No, Wisconsin

Scott Walker serves his long-awaited last day as governor of Wisconsin today.  But any hopes of the Badger State following the advice of its own motto ("Forward") was quickly dispelled by the Republican legislature passing - and Walker signing - legislation severely limiting the power of his Democratic successor, Tony Evers (below), as well as that of the incoming Democratic Attorney General, Josh Kaul.  (Kaul can't stop the state lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act currently pending.)

To make matters worse . . . well, injury, meet insult.  Evers has said that he will not challenge in court the new laws limiting his and Kaul's power, as he'd promised.  He said that he went over a possible legal challenge with lawyers and found that he's have to sue the whole Wisconsin state government, including the executive branch - that is, he'd have to sue himself.

I can think of something else he can do to himself.

Democrats will continue to disappoint and disgust as long as they're too afraid to fight back against the Republicans as hard as the Republicans kick them.  Evers says he still hopes to be an effective governor by directing - ready for this? - economic policy.

With a Republican legislature.

Good luck, Tony - just don't expect me to put much faith in your way of "governing!" 

Power Failures

Not the sort I've been having for nine years and change.

In Wisconsin, the Republican-controlled legislature passed - and outgoing scumbag governor Scott Walker signed - legislation limiting the power of incoming Democratic governor Tony Evers, making it illegal for Evers' administration to rescind a state suit against the federal health care law, and limiting early voting in an attempt to help Trump win the state again in 2020.  Evers asked Walker - pretty please, with sugar on it - to veto the legislation.  Yeah, right.   Walker responded by saying no to Evers with a bottle of elderberry wine.  With a touch of arsenic.  And similar efforts are afoot to undermine incoming Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan as well.

And then there are the new Democratic attorneys general in those states having their power reduced . . .

No matter how many state legislative seats the Democrats won in the 2018 midterms - 336, by one count - they still don't control enough state legislatures, and the newly elected Democratic governors in this cycle are more often than not susceptible to being failures as many of them will have to deal with GOP legislatures that will seem them damned before helping them run their states.  The Republicans are hell-bent on negating elections and rigging the system to keep themselves in power, or at least give them the upper hand in perpetuity.  The Democrats have to get smarter in winning back power in the states (and this goes for Win Back Your State) if they want to control more state legislatures.  Yet, even as Democrats won seats of Republican-leaning U.S. House districts by nominating candidates far more moderate than the Democratic base, this strategy translated into far less success at the state level - if indeed it was consciously employed at the state level.  Perhaps they should have nominated more moderates who could compete in Republican-leaning state legislative districts.

Meanwhile, in North Carolina, where the Republican legislature turned Democratic governor Roy Cooper into a virtual figurehead and restricted voting rights in the name of stopping voter fraud, Mark Harris may have gotten himself involved in a voter-fraud case concerning absentee ballots in his race against his opponent Dan McCready for the seat for North Carolina's Ninth U.S. House District.  The local election board has refused to certify the results showing a Harris win, and a new election may be ordered.

Harris is the Republican candidate. 

Power To the People

My, oh my, it's amazing what a little populism can do to the sociopolitical landscape, isn't it?

Yesterday's protests against the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act were more successful than anyone could have imagined. While the latter bill remains on track for a vote in the Senate this coming Tuesday, the demonstrations against the bills - from street protests in Manhattan to blackouts of various Web sites - caused several House members to drop their sponsorship of the Stop Online Piracy Act.

Meanwhile, out in Wisconsin, petitions with a million signatures calling for an election to recall Governor Scott Walker like a defective Pinto were turned in at the state government accounting office in Madison - almost twice the 540,208 signatures required. Walker says he's confident that he can survive a recall election because 80 percent of the state's population didn't sign the petitions. Bear in mind that about a third of the people in Wisconsin who didn't sign the petitions couldn't have signed them, as they were too young to vote. What Walker conveniently forgets is that he got in to office with 1,128,941 votes out of only 2,133,244 votes cast, or 52.25 percent of the vote, between him and his Democratic challenger, Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett. If everyone who signed the petitions votes in the recall election, Walker stands a pretty slim chance of holding on to his office.

