Efforts to Deliver "Kill Shot" to Paid Sick Leave Tied to ALEC

Wednesday, April 3, 2013 by PRWatch.org
by Brendan Fischer and Mary Bottari

In a victory for working families, New York is poised to become the largest U.S. city to require businesses offer paid sick days to workers. Community activists and labor leaders struck a deal with City Council Speaker Christine Quinn to allow a vote on a paid sick leave ordinance that would cover almost 1 million people. But workers in more than 700 other large American cities must choose between spreading their illness and getting paid.

Advocates have helped pass paid sick days laws in cities like San Francisco, Washington DC, Seattle and Portland, but big business has been pushing back. Corporate-backed bills have passed at the state level in Wisconsin, Louisiana, and Mississippi that would preempt (or as one GOP operative put it, "deliver the kill shot" to) local laws requiring paid sick days. Similar bills are on the legislative docket in Florida, Arizona, Indiana, Michigan, Oklahoma, and Washington. This paid sick days preemption effort can be traced back to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

Paid Sick Days Help Keep America Healthy

Workers who do not have access to paid sick days are one-and-a-half times more likely to go to work sick with a contagious illness, putting their co-workers and customers at risk, and costing an estimated $160 billion each year in lost productivity. Children are more likely to go to school sick when their parents can't get off work to care for them, causing illness to spread. Delaying treatment for illness can cause conditions to worsen, leading to more emergency room visits and increased costs for public health insurance programs.

An estimated 40 million workers, or forty percent of the workforce, cannot take sick days without losing wages or possibly their jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) only provides for unpaid leave, and only applies to employers with more than 50 employees. Approximately forty percent of workers do not qualify for the FMLA, and those who do often don't take sick days for financial reasons.

Seventy-nine percent of food industry workers -- who are especially likely to spread illness if they go to work sick -- don't get paid sick days, according to a Food Chain Workers Alliance study. A recent Centers for Disease Control study found that more than half of all norovirus outbreaks can be traced back to sick food service workers.

In response to this public health and economic issue, cities and counties have proposed ordinances that require employers allow workers to call-in sick without losing their jobs or wages. And corporate interests are pushing back. In New York City, business lobbyists managed to get City Council Speaker and mayoral hopeful Christine Quinn to block the legislation for three years, before a long-term campaign by worker's advocates put her in the hot seat and made it politically untenable to continue blocking the bill.

Big business has also lobbied the statehouses, in many cases successfully, to disregard "local control" and nullify and permanently preempt paid sick leave ordinances passed at the local level. And the legislation appears to have spread thanks to a bill promoted and passed by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, and shared at an ALEC meeting in 2011.

Walker's Anti-Paid Sick Day Law in Wisconsin Brought to ALEC

In May of 2011, Governor Walker pushed Senate Bill 23 to override a Milwaukee ordinance providing for paid sick days. It appeared to be the first paid sick days preemption bill passed in the country.

Milwaukee's ordinance specified that paid sick days could be used if a worker is ill or needs to care for a sick child, and passed via referendum with over 70 percent of the popular vote in 2008. The 2011 state law not only steamrolled local democratic will by overriding a law passed overwhelmingly in a popular vote, but also repealed the rights of working people to get medical treatment they need, care for their children, and help safeguard the health of their families, coworkers and customers.

A few months later, at ALEC's August 2011 Annual Meeting in New Orleans, the bill was brought to the Labor and Business Regulation Subcommittee of the ALEC Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force.
Meeting attendees were given complete copies of Wisconsin's 2011 Senate Bill 23 (now Wisconsin Act 16) as a model for state override. ALEC's Labor and Business Regulation Subcommittee at the time was co-chaired by YUM! Brands, Inc., which owns Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.
Legislators attending the Labor and Business Regulation Subcommittee meeting were also handed a target list and map of state and local paid sick leave policies prepared by ALEC member the National Restaurant Association.

In Wisconsin, the state chapter of the National Restaurant Association lobbied for Senate Bill 23 to repeal Milwaukee's sick days ordinance, as did the local branch of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, an ALEC member.

And a similar pattern of opposition has emerged across the country: as cities like Seattle, Portland, and Philadelphia have taken up paid sick days, the state and local chapters of ALEC members the National Restaurant Association and U.S. Chamber of Commerce have lined up against it. Other consistent paid sick leave opponents include the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), an ALEC member that presents itself as "the voice of small business" but lobbies primarily for big corporate interests, as the Center for Media and Democracy has described at NFIBexposed.org. Restaurant giant Darden (parent company of Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Capital Grille and others) has also emerged as a major paid sick leave foe. Darden is an ALEC member and has had a representative on ALEC's corporate board.

