Thirty years ago, Richard Bernard and Bill Lueders wrote of Father James Groppi and what led to the 200-day march for better open-housing laws. We’re revisiting this story now to better understand what has and hasn’t changed for racial equality in the decades since.
The new book “Milwaukee in the 1930s” resurrects a Depression-era guide to Milwaukee. The government-funded writers clearly weren’t Chamber of Commerce types, and their warts-and-all take on our city is hilarious, as well as enlightening.
A longtime journalist ponders whether to recommend a reporter’s life to the young.
Is this the beginning of the end for the public’s right to an open government?
It’s all over but the blaming. The state Legislature’s 2011-12 regular session has careened to a close, with both parties accusing the other of blocking progress on Wisconsin’s number-one issue: job creation. “Unfortunately, despite holding two so-called special jobs sessions, the Republican-controlled Legislature has spent more time focusing on giving money to private voucher schools while undermining public education, an extreme social agenda and power grabs,” groused Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, D-Kenosha, in a press release. Barca’s office has identified more than a dozen jobs bills introduced by Democrats that failed to pass, some of which were even included…
A few weeks back, this column noted that virtually all the lobbying muscle regarding the redrawing of voter boundaries was brought to bear against the bills that sailed through. That undercuts the popular notion that outside special interests drive the political process, since here the push came entirely from an inside special interest—the GOP-controlled state Legislature itself. But that’s not the only example of how lawmakers serve other masters besides money and might. Take the state’s voter identification law. Nearly three dozen lobby groups registered in opposition to these new voting requirements, which two Dane County judges have in recent…
Todd Berry is nothing if not realistic. His 18 years at the helm of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance have taught him that good public policy often doesn’t get past the gatekeeper of politics. “The pressure on elected officials in a largely career Legislature is to make people happy and get re-elected,” Berry says. So while his group has identified some troubling trends regarding the state’s sales tax, he’s not expecting lawmakers to embrace reforms. In February, the start of income tax season, Berry’s nonpartisan research organization released a report on the state’s sales tax. It noted that collections have been…
The other day at the Wisconsin Newspaper Association’s annual convention in Madison, I represented the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism on a panel titled, “Nonprofit News: What You Need to Know About ‘Free’ Media.” Also on the panel were Steven Greenhut, vice president of journalism for the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, which runs state-based news outlets across the country, including Wisconsin Reporter; and Lisa Graves, executive director of the Madison-based Center for Media and Democracy. The panel, sponsored by the Madison professional chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, was timely: Wisconsin Reporter and the Wisconsin Center…
When the unions’ lobbying money flowed, it really flowed. And then, for the most part, it dried up. During the first half of 2011, labor unions collectively reported spending more than $7 million on lobbying in Wisconsin. This six-month total was $2 million more than these same unions spent during the entire prior two-year legislative session, 2009-10. Four unions representing public employees in Wisconsin led the state Government Accountability Board’s top 10 list of spenders between Jan. 1 and June 30, 2011. These unions—the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO, Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC), AFSCME Council 11 and AFSCME International—reported spending a…
By now, the notion that outside special interests drive the political process is so widely accepted as to be almost a cliche. And often this belief is buttressed by the disclosures that lobby groups must make. Yet when it comes to the hot-button state political issue of redistricting, the process appears driven not by outside special interests but an inside one: the Legislature itself. Bills to redraw voting boundaries for state legislative districts, congressional districts and municipalities—allegedly in ways skewed to benefit Republicans—were introduced last July 11. The bills promptly passed the GOP-controlled Legislature and were signed into law by…