Meanwhile, public opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline on environmental grounds - particularly the idea of the pipeline on environmentally sensitive grounds - caused President Obama to cancel the project. The Republicans in Congress wanted a decision on the pipeline, which would originate in Canada and carry dirty tar sand oil to Texas, by February 29. President Obama, having decided that not even an extra day in February allowed enough time for a proper environmental assessment, just said no. Republicans complain that Obama missed out on an opportunity to create more jobs and lessen our dependence on foreign oil (even though tar sand oil from a pipeline would make its way out of Texas to the global petroleum market).

Hey, I have a great idea on how to create jobs and lessen our dependence on foreign oil: Build more mass transit networks, especially high-speed train lines!

Which returns me to the unpleasant topic of Scott Walker. Walker canceled Wisconsin's high-speed rail project and is shifting transportation funding to highways. Yes, he has oil refinery and highway construction interests to repay for funding his gubernatorial campaign in 2010, but it turns out that Walker is not a big fan of mass transit in any circumstance. He's opposed expanding it since he began his political career in the Wisconsin state assembly.

These victories are not the last word on any of these issues. Anti-piracy legislation still has broad support in Congress. Scott Walker hasn't been recalled yet. And TransCanada, the company that wants to build that pipeline, can re-apply for permission to build it. In each case, battles, not wars, were won. But these wins all prove that populist movements can succeed. And you don't have to camp out in a park or dress in a silly costume to make your point - and a lot of Occupy Wall Street protestors did both.

(Note: Occupy Wall Street protestors may sometimes resemble "Let's Make a Deal" contestants, but there's a difference between the two. "Let's Make a Deal" contestants are known to win! :-p )

Two Out of Three Ain't Bad

Or maybe it is . . .

Democrats in Wisconsin managed to pick off two Republican state senators in Tuesday's recall elections, but fell short of winning a third seat to capture a majority in the state Senate. Democrat Sandy Pasch camethisclose to defeating Republican incumbent Alberta Darling in the state's Eighth Senate District (Assembly and Senate districts are separate in Wisconsin, as opposed to legislative districts in states like New Jersey, where both houses represent the same real estate), but in the end Pasch was forced to concede.

Needless to say, Republicans are crowing over this result, calling it a humiliation for progressives and labor and declaring it a victory for Governor Scott Walker. But this analysis ignores several stubborn facts. First, the results involved 12 percent of Wisconsin's electorate, so continued Republican control of the state Senate doesn't reflect a mandate from the whole state. Secondly, newly elected Democratic senators Jennifer Shilling and Jessica King won in mainly Republican districts - representing areas of the state that had not sent Democrats to the state Senate in over a hundred years - and Sandy Pasch made her race in a similarly Republican region of Wisconsin competitive. Thirdly, Walker himself remains widely unpopular in Wisconsin, so the effort to recall him in January - which would involve a statewide vote - is unlikely to lose steam.

Walker is in trouble, and he knows it. He's suddenly become more conciliatory and more bipartisan in suggesting that the two parties work together in Madison to address jobs, even as he claims that unemployment in Wisconsin is easing (in fact, it's not). Walker allies are even conspiring to try to make gubernatorial recall elections tougher to set up. And, he has another to reason to be fearful - Dale Schultz, a maverick Republican state senator who sometimes votes with the Democrats, could provide the crucial seventeenth Senate vote in measures aimed at repealing or blocking Walker's agenda. Schultz was the only Republican state senator to vote against Walker's anti-union budget bill, and he represents a district that solidly went for John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election and Barack Obama in 2008. Schultz now holds the balance of power in Madison and could help Democrats block the most insufferable components of Walker's legislative agenda.

As progressive commentators have been saying, this is a marathon, not a sprint. Even if Democrats had taken over the Wisconsin State Senate outright, there'd still be a long road ahead for the progressive movement. But victories two out of three recall elections not only "ain't bad," it's an excellent start.

Anarchy In the U.K. (and in the U.S.A.)

Riots have broken out in Great Britain over the unpopular austerity programs the coalition government led by Prime Minister David Cameron, with several blocks of houses and flats in some of London's poorest neighborhoods being set ablaze - or alight, as the locals would say. Gunfire and the throwing of Molotov cocktails and gunfire have been reported in neighborhoods such as Croydon and Tottenham. Similar unrest has been reported in Birmingham and Liverpool in the worst wave of riots since the late seventies and the early eighties. What usually happens in the United Kingdom usually happens in the United States next.

