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Category: State news

Floyd A. Hummel: Corporate influence will change democracy

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Wisconsin State Journal

In his “kiss and make up” column in Saturday?s newspaper, UW-Madison professor Kenneth R. Mayer advises Democrats to “stop blaming the American Legislative Exchange Council, or Super PACS, or the Koch Brothers, or Citizens United. Stop insisting that the only reason you lost was you were outspent 3-to-1, or 5-to-1, or 10-to-1 …”This is such an overly casual dismissal of deep problems with American democracy that I am shocked to hear it from a political scientist.

Campus Connection: UW unveils plan for raises; but only 30 percent to get pay bump

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Capital Times

In an effort to retain top talent, UW-Madison administrators on Tuesday unveiled a plan to direct pay increases of at least 5 percent to in-demand faculty and staff who have demonstrated exceptional performance. But this is not an initiative designed to bump up most workers? pay. Instead, a memo sent from UW-Madison administrators to deans and directors across campus on Tuesday notes ?it is anticipated that no more than 30 percent of eligible employees within a school, college or division may receive increases.? Those who are underpaid compared to those in similar positions or who are at risk of leaving due to their talents are to be the main targets of the raises.

New program to allow students to earn UW credits while in high school

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Students across the state will be able to pick up valuable college credits while still in high school thanks to a new dual enrollment program announced Tuesday by the University of Wisconsin Colleges and the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. The partnership is to be in place by the start of the 2013-14 academic year….This new initiative is different from the current Youth Options program that allows students to take courses at UW campuses, technical colleges or other higher ed institutions. That?s because the Youth Options students must take classes at the college or university.

Madison Politiscope: Combative Dem spokesman Graeme Zielinski pushes the envelope

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Capital Times

….he (Zielinski) has long-claimed that UW-Madison professor Charles Franklin, who conducts the Marquette University Law School poll as a visiting professor, is a Republican “hack” whose polls showing Gov. Scott Walker winning the recall election by five to seven points in recent weeks were “as reliable as a three-dollar bill.” As it turned out, Franklin?s poll results matched Walker?s 7 percent win. When I asked months ago for justification of his allegations against Franklin, Zielinski told me that several of Franklin?s students had informed the party that Franklin boasted about consulting for GOP groups. “If he denies this, we don?t believe him,” Zielinski concluded in an email. Indeed, Franklin says he has never worked for any party or partisan organization.

State employee union leaders rebuff irked workers’ bid to depose them

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Wisconsin State Journal

Leaders of the Wisconsin State Employees Union have held off an attempt by angry prison guards and others to win key executive board seats in the wake of the failed recall attempt against Gov. Scott Walker. At least some union members continue to question the union?s pre-primary endorsement of Kathleen Falk and donations to her campaign after polls showed her behind eventual Democratic Party nominee Tom Barrett, said Dan Meehan, a prison guard who narrowly lost a bid for statewide vice president at the union?s annual convention over the weekend. “Rage is what it is ? absolutely, completely,” Meehan said. “My members don?t feel they?ve got a voice anymore.”

UW-Madison to give merit-based raises to third of faculty, staff

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Wisconsin State Journal

UW-Madison will give targeted raises to about one-third of its faculty and academic staff members in an effort to make salaries more competitive and buoy spirits amid a four-year dry spell in across-the-board pay increases. The new initiative, described in a memo to university administrators that was to be sent out Tuesday, will mean raises of at least 5 percent for some high-performing staff members who are at risk of leaving or underpaid compared to those in similar jobs. Paul DeLuca, UW-Madison?s provost, described the plan as “retention on steroids.”

Editorial: Governor & Legislature – Start Now

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WISC-TV 3

Governor Walker and some state legislators have begun talking about working together. Talk won?t cut it. Action will. After you have your brat and your beer with each other here?s what you can do….Governor, once you have their ears tell lawmakers and you own Department of Administration to give the University system the flexibility and autonomy it needs to deal with endless budget cuts and still compete on a global scale. We know you believe in this. Make it happen.

Madison360: To reunite Wisconsin, elite leaders must step up

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Capital Times

?Together apart. ?Those words popped to mind in the aftermath of Wisconsin?s recall election as describing our political culture. The phrase was part of the title of a reporting project 20 years ago by the New Orleans Times-Picayune about myths on race and segregation in the south. I met the project?s editor shortly after it appeared and the title stuck with me. Now it seems to aptly describe Wisconsin?s gaping political divide. We are together, but very far apart.

….One compelling suggestion is that major business and academic leaders, people with the cash and clout to speak freely, need to step forward. The idea is not from a political scientist but rather a historian, a professor who left the University of Wisconsin-Madison last year.

