…there?s no longer a question about the motives behind the bill. The sponsors of this throwback to the days of the Southern poll tax can try to spin their motives all they want. It?s all very simple. The GOP wants to make it tougher for college students, in particular, and anyone else who tends to vote for Democrats, to exercise their right to vote.
Steve Nass has never made a secret of his dislike for the UW-Madison Havens Center and School for Workers. Back in 2007, the Republican state rep proposed completely eliminating state funding for both. Now, as chair of the Assembly?s Colleges and Universities Committee in an era of total GOP control, he?s in a position to make that happen.
State employee benefits could take a hit under a budget repair bill Gov. Scott Walker plans to announce soon.
Gov. Scott Walker promised that his upcoming two-year budget and a budget repair bill would be responsible, based on reality and free of trickery. As he noted, this is where “rhetoric meets reality.”And, we hope, where justice and moderation meet frugality, temperance and virtue.
UW system leaders undoubtedly watched Gov. Scott Walker?s State of the State address with keen interest Tuesday as Walker spoke about possible cuts to the state budget.
Despite blizzard conditions that caused state emergencies in 29 counties, Gov. Scott Walker delivered his State of the State address Tuesday, calling for bipartisan unity to solve Wisconsin?s sluggish economy and budget problems.
While a blizzard pounded outside the Assembly chambers at the Capitol Tuesday night, Gov. Scott Walker announced his plans to shovel Wisconsin out of a looming $3.3 billion deficit.
After the National Weather Service issued a Civil Danger Warning and Governor Scott Walker declared a snow emergency in anticipation of the blizzard, few city and campus residents were untouched by the effects of the winter storm.
The success of the Green Bay Packers has been a green and gold mine for local retailer Sconnie Nation, which has made fans of the very players they feature. The Madison-based outfitter has sold 3,000 Packers shirts since the team beat the Bears in the NFC Championship game on Jan. 23.
?We?re getting a much bigger boost from the Super Bowl than we did for the Rose Bowl,? company co-founder Troy Vosseller said. Sconnie Nation was founded in 2004 by Vosseller and Ben Feitchner while they were students at UW-Madison. The apparel and products all have Wisconsin themes.
Things were getting back to normal Thursday morning after the Blizzard of 2011, with most schools, offices, government buildings and buses up and running. UW-Madison is open, Metro Transit has buses on the road, schools are open in Madison and close suburbs (although they are closed or delayed in many area communities), and workers who had no chance of getting to their jobs on Wednesday face relatively clear driving.
Perhaps he?s hung around too long with those high-rolling supporters of his who have a habit of living only for the next quarter?s financial results while demonstrating little concern for the long term. Because, if Scott Walker hasn?t already demonstrated he?s shortsighted, he hasn?t done anything at all.
….During his first month in office, Walker has proposed strict rules that could hamper the wind power industry, nixed the Charter Street Biomass Project on the UW-Madison campus and returned more than $800 million in federal money for upgrading Wisconsin?s passenger and freight rail infrastructure. There?s also talk about limiting embryonic stem cell research, an issue that?s more symbolic than substantive.
Put together, it?s not exactly what economic development advocates were hoping to see from a governor who?s vowed to create 250,000 new private sector jobs.
Due to the blizzard that created massive snow drifts and hazardous conditions across Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker declared a state of emergency Wednesday in 29 counties and ordered all state offices in those counties closed to the public. Emergency officials also urged all people to stay home and off the road if possible. Walker, nevertheless, told all state workers ? even those in non-emergency posts ? to report to work or take the day as vacation.
That did not sit well for a lot of folks who used a weather story on madison.com to voice their displeasure.
But Cullen Werwie, Walker’s press secretary, says the governor’s executive order directed state workers to report to work only if was safe to do so. Those who couldn’t make it would be required to take vacation or other leave, though they couldn’t use sick leave.
It was no surprise when Governor Scott Walker issued an executive order Tuesday shutting down state government buildings to the public due to the snow storm.
With the exception of a few sledders, the UW campus was quiet this morning, blanketed with a fresh, thick layer of snow – a layer that workers struggled to remove.