In America, the unemployed and underemployed middle-class seethe over a debt ceiling deal that rewards the wealthy and a President that proposes modest reforms to the tax code when bolder action is needed - Obama looks less Rooseveltian and more Cartereqsue by the day. The Dow Jones average plunged 634 points yesterday and the Republicans resist doing anything to create jobs that involve "government spending." Meanwhile, Wisconsin progressives are striving to get enough Republican state senators voted out of office in recall elections today to help the Democrats take over the Wisconsin State Senate and block the "reforms" of Governor Scott Walker in advance of an effort to have him recalled in 2012. Americans are getting angrier.

This is the season, stormy weather's on the way . . ..

The Big Ws

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker has even more reason to feel like the cat that swallowed the canary, as the state Supreme Court has overruled Judge Maryann Sumi's decision barring implementation of the state's new anti-labor law. The law stripping collective bargaining rights from most public workers had been blocked from implementation by Judge Sumi on the grounds that adequate notice of a Wisconsin Assembly conference meeting to isolate the provisions of the law from a larger budget bill and make it separate legislation had not been given - thus violating the state's open meetings law. Peter Barca, the Assembly Minority Leader, had been present at that meeting, where he protested against the lack of adequate notice given - even as the Republicans present created the separate bill and walked out as if Barca wasn't there.

In a 4-3 decision, the Court ruled that enough adequate notice had been given of the hastily called meeting under the circumstances. The Court added that Sumi had overstepped her authority by having "usurped the legislative power which the Wisconsin Constitution grants exclusively to the legislature."

The ruling had been aimed not at the merits of the bill but at the way it had been drafted and passed. With the process now having been upheld by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Walker can now look forward to . . . a challenge to the bill on the merits in federal court. This is probably going to a high court that rules for more than just one state.

Meanwhile, the coup de grace has just been delivered to Anthony Weiner. A nightclub dancer former pornographic priestess - oops, I mean actress, goo goo g'joob - named Ginger Lee has come forward and told the media that she and Weiner had corresponded after she wrote something commendatory of the New York congressman on her blog. Wow, that's astonishing! Exotic dancers write blogs?

Ginger Lee - not to be confused with Ginger Grant, who defeated Ginger Lee in the Miss Appomattox beauty pageant - said that Weiner connected with her online, and that she and Weiner exchanged e-mails between March and June 2011. Ms. Lee then said that Weiner told her to lie about it if she were asked by the media. She added for good measure that Weiner would direct the conversation to sexual matters but that she, professional exotic entertainer that she is, refused to reciprocate.

That did it. Weiner must have been dreading the inevitable moment of shame. I mean, of course, when his wife Huma Abedin got home from a State Department trip - she works for Hillary Clinton - and he had to confront her. But aside from that, he has to take another inevitable step. He is announcing his resignation.

Scott Walker can breathe a sigh of relief that the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled on the collective bargaining repeal law just before people were ready to pay attention to his state again, with the Weiner story about to fade away. But he'd better get used to Wisconsin workers literally making a federal case out of it.

Imperial Walker

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker is moving once again to ensure that his state's name ought to be spelled with a K, no longer even to disguise the fascist nature of his policies. Democratic State senator Fred Risser, who has represented his legislative district longer than Walker has been alive, was speaking against a Walker-backed bill that will restrict voter registration and participation by eliminating party-line voting, lengthening the residency requirement before registering to vote from 10 to 28 days, and - the icing on the cake - requiring voters to carry photo ID in the form of a driver's license or a passport, which will deter poor people (who don't normally own cars or travel abroad) from voting. The Republican Senate president cut off Risser before his time expired. When I saw the video of the incident, I thought I heard someone to tell Risser to shut up. The bill was passed 19-5, declared passed before some Senate Democrats could even vote.

Walker - who wrote the bill - is expected to sign it next week.

