Doris "Granny D" Haddock was tiny by any measure of physical stature but a giant in civic terms. Her passing at the age of 100 has made international news, I suppose mostly because of the amazing story of her walk across America a decade or so ago. But Granny was so much more than the sum total of that remarkable trek. She was a great many things, foremost among them an unforgettably powerful example of the difference one person can make.
I first met Doris Haddock in February 2003, at a forum on campaign finance reform at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.
The U.S. Supreme Court's display of judicial activism on steroids in the area of election financing has Americans across the political spectrum united in revulsion. The court's legislating from the bench even is creating nervousness around the water coolers at Fortune Magazine and the Wall Street Journal.
Anyone with a little gray hair who has known Wisconsin for a lifetime can't help but feel that we're being taken on some Clarence Oddbody alternate reality tour. This can't be Wisconsin. Must have gotten some bad liquor.
The Wisconsin Idea sure has fallen on hard times. Long forgotten is how intertwined this signature principle of our great state university system was with the Progressive movement. The UW Extension, one of the earliest manifestations of the Wisconsin Idea and one of the chief ways the university was extended to the boundaries of the state, is itself a Progressive Era reform.
In 1819 Thomas Jefferson wrote: "The Constitution . . . is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please."
In yesterday's post, I said first impressions of Supreme Court rulings often create false impressions. A commentary by a nationally syndicated Chicago Tribune columnist is a good example. It spreads two misconceptions. First, that Thursday's decision somehow grants corporations a long-denied ability to speak. And second, that many if not most corporations will not exercise this supposed newfound freedom for fear of alienating customers.
Read it and weep for American democracy. An unfathomably and unspeakably bad ruling. But the temptation to say "game over" is exactly the wrong reaction to the horrible damage the U.S. Supreme Court has done to our democracy. The game is never over.
On Thursday the Wisconsin Supreme Court is again going to consider whether to finalize new rules allowing judges to rule on cases involving their biggest campaign supporters. Last fall, four of the court's seven members approved recusal rules written by Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce and the Wisconsin Realtors Association. About six weeks later Justice David Prosser withdrew his support, causing the new rules to be temporarily suspended.
Polling done by the University of Wisconsin's political science department shows statewide opposition to the use of public money to send students to private schools. Right-wing think tank that helped pay for the polling doesn't like results. Asks UW to alter presentation of the data. UW agrees to do it.
Just heard that no decision was issued by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Citizens United case today. There had been intense speculation that the ruling would come down yesterday. Didn't happen. Then a new flurry of media alerts from court watchers warned that today could very well be the day. Wrong again. For that matter, there was similar speculation late last fall that a decision was imminent.
Mark Neumann became the first 2010 candidate for governor to respond to public discontent with politics and politicians and put forward some government reform ideas, including a couple of good ones. Namely banning campaign donations from employees of companies bidding for state contracts and not allowing government employees appointed by the governor to engage in any kind of fundraising for the governor. Both should have been done a long time ago.
When Governor Jim Doyle signed the Impartial Justice bill into law on December 1, a Virginia group called the Center for Competitive Politics all but promised to sue to block the law. CCP's president left no doubt his outfit was shopping for a litigant in Wisconsin even before it got the governor's signature.
Most every voter
In the whole state of Wisconsin
Likes Impartial Justice a lot . . .
On October 28, four members of the Wisconsin Supreme Court approved rules written by Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce and the Wisconsin Realtors Association allowing judges in our state to rule on cases involving their biggest campaign supporters. A little more than a month later, one of the four - Justice Patience Roggensack - wrote a newspaper commentary defending the action.
We could have told Tiger Woods this was coming. Living up to contracts isn't Accenture's strong suit.
Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce and the Wisconsin Realtors Association said jump and the majority of Wisconsin Supreme Court justices (namely Prosser, Gableman, Ziegler and Roggensack) jumped. WMC and the Realtors said jump again, and the high court held an "open administrative conference" yesterday to ask how high.
Democratic Governor Jim Doyle and 74 legislators who approved a controversial bill in 2007 to deregulate the cable industry have received more than $493,000 in campaign contributions since then from special interests that supported the measure.
Amended campaign finance reports for two mega-fundraising committees were filed on the Government Accountability Board's electronic filing system shortly after the Democracy Campaign posted a blog Monday saying the original year-end 2008 reports known to be erroneous had been on the GAB site for 10 months.
I couldn't resist paraphrasing Democratic Representative David Obey's recent reaction to the wildly erroneous information on a federal government website about the jobs created by the federal stimulus program because it reflects our sentiments about the Government Accountability Board's new electronic filing system.
A couple of things in the newspapers caught my eye recently. One was a news story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about how taxes in Wisconsin compare to other states. The other was a commentary by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman on what has to happen to prevent America's decline.
Stunningly outrageous though it was, the state Supreme Court's approval of new judicial ethics rules written by Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce and the Wisconsin Realtors Association allowing judges to rule on cases involving their biggest campaign contributors was hardly an isolated instance of ghostwriting by powerful interests for obedient public officials.
A headline in this morning's print edition of the Wisconsin State Journal says "Judges: Gableman TV ads OK."
Mike Wittenwyler is an exceptionally bright guy. I'd have no trouble saying Mike is smarter than me, but it would be most unfair to damn him with such faint praise.