Sunday night the House passed health care reform along with the 150 pages of so-called fixes Democrats hope will pass in reconciliation. And if you thought watching the House on Sunday was a long drawn out series of votes, wait till you watch the Senate reconciliation votes. The reconciliation strategy includes 20 hours of debate followed by the” vote-a-rama”— several days of virtually nonstop voting.

The reconciliation bill includes language that strips out the “Cornhusker Kickback”—the deal sweetener inserted into the original bill to woo Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska) to vote in favor of the bill. The proposal also increases the Medicare payroll tax on higher wage earners. And the bill adds an expanded government student loan program and increase Pell grants.

President Obama is expected to sign the health care reform bill into law on Tuesday. The Reconciliation process is expected to start this weekend.

In a phone interview today with reporters, Congressman Dave Obey (D-Wausau) said that Obey says working on a bill of this magnitude was a difficult process and he wishes the reform language could have gone further to include a public option.  Below is an excerpt from the interview. I did bleep a portion out as he talked about the names people people called him. Those names are probably not appropriate for all listeners.

What do you think? Where are we at as country? What do you think of the legislation?

Health Care Resources:

• Health Care 101 Guide from Christian Science Monitor (One of the best guides I’ve read)
• Reconciliation Bill (PDF)
• Health reform: The $$$ story from CNN
• Health Legislation from Speaker Pelosi’s Page (Includes links to bills and scores)

Posted under Lawmaking, Policy, Politics

Today 35^th Assembly Representative Donald Friske announced that he won’t seek another term. The Merrill Republican was first elected in 2000 in an upset. Friske beat out incumbent Democrat Sarah Waukau, garnering 55% of the vote. Since then he’s held his seat relatively comfortably but with him out, it leaves the race wide open.

This morning I had a chance to meet up with him at his business in Merrill and he chatted about some of the issues facing the current legislature and future bodies.

This afternoon Friske’s 2008 democratic opponent, Jay Schmelling, sent out a letter wishing Friske well and hinting at the future.

I would like to thank Don Friske for his years of service in the Legislature and wish him and his family good-luck and success in the future.

The voters have important issues to consider in the April election. Candidates on the spring ballot need the media to communicate with voters. My campaign team is in place from the 2008 election and I’ve been laying ground work for a run in 2010 regardless of Don’s decision. In the coming weeks I’ll continue talking with voters in my district and announce my decision at an appropriate time.

However, Schmelling isn’t the only Democrat eyeing up the seat. According to some pol watchers, former Merrill Area Public School Board member Renea Frederick could be looking for an in.

On the Republican side, expect an announcement soon.

Posted under Campaigns, Current Affairs, Politics

Today marks 1 year since the President signed the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act into law. Obama says that his administration has done ”an outstanding job” in staving off another Great Depression. “There has never been a program of this scale, moved at this speed, that has been enacted as effectively and as transparently,” he noted.

Meanwhile, Republicans attack the plan calling it a massive waste.

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said earlier in the week that taxpayers “aren’t getting their money’s worth from the trillion-dollar ’stimulus’ and struggling families and small businesses are rightly asking, ‘Where are the jobs?’”

House GOP Whip Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Virginia, said states have lost a total of 2.9 million jobs between the bill’s enactment last February through December, though the administration projected stimulus would save or create 3.5 million positions.

One of our reporters had a chance to chat with Congressman Dave Obey about the effects of the recovery act. He also shared his thoughts on the political climate in Washington–mostly that he doesn’t care about the “yap-yapping” from pundits who are stretching the elections longer than ever before.

Posted under Campaigns, Current Affairs, Policy, Politics, Uncategorized

Governor Jim Doyle gave his final State of the State address in Madison Tuesday night. In it, he outlined where Wisconsin has been in the last year, particularly given the difficult economic climate. However he also pointed a direction for the legislature, including the Senate’s C.O.R.E. jobs Act and the Clean Energy Jobs Act.