Wait - there's more! Walker is going after against gay and lesbian couples by trying to undo a law that allows basic rights such as taking leave to care for a sick partner and making end-of-life decisions. It's bad enough that homosexual couples aren't allowed to marry in Wisconsin, and now apparently they're not allowed to live together as if they were married.

Scott Walker is a disgrace and a detestable excuse for a human being.

Walker and Kasich: Union of the Snakes

Judge Maryann Sumi blocked enforcement of the Wisconsin state law barring collective bargaining for public employees. This time she means it!

Governor Scott Walker had tried to implement the law, insisting that publishing it online made it official, but Judge Sumi made it clear that she wanted Walker and one of his top aides, Department of Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch, to wait for the legal challenges against it to proceed. Walker agreed reluctantly, but he is confident that the legislation - passed in possible violation of the state's open meetings law - will be eventually upheld.

The law allows public workers to negotiate on wages, but it says no to allowing for negotiations over anything else - no bargaining for work hours, no bargaining for vacation time, no bargaining for almost all of their work conditions, etc. They are also being told to contribute more to their pensions and health care costs (negating the wage bargaining right), something they agreed to already despite it being tantamount to an 8 percent pay cut.

At least Walker's bill allows police officers and firefighters to collectively bargain. In Ohio, Governor John Kasich just signed a bill that prohibits even that. Policemen and firemen won't be able to bargain for pay rates, working conditions, or even equipment; police unions usually bargain for bulletproof vests, for example. Police and fire departments in Ohio are worried about the effect this will have on their security, and rightfully so.

Kasich insists that his $55.5 billion, two-year state budget is based on unspecified savings from repealing union protections to close an $8 billion gap. Most Ohioans aren't convinced. From the second Kasich signed the bill, protesters have ninety days to get a referendum on the ballot for Election Day on November 8 to have the bill repealed.

The referendum stands a good chance of being put up for a vote. Chances of passage are less clear. Kasich says that people just have to get used to this change, adding that he understands that such change is difficult . . . just as it was difficult for him to - I'm not making this up - get a new haircut.

You Might Recall . . .

Ed Schultz reported on MSNBC last night on some polls that aren't as irrelevant as they seem. Polls taken in Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan reveal that if the gubernatorial elections Republicans won in these states back in November were held today, Scott Walker, John Kasich, and Rick Snyder would lose in their respective races. The suggested irrelevance comes from the fact that these financial fascists did win, and they're not up for re-election until 2014. These governors - and Rick Scott in Florida - remind me of abusive men who are as sweet as pie while courting their women, only to turn on them and treat them like dirt once they've gotten married.

The residents of these Midwestern states are likely to be stuck with these governors for awhile. But maybe not. Walker is thought to be a prime candidate for a recall election once he's eligible to be subjected to such a vote in January, and Rick Snyder could be up for a recall vote as early as June. This is happening even as a recall effort has started against Governor Jan Brewer in Arizona, which was mentioned here earlier.

Walker sold himself as a skilled budget planner without mentioning what he'd do to balance the Wisconsin budget (though anyone who was familiar with his record as Milwaukee County executive should have had a clue). In Michigan, Rick Snyder sold himself as a job creator by virtue of his experience as CEO of the Gateway computer company, only to leave out the fact that most of the jobs he created were overseas, the result of outsourcing. And even though Kasich sold himself as a job creator, he did, as you might remember, announce that he would cancel the high-speed rail project that would have bisected Ohio and linked Cleveland to Cincinnati by way of Columbus ("It's just more government spending," was Kasich's excuse) before he even took office. Thus, Kasich eliminated the jobs to build and maintain a rail line that would have had a positive economic impact on the communities it would have served along Ohio's I-71 corridor. Even if Kasich had allowed the Ohio high-speed rail plan to go ahead, of course, the workers who would have been hired to run the damn thing probably would have been denied a chance at unionization or been forced to work under dubious safety conditions. (I don't know if Kasich can be recalled, but his unpopularity is helping Ohio's progressive incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown in the polls as Brown prepares to run for re-election next year.)

The Republican governors' reversal of political fortune is indeed a strong turnaround from November, but by the time any of these rhymes-with-glass poles get thrown out of office, they will have likely done considerable damage to their states. I hope these recalls still happen. But of course, the people who are apparently wising up just a little too late did vote these jerks into office in the first place, and in a fit of passion without much reason. Elections have consequences. It figures that many voters in the Midwest would think of that only now.