Opponents of paid sick days also regularly cite a "study" from a corporate front group called the Employment Policies Institute purporting to show that employers in Connecticut cut jobs and benefits after a mandatory paid sick leave law took effect. The front group is one of many formed by super-lobbyist Rick Berman -- who has also formed groups like the Center for Consumer Freedom, a front for the fast food, alcohol and tobacco industries -- and has received $2.8 million between 2009 and 2011 from the Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation, which is also a major ALEC funder.

These same big business interests have backed proposed state laws to thwart local sick leave ordinances that reflect the Milwaukee legislation. Sick leave preemption bills have spread across the country since the August 2011 ALEC meeting where Wisconsin's bill was shared. In 2012, a sick days preemption bill was introduced in Tennessee and became law in Louisiana, and in 2013, similar bills have been introduced in Florida, Washington, Mississippi, Michigan, Arizona, Indiana, and Oklahoma.

ALEC Politician Works to "Deliver the Kill Shot" in Florida

Orange County is following in Milwaukee's footsteps, with advocates gathering more than 50,000 signatures last year to place a sick-time measure on the ballot. The referendum was kept off the November 2012 ballot because of a delaying campaign coordinated by Orange County commissioners working with big business, including ALEC member Darden Restaurants, the Florida Chamber of Commerce, Disney and others. In February, a court found the County had violated "the plain meaning of its charter" by refusing to put paid sick days in front of voters.

Text messages released through open records requests indicate the delaying tactics were part of a strategy to kill the initiative entirely.

In early September, Orange County GOP Chair Lew Oliver texted Commissioner Ted Edwards saying he wants "at least one good faith straight face test reason to at least delay it long enough to keep it off the ballot in November. After that, the Legislature can deliver the kill shot."

The "kill shot" would come from Florida legislators duplicating the anti-democratic tactics of Wisconsin's governor.

House Majority Leader Steve Precourt (R), an ALEC member, recently introduced a sweeping paid sick days preemption bill that tracks Wisconsin's Senate Bill 23 and would thwart the Orange County effort. The bill would effectively keep Orange County residents from voting on the county's first citizen-led ballot initiative.

Precourt's proposal actually goes further than Wisconsin's bill by incorporating ALEC model legislation that would preempt local living wage requirements as well. (ALEC's slate of bills promoting a race to the bottom in wages and working conditions for America's workforce was recently detailed in a report by the National Employment Law Project.)

Precourt attended the 2011 ALEC meeting where legislators were handed complete copies of Wisconsin's 2011 Senate Bill 23. He reported receiving $487.38 from the corporate-funded "scholarship fund" to attend the 2011 ALEC meeting. According to documents released from the ALEC State Chair for Florida, Rep. Jimmy Patronis, Florida lawmakers' attendance at ALEC's 2011 annual conference in New Orleans was "one of the strongest delegations in years."

Also at that 2011 ALEC meeting, Precourt and sixteen other Florida legislators attended a "State Night" dinner at Antoine's Restaurant, where lawmakers sat down with corporate lobbyists for meals that averaged around $120. But Florida legislators were not asked to pay a dime for their expensive night out: their tab was picked up by the corporate-funded ALEC "scholarship fund."

ALEC Legislator Has Ethics Concerns

Under current Florida law those ALEC "scholarships" are banned. In 2006, Florida enacted some of the strictest ethics laws in the country, and legislators are now prohibited from accepting most gifts from lobbyists or their employers. But, legislators can still use ALEC "scholarship" funds collected prior to the law taking effect. "The organization has significant funds that were collected prior to the effective date of the law and which, when collected, even those from lobbyists and principals were entirely lawful," reads a House legal opinion sanctioning the use of already-raised scholarship funds. Despite these "scholarships" being grandfathered-in, the appearance of impropriety remains the same.

And ethical concerns about Precourt don't end there. In 2008, he formed a consulting firm whose founding documents indicate it intends to provide "engineering and lobbying services" -- with lobbying being a questionable activity for a sitting legislator. In 2011, the Orlando Sentinel reported that Rep. Precourt was gunning for an appointment to direct Central Florida's toll-road agency, despite a significant conflict of interest: his engineering firm, Dyer, Riddle Mills and Precourt (DRMP), had received $10.5 million in contracts in recent years and stood to make millions more from new contracts. Precourt had worked at the firm for twenty years, and though he said he resigned as a principal a few years after becoming an elected official, he retained a financial relationship with the company.