Seely on Science: UW professor disputes deer czar’s findings

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Wisconsin State Journal

With his Texas drawl, his TV title of ?Dr. Deer? and his disdain for some long-standing tenets of professional deer management, James Kroll was sure to stir things up when he was hired by Gov. Scott Walker to evaluate the state?s deer hunt strategy. Strangely, the controversy that surfaced was over comments Kroll made a decade ago in an interview with a Texas magazine. Kroll was quoted as equating public hunting grounds with socialism and calling national parks ?wildlife ghettos.? Overshadowed by that sideshow was a sobering, scientific look at Kroll?s preliminary findings by Tim Van Deelen, a respected associate professor in UW-Madison?s Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology.

Campaign 2012 Newsmakers: UW-Madison Professors Katherine Cramer Walsh and Barry Burden

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Analyzing six historical June 5 recall elections, UW-Madison political science professors Kathy Cramer Walsh and Barry Burden said Republican Gov. Scott Walker?s political star will continue to rise nationally as a result of his second victory over Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett in 18 months. Democrats are “demoralized,” and may take years to recover, Burden said.

Campus Connection: League of Women Voters reports students having trouble voting

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Capital Times

The League of Women Voters Wisconsin is reporting it has received more than 100 phone calls as of 2 p.m. from college students who are indicating they?re having trouble voting in Tuesday?s recall election. ?It?s a significant issue out there,? says Carolyn Castore, who is coordinating the League of Women?s Voters Wisconsin/Election Protection initiative. ?We?re getting all sorts of odd stuff.? Some of the more common problems for students, reports Castore, are related to hassles over proof of residency and apparent misinterpretations of the state?s relatively new voter ID law that was enacted last year and requires one to establish residency at a given address for 28 days in order to be able to vote from that location.

U-W Tuition Hikes Far Outpace Inflation

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WLUK-TV, Green Bay

With announcement of plans for the University of Wisconsin system to increase its student tuition 5.5 percent for the school year than begins in less than three months, it?s another step in the university?s ongoing practice of increasing tuition at a race far faster than inflation. 

Student groups hope for lower UW tuition increase

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Wisconsin State Journal

Some University of Wisconsin student groups are trying to soften the blow of higher education costs after system President Kevin Reilly recommended raising tuition at all UW campuses by 5.5 percent Monday. The UW Board of Regents will discuss Reilly?s proposal, which would bring the annual cost of tuition at UW-Madison over $10,000 for in-state students for the first time, at its meeting Thursday. But some student groups are hoping they can convince the regents to accept a smaller tuition increase, according to The Daily Cardinal.

Recommended increase would push in-state tuition above $10,000 per year at UW

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Wisconsin State Journal

UW-Madison?s tuition and fees would top $10,000 per year for in-state students for the first time if a recommended tuition increase of 5.5 percent is approved by the UW Board of Regents on Thursday. For the sixth consecutive year, University of Wisconsin System President Kevin Reilly is recommending a 5.5 percent tuition increase for in-state students at the 13 four-year campuses in the UW System. He?s recommending the same increase for UW System?s two-year campuses for the second year in a row.

UW System president recommends 5.5 percent tuition increase

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Wisconsin State Journal

UW-Madison?s tuition and fees would top $10,000 per year for in-state students for the first time if a recommended increase of 5.5 percent is approved by the Board of Regents on Thursday. University of Wisconsin System President Kevin Reilly is recommending the 5.5 percent tuition increase for in-state students at all 13 four-year campuses for the sixth consecutive year, according to Regents meeting materials made public Monday. Reilly is recommending an increase of $247 per year at the System?s 13 two-year campuses.

Plain Talk: It?s Walker?s policies that turn back the clock

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Capital Times

During the only two debates that he would agree to appear in, Scott Walker spent a lot of time claiming that Tom Barrett wanted to return to the past and that it was now time to move ?forward,? something Walker claims he?s been doing these past several months. If only it, like a lot of things he says, were true. Frankly, in less than a year and a half Walker and his allies in the state Legislature have done more to turn back the clock on state policies ? everything from fair taxation to environmental safeguards ? than any administration in recent history.

….A biofuel power plant at the UW-Madison was scrapped even though it would have provided a market for Wisconsin farmers to sell some of their crop waste and other material that is now discarded. Instead, Walker ordered the plant to be converted to natural gas.

Capitol Report: Deer hunting Texas style? Walker administration says ‘no’

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Capital Times

Talk of Wisconsin?s rich deer-hunting tradition being overhauled by a Texas wildlife biologist hired by the Walker administration to manage the state?s deer population has led to mounting fear that Wisconsin?s public hunting land will go the way of Texas. If that scenario played out, public land would be snatched up by private owners, preventing the state?s roughly 600,000 deer hunters from roaming free of charge to hunt…Besides raising concerns among some Assembly Democrats, (James) Kroll?s preliminary report also has drawn criticism from Tim Van Deelen, a UW-Madison associate professor of forest and wildlife ecology.