Walker Wins!

Just a short time ago, as I type this, Republicans in the Wisconsin State Senate, using the sort of procedural move that is becoming increasingly common in GOP-controlled state legislatures to ram through bills favored by the far right, passed a bill stripping public employees of their right to collective bargaining by separating that provision from the budget bill, this allowing them to vote on a non-budget related piece of legislation without a quorum. Only one of the nineteen senators voted against the legislation. It's expected to pass in the Assembly tomorrow.

The Democrats in the Wisconsin Senate might as well go back to Madison, because all that's left is to vote on a budget with concessions that public employees already agreed to anyway. And now that Scott Walker and his supporters have achieved their primary goal without having to negotiate, and it would be foolish to think that this act of union busting can be reversed in Wisconsin or that union busting can be slowed down elsewhere, even if Republicans do pay a political price in next year's elections, pay a price in this year's midterm elections in New Jersey, or get recalled early in Wisconsin.

Not that any of that is actually likely to happen.

I'm getting angry now. First a parliamentary procedure is used to further restrict abortions in Virginia by adding a rider to a bill already passed in one house, then a removal of two members from a state Senate committee in Ohio clears the path for anti-union legislation there, now this . . .. I'm ready to give up.

Badgered

Wisconsin's fourteen renegade Democratic state senators have had the pressure ratcheted up against them, with Governor Scott Walker not only threatening them with arrest for contempt if and when they return to the state, but also with fines of $100 - per day - if they don't return to Madison and provide a quorum to vote on Walker's legislation rescinding collective bargaining rights for public employees. No one has suggested that Walker be arrested for impersonating an office.

Meanwhile, Walker has announced that he will be forced to send out formal layoff notices to 1,500 state employees, without the bill's passage, in an effort to save the state approximately $30 million. "Forced?" After weeks of protest, Walker is being "forced" to do what he wanted to do legislatively - screw the middle class to save money? A movement has now started to recall eight key Republican state senators who have supported him. Wisconsin law allows for elected officials who have served at least one year of their current term to be removed from office. Supporters have sixty days to collect anywhere from 15,000 to 21,000 signatures, depending on the district, for each targeted senator. If only three of these eight senators can be recalled, the Democrats will gain control of the state Senate.

Also, Michael Moore joined the protesters in Madison yesterday to rally the faithful and fight Walker's agenda, which includes deep cuts in social services. I don't know if this helps or hurts . . ..

Koch Deal

Listening to Wisconsin governor Scott Walker's telephone conversation with a blogger pretending to be wealthy industrialist and noted "Nova" funder David Koch was as troubling as it was revealing. The big news from this prank call was not that Walker was in the pocket of a major business interest that wants to destroy unions and privatize government services - everyone already figured that one out - but that Walker is willing to go to the most extreme measures to get his way. He considered an idea of getting the state Senate's Democratic caucus back to Madison to make them pick up their paychecks instead of having direct deposit to get one of them into the Senate for a quorum, and he even floated the idea of getting them to return for "negotiations" and seize the opportunity to get the bill passed without changes.

But get this. Walker, upon hearing a suggestion from the fake Koch to send goon squads into the demonstrations outside the State Capitol in Madison to incite a riot, admitted to having considered that, but decided not to do so - not out of fairness and decency, but out of the concern that if the violence got out of hand it would be a public relations problem.

This comment sent shock waves all across that and all across the capital city. Madison mayor Dave Cieslewicz and his police chief Noble Wray are troubled by this suggestion that Walker would endanger the public safety, and they're demanding answers.

At the end of the call, recorded for posterity, the fake Koch - Buffalo blogger Ian Murphy of the Buffalo Beast - tells the governor, "I'll tell you what, Scott, once you crush these bastards, I'll fly you out to [California] and really show you a good time."

"All right, that would be outstanding," Walker replies, adding that the standoff is "all about getting our freedoms back."

"Absolutely," says Murphy. "And you know, we have a little bit of vested interest as well." He laughs.

