced a Senate Joint Resolution boldly proclaiming that “the ancient Macedonians were Hellenes and that the inhabitants of the northern province of Greece, Macedonia, are their Hellenic descendants.”
But Kanavas doesn’t merely assert this. He marshals evidence. Like the fact that Philip of Macedonia, his son Alexander the Great, and his tutor, Aristotle, all were born in Macedonia. Or the fact the Macedonians, like the rest of the Hellenes, believed in the 12 Gods of Olympus. Or the fact that the chalice from Alexander’s Pella palace has the brew that is true. (OK, I made that last part up.)
All told, this remarkable resolution is likely to put to rest, once and for all, the nagging question of the Hellene ancestry of the Macedonians. But Kanavas is leaving nothing to chance. His resolution directs the Senate chief clerk to transmit a copy of this weighty, one-page document to the Supreme President of the Pan-Macedonian Association.
One thing is clear. In the next election, Kanavas should sweep the Macedonian vote.
And the Sports Nut has a field day with Mark Belling’s silly comments about Marquette basketball. Looking for more? Culture Club reviews the controversial play Blackbird.