Below, area lawmakers react to Doyle’s speech.

Posted under Current Affairs, Lawmaking, Policy, Politics

From the AP wire:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has ruled that corporations may spend freely to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress, easing decades-old limits on their participation in federal campaigns.

The court on Thursday overturned a 20-year-old ruling that said corporations can be prohibited from using money from their general treasuries to pay for campaign ads. The decision almost certainly will also allow labor unions to participate more freely in campaigns and threatens similar limits imposed by 24 states.

The justices also struck down part of the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill that barred union- and corporate-paid issue ads in the closing days of election campaigns.

However, a ban on direct contributions to candidates remains in place.

Critics of the spending limits have argued that they are an unconstitutional restraint of free speech. The court agreed, and in his majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy referred to them as “censorship.”

But in a strongly worded dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens warned that the ruling “threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions around the nation.”

One Republican attorney who has represented several GOP presidential campaigns says public debates will be “significantly changed” by the ruling and “the loudest voices are going to be corporations and unions.”

Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold calls the decision a “terrible mistake.” I talked to him on the phone this afternoon and he explains what happened, why he disagrees and what congress can do legislatively.

You can read his press release here: Feingold responds to the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC

From the New York Times, a discussion about how corporate money will reshape politics.

Posted under Campaigns, Current Affairs, Lawmaking, Policy, Politics

The Wisconsin Legislature is taking on Governor Doyle’s controversial “Clean Energy Jobs Act” that was put together with help from the Global Warming task force.

Under the plan, the state would have to generate 25% of its energy from renewable sources by 2025, cars would be subject to stricter emission standards but central to the plan is the creation of more than 15,000 jobs, according to Doyle.

This legislation is expected to create, at a minimum, between 800 and 1,800 construction jobs each year of the projection period between 2011 through 2025 and over 2,000 manufacturing jobs once the policies are fully implemented.

However those numbers are part of the controversy. Conservative Democratic Representative Bob Ziegelbauer argues that green jobs will be created but at the expense of thousands of private sector jobs and tax dollars.

On track to be considered early this year, the bill could not come at a worse time. Our Northeastern Wisconsin communities have long prospered in an economy featuring many high paying, high quality manufacturing jobs. This bill would compound last year’s tragic mistake of loading billions of dollars of new taxes onto business at a time of national economic downturn, threatening the permanent loss of tens of thousands of these jobs, and accelerate the job killing high cost energy policy that in just the last decade has seen Wisconsin electricity costs go from the lowest in the Midwest to the highest. The “green jobs” touted as a by product of this proposal are merely another disheartening example of the “one step forward, five steps back” approach to job creation currently embraced by the Legislature by adding a few new jobs after decimating the manufacturing sector of our economy. Manitowoc County’s economy cannot afford the damage this bill would do.

And that’s exactly why representatives from the conservative business lobby Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce say the bill is a bad idea. WMC cites a study by the conservative think-tank Wisconsin Policy Research Institute that the legislation will cost the state 43,093 private-sector jobs and cut annual wages by $1.6 billion.

However, the coalition for Clean, Responsible Energy for Wisconsin’s Economy, CREWE, finds fault with the WPRI report saying:

The WPRI report is so wildly flawed that it has no place in any legislative debate on the task force recommendations,” said Thad Nation, executive director of CREWE. “Not only does the report analyze many policies that aren’t even included in the Clean Energy Jobs Act, but it takes a piecemeal approach, failing to analyze the cumulative effect the policies will have on our state.

Further, not all the businesses that pay dues to WMC are on board with their criticism of Doyle’s Clean Jobs Act. Both CREWE and the Wisconsin Business Council have both come out in favor of the green jobs plan.

Adding even more intrigue to this philosophical divide among Wisconsin’s business community is the fact that many members of the CREWE and the Wisconsin Business Council in favor of the green jobs plan also are dues-paying members of the WMC, the MMAC and the other organizations that are against the plan.