What did that refer to? The budget bill would also allow the governor to power plants that heat and cool state buildings to private companies without any bids. Koch Industries has denied wanting to buy those plants, but the firm has already achieved one coup by supporting a new law that limits damage awards in suits against many businesses. They also support a bill giving Walker the authority to review to approve any state agency's rule proposals, thus weakening state regulations.

This was different from a morning zoo prank call, the kind Sarah Palin got from a Canadian disc jockey pretending to be the president of France that was (mostly) in good fun. This was a serious and successful gambit in divining Walker's true attitudes towards working families and public safety. His candid talk with a man he thought was one of his wealthiest backers at a time he won't even talk to Democrats confirms what people already suspected about him, though his tenure as Milwaukee County Executive - in which he eliminated county employees by 20 percent even while increasing county spending by 35 percent and decimated that county's public transit system - should have been evidence enough.

As all this has been going on, Wisconsin Assembly Republicans quickly passed the anti-union bill overnight last night (February 24-25) on a parliamentary procedure, and they stoically walked out amidst catcalls from the Democratic minority like they owned the earth. Walker just came one step closer to doing so.

And to return to the subject of my previous post . . .. If a Koch brother is going to fund PBS's "Nova," don't expect any more episodes honestly dealing with pollution any time soon.

We Got a Thing We Call the Madison Blues

I never thought I'd see a class of people long oppressed and taken for granted rise up, take over a public space in their capital city, and declare that they've had enough abuse and that they're not going to take anymore.

Protesters in Egypt? No, public employees in Wisconsin!

Facing a $3.6 billion budget deficit, Republican governor Scott Walker needs to cut costs, so in order to facilitate his task, he's decided to run roughshod over the state's public employees - teachers firefighters, you know, people like you and me (well, you, anyway) - by having them pay 50 percent more for their pensions and 12 percent more for health insurance. Oh yeah, and he wants to eliminate the right of public employee unions to engage in collective bargaining, theoretically allowing him to hold all the cards in dealing with the workers.

Walker's heavy-handed tactics have brought public employees from across the state into the capital, Madison, where they have demonstrated outside of and inside the state Capitol building. Tommy Thompson, at his most extreme in his efforts at welfare reform and school choice in his fourteen years has governor, never perpetrated the kind of backlash that Scott Walker has after only a month and change in office.

Reports of the demonstrations - from Fox News, mostly - spoke of civil unrest, but Ed Schultz went to Madison for himself and saw only Middle America types peacefully chanting slogans and carrying homemade signs demanding that Walker allow collective bargaining to resolve a budget issue that some observers believe is less serious than the state's Republicans insist. Although anyone has a right to be skeptical when Wisconsin public employees say it's not about the money (H.L. Mencken famously said that when someone says it's not about money, it's about money), many of them are happy to discuss pension and health insurance issues with Walker - but not in bad faith and with their own rights gutted to the point of irrelevance. Wisconsin Senate Democrats are siding with the people, having fled the state to avoid voting on Walker's proposal and to prevent a quorum in a Republican-controlled chamber.

Domestic policy in the United States has placed a greater economic burden on workers for thirty years, and people are finally beginning to rise against the status quo. I don't know how long Wisconsin public employees plan to hold out in Madison, but they're inspiring others to take action elsewhere; similar protests have sprung up in Ohio against the similar anti-union proposals of the similarly reactionary Republican governor John Kasich. And in Florida, noted Medicare ripoff artist Rick Scott, having sunk Alex Sink in the 2010 gubernatorial election, has indicated a desire to torpedo public employees there.

How insensitive are these guys? Kasich betrayed his attitudes toward public workers by calling a Columbus policeman who gave him a traffic ticket in 2008 an idiot. (He did so in remarks to, believe it or else, public employees - Ohio Environmental Protection Agency workers. Kasich has since apologized.) And Scott compared budget cutting to cleaning out an attic.

A lot of people are surprised, though, that Wisconsin is where the backlash against reactionary Republican labor policy has started. I don't know why. Yes, Wisconsin is where the Republican party was founded. And yes, Wisconsin did go overwhelmingly Republican in last year's elections, and the state has produced right-wingers like Joseph McCarthy as well as Thompson and Walker. But it's also the state where the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union was founded. It's the state of Gaylord Nelson, the U.S. Senator who founded Earth Day; of William Proxmire, who served with Nelson in the U.S. Senate and fought against government waste and for campaign finance reform, and; of Russell Feingold, who helped continue the fight for campaign finance reform in the Senate and continues the fight for liberal causes with his new group Progressives United.