UW Teaching Assistants’ Association won’t support Tom Barrett in recall election

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Isthmus

The UW?s Teaching Assistants? Association (TAA) has declined to endorse Democratic challenger and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who faces Walker in the June 5 recall election. The TAA also withheld its support from Democratic primary candidate Kathleen Falk on the grounds that she wouldn?t commit to a firm stance against budget cuts and concessionary contract negotiations with state workers.

Madison Politiscope: New poll shows Wisconsin recall race close

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Capital Times

An internal poll done by the union-backed We Are Wisconsin group shows a tighter race between Gov. Scott Walker and Tom Barrett than was indicated in several polls that came out last week. The most recent poll, conducted by Greenberg Quislan Rosner Research, a Democratic polling firm, shows Walker leading Barrett, 50 percent to 47 percent, well within the margin of error. That displays a better outlook for Democrats than last week?s round of polls, all of which showed the governor leading Barrett in the June 5 recall election by five or six points.

If a campaign?s own polls show its candidate performing poorly, it usually simply won?t report them, says Charles Franklin, the pollster who conducts the Marquette University Law School poll.

UW expert: Wolf could go back on endangered species list

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Wisconsin State Journal

A hunting season for wolves proposed by the state Department of Natural Resources is likely to face a court challenge and could land the animal back on the endangered species list, according to a UW-Madison expert in predator-prey ecology who has spent 12 years studying wolf management in Wisconsin. The DNR?s wolf hunting plan “increases the risk that wolves will be returned to federally endangered status because it proposes untested methods in a very long season in too broad an area of the state,” warned Adrian Treves, an associate professor of environmental studies who has surveyed thousands of state residents on the issue.

Outdoors: The battle between two state heavyweights: walleye vs. bass

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Madison.com

John Lyons, a longtime DNR fisheries researcher and fish identification expert, had been hearing about the battle between the walleye and the bass for years. Depending upon who was doing the telling, the bass fishing was either very good and those anglers weren?t talking much. Or the fans of the walleye complained about their species looking anything like the top game fish champ. ?There were a number of initiatives going on,? Lyons said of the state?s researchers dedicated to fisheries. There was field work under way at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point?s College of Natural Resources, more at the University of Wisconsin-Madison?s Center for Limnology and, of course, the DNR. ?We pulled everyone together into a team and each group has their own specialty.? Not so fast. First, there was the inevitable first hurdle — funding.

Campus Connection: UW-Madison class launches edUtopia Wisconsin site

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Capital Times

Ever wonder what students at UW-Madison are working on these days? Sue Robinson — an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication — emailed me a note last week highlighting the work of those in her Intermediate Reporting (Journalism 335) class. For the students? final project, they worked collaboratively to launch a website about education in the state called edUtopia Wisconsin.

Dems, GOP seek coveted young voters in Wis. recall

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Madison.com

Democratic hopes for toppling Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in next month?s recall election may hinge on a strong turnout from young voters, who came out in heavy numbers for President Barack Obama in 2008 but were less active when Walker was elected two years later. Both sides of the June 5 recall pitting Walker against Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett are focused on get-out-the-vote efforts because of a low number of undecided voters. But tapping into college-aged voters, traditionally a strong well of support for Democrats, is proving difficult because of a new law making it tougher for those students to cast ballots and the fact that many will have left college campuses for the summer by election time.

….Republicans also have an aggressive campaign to get necessary information to college voters, said Jeff Snow, chairman of the UW-Madison College Republicans. “I think students are pretty aware and I think that Gov. Walker will do very well among student voters,” said Snow, a 20-year-old entering his junior year. “This has been a pretty historic couple of years in the state of Wisconsin politically.”

Madison360: Walker?s fate aside, rich conservatives are defining the debate

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Capital Times

In December 2010, weeks before Scott Walker dropped his self-described ?bomb? eviscerating bargaining rights for public workers, the single divide that defines contemporary state politics today was already crystallizing in my mind. The truth is that, more than ever, we in Wisconsin are split into two tiers — wealthy conservatives who leverage their money and the influence it buys to control our policy debates — and the rest of us. Back then, my column was describing a series of interviews with regular people across the state by a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor.

UW-Madison political science professors Katherine Cramer Walsh, Barry Burden, and Çharles Franklin are included in this column.