Governor Scott Walker used his first State of the State address last night to signal there are tough choices ahead in his state budget.
It was no surprise when Governor Scott Walker issued an executive order Tuesday shutting down state government buildings to the public due to the snow storm.
Governor Scott Walker closed state offices to the public Wednesday in Wisconsin counties affected by the blizzard ? but state workers were expected to take a vacation day if they didn?t show up.
Gov. Scott Walker promised Tuesday the state would not take the easy way out of its fiscal problems, casting the budget problems as “our moment in time” to fundamentally reform government in Wisconsin.
Gov. Scott Walker on Tuesday delivered a sobering State of the State that, while light on details, warned residents of the hard sacrifices coming as lawmakers deal with Wisconsin’s budget troubles.
In his inaugural “state of the state” address Tuesday night, Gov. Scott Walker urged fiscal austerity to meet Wisconsin’s budget crisis even as he announced he would move up by two years the start of the massive Zoo Interchange highway project.
n his inaugural “state of the state” address Tuesday night, Gov. Scott Walker urged fiscal austerity to meet Wisconsin’s budget crisis even as he announced he would move up by two years the start of the massive Zoo Interchange highway project.
Any activities still going on tonight are the rare exceptions. They include the UW Badgers men?s basketball game, a Snoop Dogg concert at the Orpheum, and snowmobile trails in Sauk County. Nearly everything else is locked down for an expected blizzard.
Drivers are urged to stay off the roads as a blizzard barrels toward southern Wisconsin. Gov. Scott Walker has declared a state of emergency across southern Wisconsin ahead of the storm. The executive order activates the Wisconsin National Guard to help local authorities. Walker also ordered state offices and University of Wisconsin System campuses across southern Wisconsin to close to the public.
As Gov. Scott Walker makes his first “state of the state” speech Tuesday, he will look out at a friendly Legislature that has already helped him pass half of his opening agenda in a frenetic first month. With five jobs bills already sent to him and several more speeding through the Capitol, the new Republican governor will be able to tout tax cuts and broad new protections for businesses from lawsuits as early accomplishments and campaign promises filled.
STEVENS POINT — Proponents of the Wisconsin voter ID bill deserve credit for piquing college students? interest in current events. Of course, this is accomplished by proposing to make students jump through hoops to exercise their right to vote. Granted, students stayed away from the last election in droves, but deny them something and they?re likely to suddenly desire it more.
….Up this way, the UW-Stevens Point Student Government Association, representing the voting rights of about 9,500 students, issued a statement calling ?ongoing attempts of legislators in Madison to disenfranchise student voters unacceptable.? Going further, the student group specifically objects to the repeal of same-day voter registration, calling it ?a direct assault against the voting rights of citizens statewide.? They got that one right.
Column by political science professor David T. Canon and public affairs professor Donald P. Moynihan.
Companies that relocate to Wisconsin won?t have to pay income taxes for two years under a bill signed into law Monday by Gov. Scott Walker. Walker, a Republican, has seen his legislative agenda speed through the Republican-controlled Legislature even though he has yet to explain how he?ll pay for everything in light of the state?s projected $3 billion budget shortfall….Aid to public schools, the University of Wisconsin system, local governments and Medicaid programs were all expected to be big targets for cuts in the budget Walker will release on Feb. 22.
One place that won?t be taking a snow day Tuesday is the Capitol. Gov. Scott Walker says the State of the State speech will go on as scheduled.
A new analysis shows Wisconsin will end the current budget year in better shape than previously thought, but big problems remain.
Gov. Scott Walker plans to plow ahead with his first State of the State speech Tuesday, despite predictions of heavy snowfall in the state?s capital and in southeastern Wisconsin.
Almost a month after taking office, Governor Scott Walker will deliver his first State of the State Address tonight to lawmakers at the Capitol. UW-Madison Political Scientist Charles Franklin says the speech gives Walker an excellent opportunity to further outline and restate his goals, although he says it?s rare that a governor provides any concrete plans during the annual speech.