Wisconsin is also the home of Robert LaFollette, the early-twentieth-century governor and U.S. Senator who championed, among other things, municipal home rule, open government, the minimum wage, non-partisan elections, the open primary system, and progressive taxation . . . and who also signed the first state worker's compensation bill in the country into law. I think LaFollette would have been pleased with what's going on in his home state right now.

Backwards Badgers

The state of Wisconsin, where the Republican party was founded in 1854, is abut to come under control of that very same party. A PBS NewsHour report last night highlighted the success of the GOP in the Badger State, in which the Republicans won the governorship, a U.S. Senate seat, control of both houses of the legislature, and a larger share of the state's U.S. House delegation. Now the incoming state legislature is looking to negate and challenge many provisions in the federal health care law and make severe cuts to the state Medicaid program. Wisconsin's new Republican legislative majorities want to put more people at the mercy of the free-market insurance system as well as toughen requirements for state services.

In the state that gave America Robert LaFollette and William Proxmire, two progressive heroes, an ill conservative wind is blowing like so many winter gusts off Lake Michigan. As for the new incoming governor, Scott Walker - already charting a right-wing course with his decision to refuse federal stimulus money for high-speed rail - he has advocated cuts in Medicaid but refuses to say just exactly what sort of cuts he'll pursue when he takes office in January.

Somehow, the state's motto, "Forward," seems sadly out of date. :-(

More Derailings

If you're an American fan of passenger rail, it must feel like being an Irishman who likes erotic art; there's not much in your own homeland for you to appreciate. And thanks to two incoming Republican governors in the Midwest, there's going to be a whole lot less for rail fans in the United States to cheer about.

In Wisconsin, incoming Republican governor Scott Walker says he plans to refuse federal transportation money specifically meant for high-speed rail. Walker insisted that Wisconsin needs more money to fix existing roads and bridges, not build more railways. Walker plans to refuse $810 million for such a project, citing the burden between $7.5 million and $15 million it would place on taxpayers to pay for operating expenses. Walker sounds reasonable, though, in comparison to former congressman John Kasich, the governor-elect of Ohio. Kasich, who's also refusing federal rail money, also cited hard numbers - $17 million in taxes to pay for more than half of the $29 million cost of operating it - but added, "We don’t have any idea who would even ride the train. This is just the federal government wanting to spend money, and they've got it all wrong."

Kasich doesn't "have any idea who would even ride the train?" How about people who need to travel to Columbus from Cleveland or Cincinnati - or travel across Ohio - who don't want to put up with driving on Interstate 71 because it's too much of a hassle? How about people who want to take the train to transfer to an Amtrak train to take them to New York or Chicago? Mr. Kasich, do you have any idea about the cleaner air, less congested highways, and new jobs high-speed rail in Ohio would generate? Or how much more cost-effective it would by than more highway construction? Do you have any idea at all? About anything?

Kasich, a budget expert and former Wall Street executive, knows his numbers. But, like any other number cruncher, he knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

Walker and Kasich would have gladly taken stimulus money for more highways, but Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a Republican, put his foot down. Trains or nothing. And nothing is what the residents of those two states are going to get. One Midwestern governor, Pat Quinn of Illinois, is happy to see his counterparts in Wisconsin and Ohio refuse the railroad money. Quinn, a Democrat who was just elected to a term in his own right after completing the infamous Rod Blagojevich's second term, is eager to get more money fort his state's high-speed passenger train program, and Illinois's senior senator, Richard Durbin, has said his state will be happy to take the money Wisconsin and Ohio don't want. LaHood, also from Illinois, might be happy to oblige.

It's enough to make me want to move to Chicago. In New Jersey, Governor Chris Christie has killed the proposed passenger rail tunnel to Manhattan. And as if that weren't bad enough, negotiations between NJ Transit and Amtrak on a shared rail tunnel to New York City have broken down.

So, apparently, has common sense.