Category: State news

Despite voter support for the gay marriage amendment earlier this month, the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents might request domestic partner benefits when they meet next week.

It has been a long time in the making, but it’s now only a few months until Wisconsin citizens will be able to watch their legislators, live and in full color, from the State Capitol

….There are (also) plans to televise UW symposiums and conferences.

Madison, Wis. – Quick quiz: Which Wisconsin institutions spend the most on research and development in the life sciences?

Naming No. 1 is relatively easy: the University of Wisconsin-Madison ($764 million) is perennially among the top academic R&D centers in the United States. Second on the list is the Medical College of Wisconsin ($139 million), which ranks among the nation’s top 100 medical research centers. Next up is the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee at $28.3 million.

Susan Borlaug is the first to admit that marching around with a placard and shouting slogans isn’t going to change the results of the recent statewide vote in favor of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and civil unions in Wisconsin.

When gay and lesbian faculty and staff members at UW-Madison met with Chancellor John Wiley to discuss the state’s passage of a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and civil unions, many of these talented educators and researchers said they were thinking of leaving Wisconsin.

That’s bad news for the university and for the state, and Gov. Jim Doyle and legislators should respond in a manner that respects the need to maintain the viability of the university system. The best move, in our view, would be for the governor to issue an executive order extending domestic partnership benefits to state employees, as did Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack several years ago.

University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh Chancellor Richard Wells sent out a second e-mail this month relating to harassment issues Tuesday laying out the anti-discrimination policies at the university.

The e-mail comes after both the recent passage of a constitutional amendment defining marriage and banning civil unions and two complaints to university police about harassment toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning members on campus.

Critics of a coal-powered heating plant that serves the University of Wisconsin-Madison say the facility is too old, too polluting and too hazardous to health to merit renewal of its air pollution operating permit without significant changes.

Citizens and environmentalist groups testified before the DNR on Wednesday that the Charter Street Heating Plant, located just south of the UW-Madison campus at 117 N. Charter St., is pumping hazardous smoke into the atmosphere that is both harmful to area residents and contributing to global warming. The plant must be cleaner and more efficient, they said.

Gay and lesbian faculty and staff at the University of Wisconsin-Madison say they might quit their jobs because of the state’s passage of a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and civil unions.

Despite losses in the Nov. 7 election that lowered their margin of control in the Assembly, Republicans moved two of their past leaders into top spots Tuesday, electing Rep. Michael Huebsch as speaker and Rep. Jeff Fitzgerald as majority leader.

SKIP ZACH would have loved Friday. Nothing, except maybe signing with the Chicago Cubs, which Skip did in 1951 after playing for Edgewood High and UW, made the Avenue Bar proprietor prouder than seeing his restaurant hopping. If many of the faces were familiar, all the better.

Friday noon there were plenty of recognizable faces at the Avenue…at the big center table, the Friday lunch crowd included UW Chancellor John Wiley and his wife, Georgia;

ONE OF THE POINTS on which Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Green scored a direct hit in the recently completed campaign dealt with affordability in the University of Wisconsin system. Green was critical of whopping tuition increases in recent years.

Zachary L. Cooper, an educator and lecturer who worked tirelessly to impart the importance of education and a sense of worth to children, died on Nov. 1. He was 71.

“In his community he was somewhat of a hero,” said Joyce Boggess, executive director of the Early Childhood Learning Center, where Cooper served as president of the board of directors. “The kids all loved him here, and they will miss him terribly. They’ve already begun to write poems and letters to Dr. Cooper in his honor.”

Cooper was widely known as one of the state’s most prominent chroniclers of African-American history.

After clashing with a Republican-controlled Legislature for four years, University of Wisconsin System leaders seem downright giddy Friday with the prospect of working with a Democratic-led Senate and a friendlier Assembly.

When the Badger Poll asked state residents last spring whether they favored reinstating the death penalty, 56% said “yes.” When an advisory referendum posed the same question on Tuesday, 56% of state voters replied “yes.”

The Badger Poll went on to ask an important second question: Is the death penalty or life imprisonment with no possibility of parole a better punishment for murder? About 50% chose life imprisonment and 45% chose the death penalty.

Notably, the referendum did not ask that follow-up question.

The defeat of ballot initiatives to limit government spending in three states this week may have taken the wind out of the sails of national antitax efforts, but political observers agree that there could still be pockets of support across the country for more stringent budget caps, particularly if elected officials do not move to curb taxes and expenditures.

MADISON – Stung by a $26 million software failure, University of Wisconsin System regents moved Thursday for stronger oversight of information technology projects.

MADISON � University of Wisconsin System regents moved on Thursday to award raises to three veteran chancellors as part of a strategy to stop the loss of top leaders and professors to other schools.

It sounded like a good idea at the time.

Get the proposed same-sex marriage constitutional amendment on the November ballot to drive up the Republican vote while driving Democrats out of office. The plan worked for President Bush two years ago, particularly in Ohio. So why wouldn’t it do the same in Wisconsin this year, the GOP brass reasoned.

Welcome to the real world.

Republicans lost at least 11 seats in the Legislature on Tuesday – a shift that gave Democrats control of the state Senate and left Assembly Republicans wondering how to lead with their smallest majority in seven years.

MADISON – Gay marriage was never legal in Wisconsin, but some gay rights advocates fear that the state’s new ban on it could jeopardize couples’ ability to share health and other benefits.

The University of Wisconsin System, which has sought domestic partner benefits to help it recruit and retain employees, may have also been dealt a setback in its effort to secure them from lawmakers, Freker said.

MILWAUKEE -Ã? Gov. Jim Doyle held on to his traditional Democratic base in Tuesday’s election by appealing to women and the poor, while GOP challenger Mark Green drew strong support from religious voters and those who support the U.S. war in Iraq, according to an Associated Press exit poll.

….Jess Haines, 35, said he voted for Green because he blamed Doyle for tuition increases at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“Doyle put the screws to UW. And seeing as how I’m an alumni, I had to vote against him,” he said.

MADISON, Wis. — Stem-cell politics have been front and center in the race for governor, especially in TV ads.

WISC-TV examined the Mark Green ad in which former Gov. Tommy Thompson stumps for the gubernatorial candidate.

The ad takes viewers back to Wisconsin in the Tommy Thompson era. The former longtime governor and Health and Human Services secretary comes out swinging for Green.

UW-Madison researchers have had a website that identifies statewide traffic safety issues in the works since 2005. Eventually, according to managers of the site, it will enable users to analyze the economic and social effects of these issues.

The Ozaukee County Board voted Wednesday to restore $8,427 to a program within UW Extension, an arm of the University of Wisconsin devoted to serving Wisconsin community members, including children and continuing adult learners.

The Board cut the amount from the program in August to protest UW-Madison�s hiring of Kevin Barrett, the lecturer who made news recently due to his controversial views that the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks were an inside job orchestrated by the U.S. government.

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=526619
When it comes to the University of Wisconsin System, Gov. Jim Doyle and U.S. Rep. Mark Green agree on one thing: They both want tuition to increase no more than 3% next year.

When it comes to the University of Wisconsin System, Gov. Jim Doyle and U.S. Rep. Mark Green agree on one thing: They both want tuition to increase no more than 3% next year.

But their positions on issues ranging from UW-Madison admissions to a proposed merger between UW-Milwaukee and UW-Waukesha show some substantial differences.

Ask the typical college student in Wisconsin who is running for governor, and you may get a blank stare. Ask about the marriage amendment, and the response is sure to be animated.