Have the inevitable discussion about rising tuition with one of your well-informed peers, and chances are they?ll read you a veritable riot act of legislative abuses that the state?s flagship school did nothing to deserve: prison spending now totals roughly three-quarters of education funding, and state support of UW-Madison, currently hovering around 18 percent, is at an all-time low.
The new governor and Legislature have fast-tracked a bill requiring a photo ID to vote in Wisconsin. Opponents say the law would do little to prevent alleged fraud at the polls, while supporters say it is necessary to protect the integrity of the system. Some version of this bill is almost certainly going to be signed into law. If photo ID is going to be implemented, it needs to be done right.
(By UW-Madison professor of political science David Canon and associate professor of public affairs Donald Moynihan. Also mentioned are political science professors Barry Burden and Ken Mayer.)
Forcing concessions from state employees is a popular talking point for Gov. Scott Walker and one that likely will find a central place in his first State of the State speech Tuesday.
Publicly at least, union officials say they want to keep talking with Walker. Privately, they worry he will circumvent the bargaining table and go for an all-out evisceration of their right to negotiate over health care and pension costs.
Almost as fast as the high-speed rail scuttled by Gov. Scott Walker have been his actions to dismantle the biofuel project for UW-Madison?s power plant and the discouragement of wind power project construction throughout Wisconsin.
As I listened to the president?s State of the Union speech, it became clear how at odds our new governor is with the initiatives that will shape our country and return us to a sound economy. I believe the president has it right in looking at innovation, technology and new green industries as having a huge and saving influence on our long-range future. Gov. Scott Walker, however, does not seem to understand or appreciate these issues…UW-Madison planned to add a co-generation power plant, giving the state an opportunity for new markets in biomass fuels and energy research, while providing clean energy. Walker turned it down.
Our governor is dealing with the Madison liberal left problem about as rapidly as can be expected. He is looking into all the high-cost foolishness of past administrations…Walker also eliminated the proposed biofuel boiler at the Charter Street heating plant for a substantial cost saving. UW-Madison gets rid of its dirty coal pile and the planners want to replace it with piles of wood chips, corn stalks and the like. Using home-grown products as a fuel source may be desired, but it can be just as effective at a rural location as it would be near the center of our capital city.
A state lab says the 200 steers that died this month in Portage County were done in by tainted potatoes. Peter Vanderloo is an associate director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, which is run on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He says the cows tested positive for a toxin that?s found in moldy sweet potatoes.
The UW-Madison Morgridge Center for Public Service has given $334,739 to UW-Madison education, environment and health faculty through 11 matching grants.
To provide more support for underserved students, the Morgridge Center for Public Service at the University of Wisconsin awarded 11 grants totaling $334,739 to faculty members launching community-based service learning projects.
It wasn?t pneumonia that killed 200 cows in Portage County earlier this month.It was toxic sweet potatoes. The steers who died Jan. 14 at a feedlot were initiallly thought to have died from pneumonia, but the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Lab in Madison did more testing and discovered the cows had eaten moldy sweet potato waste that contained a toxin.
MADISON, Wis. — A state lab says the 200 steers that died this month in Portage County were done in by tainted potatoes.
Peter Vanderloo, an associate director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, which is run on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. said the cows tested positive for a toxin that?s found in moldy sweet potatoes.
MADISON — The 200 cows recently found dead in a Portage County farm field were killed by a toxin found in moldy food, according to the UW Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory that examined the dead animals. The sweet potatoes apparently were mixed in with potato waste fed to the animals. Tests on feed samples revealed the presence of the toxin, ipomeanol.
While the plan builds on voter ID bills of years past, David Canon, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says this one is different.
“This version?is more restrictive than any bill we’ve had in the past. Indeed, if this bill passes, it would be the most restrictive in the United States.”
A Republican-supported bill to crack down on voter fraud by requiring photo identification to vote is drawing ire from Democrats and other organizations who claim the bill would do more harm than good.
The state?s health care programs for the poor face a shortfall of $214 million this year and a whopping $1.8 billion more over the next two years, the state?s top health official told a congressional committee Wednesday in high-profile testimony.
Dear Editor: There is great news coming out of a recent study by the UW-Madison Carbone Cancer Center. Researchers found smoke-free ordinances in Wisconsin had no negative impact on businesses, including bars and restaurants.