“It’s really created massive fault lines within the business community between the deniers (of global warming) and those that think something must be done,” said Thad Nation of the CREWE. “It’s probably going to get messier before it gets better.”

Now it’s the legislature’s turn to mull over the bills and with jobs at stake, it’s going to get noisy.

Posted under Current Affairs, Lawmaking, Policy, Politics

Wisconsin is home to one of the most partisan state legislatures, according to Governing Magazine, because only slim democratic majorities control both the Assembly and the Senate. It creates the kind of environment that is ripe for rancor.

Partisanship is worse in Wisconsin than in some other states partly because both chambers remain closely contested. But the factors that drive the parties apart in Madison — the need for constant fundraising; the influence of interest groups closely allied with one party or the other; and an altered media landscape that gives precedence to partisan hyperbole — are present to some degree in just about every state capital. Legislatures may not be as partisan as the U.S. Congress — not every vote at the state level is a potential litmus test — but they’re getting closer.

In this kind of political atmosphere, legislating becomes a re-election strategy and compromise is a dirty word. The state budget, for example, passed without GOP input or support.

One result was that not a single GOP member of the Assembly voted for the state’s biennial budget bill last year. Jeff Fitzgerald, the Republican leader, described the worst budget crisis in Wisconsin history as “the Democrats’ problem,” appearing to give more weight to his hopes of retaking the chamber in 2010 than to helping solve the state’s real problems. But Democrats made it pretty clear they weren’t interested in Republican input, anyway. On the budget bill and other important measures, they squash Republican amendments at nearly every turn.

However author Alan Greenblatt posits that maybe no natural consensus exists on the big issues like budgets, taxes and education.

There is a genuine battle between such ideas, and perhaps it should not be surprising that the arguments about them tend to break along partisan lines. Jeff Fitzgerald, the Assembly Republican leader, suggests that his locally famous quote that the deficit was “the Democrats’ problem” was “kind of an offhand comment,” but it’s not one that he particularly backs away from. “I do believe the job of the minority leader is to get his caucus back in the majority,” he says. “It puts you in position to move the state ahead according to what you think is the best direction, the core beliefs you have.”

Despite the ideological fissure, legislators have a lot on their plates this year. Jobs will be issue number one and it will take some creativity to get Wisconsinites back to work.

In Iowa, for instance, the state enacted an $830 million “I-JOBS” bonding program for infrastructure repair and investment. In Minnesota, Governor Pawlenty proposed a “Jobs Recovery Act” that’s focused on tax incentives to promote businesses to invest in the state. And in Florida, the legislature enacted a state stimulus program giving low-interest loans to small businesses of up to $250,000 for expansion.

If Wisconsin legislators can’t figure it out, voters could send them packing.

Of course, the budget looms large. Despite having passed the 2009-11 biennial budget on time last year, a repair bill will probably be necessary. And with revenue and sales taxes down, it will be challenging.

As November draws near, partisan language will only grow stronger as lawmakers try to reinforce their ideologies and work to align themselves with the voters.

Posted under Campaigns, Current Affairs, Lawmaking, Policy, Politics

Sarah Palin’s new book, Going Rogue: An American Life is an autobiographical re-introduction to the woman who wanted to be vice president. It is interesting in the way that reality TV is interesting; full of exciting tidbits and drama but the writing is only okay and her policy positions fall flat.

By most accounts we don’t know much about her and what we do know is limited by what she calls “the media filter.” Palin uses the first half of the book to share her history and introduce herself. The book is written in her familiar, folksy prose with plenty of “you betchas” and “gosh darn its” thrown in for good measure. “By the end of summer, Todd and I didn’t want to spend more time apart. So we took our broke butts down to the Palmer Courthouse and lassoed a magistrate to pronounce us man and wife,” (page 49).

She narrates her way through Wasilla City Council and eventually her two terms as mayor and describes what it means, to her, to be a Republican.