Another Idea for Wisconsin

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Since 1994, the UW budget has expanded from $2.1 billion per year to $5.5 billion in 2011, an increase of 114% over that time. During the same time period, state aid to the UW system has increased by 27.2%, even when Walker?s “draconian” cuts are figured in. [A column by Christian Schneider, senior fellor at the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute.]

Strategy in recall expected to focus on voter shifts in recent elections

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Wisconsin State Journal

The historic recall election targeting Gov. Scott Walker is such a close race, the divisions between voters so entrenched, that the outcome is likely to come down to voter turnout.Both sides agree on that point. But what are they going to do about it? “Look for them to be targeting the counties that have shown shifts, in turnout, or direction, or vote margin,” said Charles Franklin, poll director for Marquette University Law School. That could be areas that have swung between blue and red, or between largely backing Democrats and Republicans, in recent statewide elections such as the 2006 and 2010 governor’s races, as well as the 2011 state Supreme Court race.

Plain Talk: Two books explain protests that led to recall

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Capital Times

Paul Buhle and Frank Emspak, emeritus professor with the UW?s School for Workers, add an informative chapter on the history of unions in Wisconsin and how the state sparked public worker unions, adding context to how the citizens of the state could spawn such an impressive pushback. The two do show their ignorance, however, while discussing the 1977 Madison newspaper strike.

Doug Moe: From pier group to powerful WWIG

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Hillary Clinton was a rock star. Ann Richards was hot. And Molly Ivins was, well, Molly Ivins, just as she always was, even at the Governor?s Mansion in Maple Bluff. Over the past quarter-century, those women were among the keynote speakers at the annual scholarship banquet hosted by Wisconsin Women in Government WWIG, a group founded over cocktails on the Edgewater Pier in 1987 that?s celebrating its 25th anniversary next week with a banquet Thursday night at Monona Terrace. The keynote speaker is Dana Perino, who was White House press secretary for President George W. Bush.

Today, the WWIG annual dinner helps provide college scholarships for women interested in public service, as well as funds participation of high school girls in Badger Girls State. In 1999, WWIG partnered with the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison to create a public policy graduate seminar. They also have an internship ? named for the late Legislative Council director Bonnie Reese ? that gives young women experience working in government offices.

Go Bucky! Defend The Wisconsin Idea!

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

I grew up in a home where the University of Wisconsin-Madison held god-like status. My mother and father met in Madison, and I learned to sing ?On Wisconsin? long before I could even hum ?The Star Spangled Banner.? I and most of my siblings graduated from Madison, and my father-in-law is a UW-Madison soils scientist who spent much of his career traveling the back roads of Wisconsin to talk with farmers.

RNC goes all in to defend Walker, but where’s the DNC?

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Capital Times

Joel Rogers, a UW sociologist and political theorist, says that we often miss the reality of how money works in politics. The point at which to look at the role of money in politics is not the final tabulation that says one candidate or party had more money than the other. The point at which to compare is at the early and mid-stages of a campaign. Does one side have such an overwhelming advantage that it can effectively silence the other? Does one candidate have the ability to so dominate the discourse that their messages come to define the debate? That?s what Scott Walker and his supporters have tried to do.

….It won?t just be that the Democratic National Committee will be identified as a dysfunctional political operation when compared to the Republican National Committee. A failure to leap into an essential fight about the future of working families and their unions, as well as public education and public services, will raise questions about whether D.C. Democrats ?get? what America is debating about.

Madison Politiscope: 2010 revisited? Barrett trails Walker by 6 points in latest poll

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Capital Times

One week after celebrating a landslide victory over Kathleen Falk in the Democratic gubernatorial recall primary, Tom Barrett faces a painful reality: Polls show he trails Gov. Scott Walker by almost the same margin that separated him from Walker in the November 2010 governor?s race. The latest Marquette University Law School poll, conducted by visiting professor Charles Franklin and released Wednesday, shows Walker ahead of Barrett 50 percent to 44 percent, with only 3 percent undecided.

Suppressing the student vote? New residency rules could affect Wisconsin?s recall election

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Isthmus

The voter ID law passed last spring by the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature was widely criticized for requiring that voters show a driver?s license or other form of photo identification at the polls. These provisions are now under two court injunctions by judges who found that the photo ID requirements likely discriminate against minorities, the poor and the elderly.

Plain Talk: Tinkering with state retirement courts disaster

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Capital Times

All government workers in Wisconsin, except those in the city and county of Milwaukee, contribute to the state?s own pension plan, which administers and invests the funds. The state system is currently 99.5 percent funded. A special committee is currently looking at the state system and is due to issue a report in mid-June, but 401(k) options have already been touted in the Legislature, although so far they?ve fallen by the wayside….The Walker administration has signaled that it isn?t going to push changes, at least in the near future. But it would be best to keep a close lookout.