Yesterday, an Assembly committee shot down a proposed ban on campaign fundraising during the state budget process. Committee chair Sheryl Albers, a co-sponsor of the legislation, voted against her own bill.
Thirty-some years ago, here's how it was . . . .
Assembly Republicans bent on not requiring insurance companies to cover treatments for autistic children have accepted $2.5 million in campaign contributions since 1993 from insurance, business, manufacturing and banking interests that oppose the measure.
Here it is.
Now you know.
Posted by Mike McCabe at 2:18 PM
Supreme Court candidate Michael Gableman's campaign has been firing broadsides on numerous fronts in recent weeks and two longtime Republican Party soldiers are among the hits.
All signs are indicating that this year's state Supreme Court race is heading somewhere between the low road and the gutter. If it's possible, a turn for the worse appears to be coming. The Democracy Campaign has learned that the PR firm that did a lot of the dirty work for Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in smearing John Kerry's military record is now involved in Wisconsin's Supreme Court race.
John Grisham's latest thriller hits pretty darn close to home for members of Wisconsin's Supreme Court and the rest of our state's legal community, don't you think?
Posted by Mike McCabe at 1:13 PM
The Wisconsin State Journal has started something of a crusade to stop electing state Supreme Court justices and have them appointed instead. A guest commentary the State Journal published this morning echoing the paper's editorial position says the way judges are currently picked is becoming "increasingly dysfunctional" and "destructive of judicial independence and public confidence in the courts." No disagreement so far.
The 30-second attack ads will air on TV closer to the election. In the meantime, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce will busy itself softening up their latest victim – state Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler – with a multi-front offensive that includes broadsides like this YouTube video.
A commentary entitled "Wisconsin: A case study in how corporations get the legislation they want" appeared recently on NiemanWatchdog.org, the Web site of the Nieman Watchdog Journalism Project of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. The subject of the article is something we've written about again and again. That something is Wisconsin's new cable TV law written by and for AT&T.
Posted by Mike McCabe at 1:00 PM