DRMP also has a financial relationship with some of the major opponents of Orange County's proposed Earned Sick Time ordinance. It has major contracts with Disney, for example, which lobbied against the sick days initiative in Orange County.

Precourt's bill passed out of committee and is up for a final vote in the House on April 4.

Proposed State, Federal Bills to Require Paid Sick Days

Legislation has also been proposed on the federal and state levels to require paid sick days.

In Congress, the Healthy Families Act has been introduced several times since 2004, and would allow workers to earn up to seven days of paid sick leave (or one hour for every 30 hours worked) for use when an individual is ill or needs to care for a sick family member. States like Maryland, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Washington State are also considering bills to guarantee state-wide paid sick days.

But the campaign against paid sick days is growing increasingly intense and coordinated, particularly as local governments take matters into their own hands. Keep an eye out for an ALEC legislator introducing a killshot preemption bill in your state legislature.

Romney's Veep Choice: Paul Ryan, Koch Ally and 'Right-Wing Social Engineer'

And after Obama capitulates to his Wall St puppeteers, Romney's puppeteers--the Kochs--pick his VP running-mate for him...Paul Ryan. It can get plenty worse, though it doesn't seem possible.--jef

Gay or not gay?

In making the risky choice of picking Rep. Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney seals the deal on the Koch brothers' takeover of the Republican Party.
August 10, 2012

 |   By Adele M. Stan

It's official: The Republican Party is now officially a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Koch brothers. How else to explain Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's pick of Rep. Paul Ryan, Wis., as his running mate. Yes, that Paul Ryan -- chairman of the House Budget Committee and author of the infamous Ryan roadmap budget plan, which promises to turn Medicare into a privatized voucher system, and yank health care from millions of children whose parents happen to be poor. And that's just the beginning. In addition to a raft of cuts, the Ryan plan would end the Earned Income Tax Credit, which millions of parents count on.

It's a plan that even former House Speaker Newt Gingrich deemed too "radical." Asked by NBC's David Gregory to respond to Ryan's proposal, Gingrich famously said [3] (video):

"I don't think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering. I don't think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate."

(Of course that was before Gingrich walked back [4] those remarks, apparently reminded by some savvy operative that he might not want to anger the Kochs, to whom Ryan, 42, is something of a youthful ward, having been the beneficiary of years of support from the Koch-founded Americans For Prosperity.)

In case anyone should miss the point that Ryan is a very Kochy guy, Romney is doing his big reveal of Ryan this morning aboard the U.S.S. Wisconsin, a decommisioned ship docked in the all-important swing state of Virginia. However important Virginia is to the electoral math, Wisconsin is a symbolic icon for the Tea Party. It's not only Ryan's home state; it's the poster state of right-wing triumph, the place where Gov. Scott Walker successfully fended off a recall attempt by progressives in response to a bill he rammed through the state legislature that all but ended collective bargaining for the state's public employees. Much of the credit for Wisconsin's right turn goes to Americans For Prosperity, which boasts a particularly aggressive Wisconsin chapter, which began building a network of activists there in 2005.

Ryan's association with the group goes back almost that far. In 2008, he was granted [5] the Wisconsin AFP chapter's "Defending the American Dream" award, handed to him by a young county executive who served as emcee for those festivities -- a guy named Scott Walker. Since then, he has made countless appearances on the group's behalf, at anti-health-care reform rallies on Capitol Hill, on conference town halls across the country and at Americans For Prosperity and Americans For Prosperity Foundation events. (Just enter Ryan's name into the search engine on the Amerians For Prosperity Web site, and you'll come up with eight pages [6] of citations.) In fact, Ryan was due to speak at last week's conference sponsored by the AFP Foundation in Washington, D.C., forcing increased speculation about his running-mate prospects when he failed to show [7].

For Romney, the pluses in picking Ryan are these: the Tea Partiers, who are less than wild about Mittens, really love them some Paul Ryan -- as does David Koch, who will be seated as a Romney delegate at the Republican National Convention in Tampa. Koch and his brother, Charles, are major donors, not only to political candidates, but to a range of right-wing think tanks and groups [8]. In the post-Citizens United world, those donations add up to millions in political advertisements by all manner of non-profit groups. Already, Americans For Prosperity has made a $27 million air-time buy [9] for running anti-Obama ads.