Early last month I sat in on a discussion UW-Madison School of Pharmacy Dean Jeanette Roberts was having with about 35 high school students who are considering becoming pharmacists. She told the students what it?s like being a pharmacist and what it takes to become one — the classes they?ll need to take, the grades they will need to achieve — and then she answered their individual questions, the first being, of course, how much do pharmacists make?
What was interesting is that Roberts and the students were miles apart from each other. She was in a small sound and video studio operated by Access Wisconsin on International Lane near the Dane County Regional Airport and the kids were comfortably seated in their school libraries. Some were at desks in Mellen, some in Green Bay and Arcadia. Several were in the Adams Friendship High School library, a couple were listening and talking from Grantsburg High.
Madison Area Technical College has done a solid job in recent years landing outside dollars to fund a range of initiatives. But Madison College leaders have decided to team up with the state?s other tech schools in an effort to land some of the $500 million in grants recently made available for community colleges by the Obama administration.
Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor David Canon, who studies election law, said the proposal would be the most restrictive in the country.
This week I had the pleasure of hosting long-time friend and Sconz commenter Patrick McEwen on the Sconzcast. McEwen, who studies nuclear engineering at UW, is a genuine energy policy geek, which makes him the perfect guest for a discussion on the UW?s Charter Street Heating Plant, a topic I addressed in a post on Monday.
The Chronicle of Higher Education released a nifty interactive map which shows the percent of those 25-and-older with at least a bachelor?s degree in each county across the United States. This remarkable tool, which relies heavily on Census Bureau data, not only allows one to break college attainment figures down by gender and race (Asian, black, Hispanic, white) in each county, but also lets one compare these statistics decade to decade.
The good news is 44.4 percent of all residents 25-and-older in Dane County now have at least a bachelor?s degree. That?s the highest percentage of any county in the state and ranks among the national leaders.
Quoted: Sara Goldrick-Rab, assistant professor of educational policy studies and sociology at UW-Madison.
Add the insolvent and still hemorrhaging Unemployment Insurance Reserve Fund ? and a looming $50 million in annual interest payments due the feds ? to the list of economic challenges facing the Walker administration. Due to the high number of applicants and a failure to salt away enough money during the good times, Wisconsin since February 2009 has been forced to borrow nearly $1.5 billion from the federal government to cover weekly benefits for the unemployed.
Quoted: Andrew Reschovsky, UW-Madison professor of public affairs and applied economics
Wisconsin?s fourth- and eighth-grade students as a whole scored above average on a national science assessment in 2009, but results released Tuesday raise concerns about the state?s African-American student achievement and about scientific literacy in general.
Quoted: “I was surprised he wasn?t more specific,” said Charles Franklin, UW-Madison political science professor. “He stuck to some very broad conservative principles.”
Of course, a bill to require photo ID at the polls isn?t aimed at disenfranchising demographically Republican voters like me. It?s aimed at voters like 22-year-old Andrew Flowers, a UW-Madison senior from Denver, Colo.Flowers has voted in two elections while living in Madison. To register, he needed nothing more than a piece of mail to verify his address, he said. But under the bill, Flowers would almost certainly need a Wisconsin photo ID, something that itself would require his certified birth certificate and Social Security card and a trip to the DMV. Would Flowers be likely to go through all that just to vote? “If I had to go wait in the DMV line, no,” he said.
Governor Scott Walker?s recent decision to stop the conversion of a coal-fired power plant to renewable biomass is another in a string of actions by Walker which will kill jobs. That?s the view from Jennifer Feyerherm of the Sierra Club, on Walker?s decision to pull the plug on converting UW Madison?s Charter Street Power plant from coal to biomass.
In an up-and-coming podcast, I will be discussing the controversy surrounding the Charter Street Heating Plant with a guy who knows a little more about energy policy than I do. But until then, I will point you to one interesting fact: Biomass may be less environmentally beneficial than natural gas, which is the other option that the plant is pursuing.
Approximately 70 students gathered at a forum Monday as administrators explained the general goals of the New Badger Partnership and addressed students? concerns with the proposed state relationship model.