A believer in individual rights and responsibilities rather than heavy-handed government; in free-market principles that included reward for hard work; respect for quality; support for a strong military; and a belief that America is the best country on earth (page 45).

Palin picks apart her unsuccessful campaign for lieutenant governor in 2002 and her attempt to replace U.S. Senator Frank Murkowski when he became governor and needed to appoint a replacement. Following that, she illustrates her stint on the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and her disgust with the ethics deficiency she finds. Eventually she narrates her way to the Alaska Governor’s Mansion.

But throughout her 17 year career as a public servant, similar themes pop up. She runs for office because some talks her into it, she’s elected, and when she gets down to business she finds ethical lapses and conflicts of interest around every corner. When she says something about it, she loses colleagues and friends. It’s the same pattern in Wasilla and in Juneau and Anchorage.

Throughout the book she comes back her philosophy, “In politics, you’re either eating well or sleeping well. I wanted to sleep well,” (page 70). However, corruption is to Alaska what dairy is to Wisconsin. But in her recollection, Palin never really learned to play with pros. That’s why her “old boys club” busting, budget slashing, earmark smashing earned her approval ratings in the 80s and 90’s during her first 2 years in office.

Perhaps her biggest accomplishment, though, during her 3 years as governor is her work on the “Alaska Gasline Inducement Act” (AGIA) calling it the largest private-sector industry project in North American history. It’s what the McCain campaign should have pushed as her expertise on the trail.

However the second half of the book focuses on her failed run for office with Senator John McCain. She never faults McCain himself but she does outline the disorder and disconnect of the campaign and criticizes the advisors.

It seemed off that we were being put in the hands of a man who had never run a campaign before, but Andrew seemed like a nice guy, and it wasn’t my call. I figured they were the pros and knew what they were doing. It ended up being a learning experience for all of us (Page 230).

Before the VP run, Palin was essentially naïve to the world of national elections. However some of those problems came about because she was green and the campaign staffers were ill-prepared.

I presented myself as I was and told people what I believed in. now I was in the hands of ‘campaign professionals,’ and it was my first encounter with the unique way of thinking that characterizes this elite and highly specialized guild. In Alaska, we don’t really have these kinds of people-they are a feature of national politics. Naturally enough, as the experts, they are used to being in charge. But no matter how ‘expert’ any of them was, nothing had apparently prepared them for the unprecedented onslaught of rumors, lies, and innuendo… (page 232).

Some of the juicy, gossipy parts were interesting and even entertaining to read. However according some reports those juicy parts are mostly lies.

If you’re thinking about reading Going Rogue do it because it’s interesting not because you want well thought out policy statements. Palin uses the last chapter to outline her policy positions. It’s unfortunate that she only used the last 15 or so pages to do so because it leaves her positions vague.

However she’ll have the next few years to flesh out her stance because it’s obvious that she’s not done yet. “There was a longing inside me that winder, a sense of purpose hovering just beyond my vision. Was it ambition? I didn’t think so. Ambition drives, purpose beckons. Purpose calls,” (page 103).

Posted under Books, Campaigns, Current Affairs, Policy, Politics

This afternoon, the Wisconsin Legislature passed a bill designed to cut down on drunken driving.

The bill makes a first offense a crime if someone under age 16 is in the car and makes driving drunk a felony on a fourth offense instead of a fifth.Governor Jim Doyle has already said he will sign it.

The only legislator to vote against the measure is Representative Marlin Schneider (D-Wisconsin Rapids) and he says that the bill won’t work.

I talked to him on the phone; this is what he had to say:

Posted under Current Affairs, Lawmaking, Policy

Senator Russ Feingold says the President is making a big mistake by sending more troops to Afghanistan.

In a phone interview earlier this afternoon, Feingold says that the troop escalation amounts to a misguided mission. Feingold says that he supports rooting out al-Qaeda but al-Qaeda is now headquartered in Pakistan–NOT Afghanistan.

Here’s the raw interview.

Posted under Current Affairs, Policy