Romney already owes some of his success in the primary season to Koch's favorite politicians in Wisconsin. Remember Rick Santorum? Right-wing base types -- Christian evangelicals and Tea Partiers -- just loved him. He was giving Romney a whole lotta agita during the primaries -- first stealing Romney's reported win in the Iowa caucuses back from the Mittster in a recount, and nearly besting Romney in Michigan, where Romney grew up.

In the weeks leading up to the Wisconsin primary, Santorum was running double-digits ahead of Romney. But then Paul Ryan endorsed Romney [10], and so did the Koch-bought U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson. When Ryan began campaigning with Romney in the final days of the campaign, the crowds at Romney events seemed to swell. While conventional wisdom holds that endorsements don't amount to a hill of beans, conventional wisdom had an epic #FAIL on Wisconsin's primary night, when 60 percent of those responding in exit polls [10] said that Romney's endorsers influenced their vote. (Romney also won the endorsements of a number of Americans For Prosperity-backed state legislators.)

But Romney's Ryan pick is not without its minuses, the largest one being running with a guy who has promised to end Medicare and replace it with something else entirely that could wind up costing seniors big-time. Don't be fooled by the fact that Ryan calls his voucher-health-care system for seniors "Medicare". That's just a trick -- like an employer who promises you dental coverage that amounts to a coupon for a discount on a visit to your favorite dentist.

Of course, photos of the children who would lose health-care under the Ryan plan would probably not play well for Romney, either. Democracy Corps, the polling outfit run by Stan Greenberg and James Carville, found the Ryan budget to be a drag on Romney's prospects for moving swing voters into his column. (Greenberg refers to the key Obama coalition of unmarried women, youth, and minority voters as the "Rising American Electorate.") From their latest memo [11], issued in July:

The Ryan budget’s impact on the most vulnerable is powerful among key swing voters, including unmarried women, who shifted a net 10 points toward Obama, the Rising American Electorate (net 3-point shift), and independents (net 9-point shift). Even conservatives were swayed, shifting a net 13 points toward Obama.
Among those who heard an even split of facts about the Ryan budget – including ones about cuts to programs aimed to help mostly lower and working class families – the shift is even more pronounced. With this group of voters, Obama leads Romney by 9 points, 52 to 43 percent, the largest margin of any of the groups in our experiment. It’s clear that focusing on what the Ryan budget does to the most vulnerable Americans can pay dividends for Obama.

Looks like the Koch brothers are going to have to throw a whole lot of money at this thing to make it work for them. But we know they've got plenty of that.

 Links

[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsHw92j9P0Q
[4] http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/05/17/gingrich-apologizes-paul-ryan-right-wing-social-engineering-criticism/#ixzz23DfTabbG
[5] http://www.alternet.org/story/149965/wisconsin_is_a_battleground_against_the_billionaire_kochs%27_plan_to_break_labor%27s_back
[6] http://americansforprosperity.org/search/Paul+Ryan/
[7] http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/08/paul-ryans-weekend-131130.html
[8] http://www.alternet.org/story/150520/you_thought_the_koch_brothers_were_bad_turns_out_they%27re_even_worse_than_you_thought?paging=off
[9] http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2012/08/afp-to-announce-a-new-27-million-ad-buy-against-obama/1#.UCYW42NSREM
[10] http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/876280/did_the_koch_machine_put_romney_over_the_top_in_wisconsin
[11] http://www.democracycorps.com/National-Surveys/serious-attack-on-ryan-budget-takes-toll-on-mitt-romney/#ftn1

GOP Enthusiasm for Romney (This Modern World)

How Not to Waste Your Vote in November

Repressive Democracy
by ANDREW LEVINE

There is no sugar-coating the fact: the failure to recall Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin was a defeat for organized labor and the entire American working class, and for everyone with interests opposed to those of the plutocrats for whom Walker fronts. By some estimates, this would be 99% of us.

Still, judging by the reaction of the corporate media, the election was barely newsworthy – except, for a night or two, to the Republican flacks at Fox News and their Democratic counterparts at “left leaning” MSNBC. What they both cared about was the impact on Barack Obama’s reelection.

Predictably, at Fox, Walker’s victory spelled doom for Obama; at MSNBC, also predictably, it wasn’t that big a deal. Sure, Ed Schultz, self-declared friend of the working stiff, was mad as hell, but he’ll get over it; Rachel Maddow, growing more tiresome by the day, seemed over it before she even got into it.

To the extent that they offered any analysis at all it was about how zillionaires, the Koch Brothers especially, pumped in so much money for Walker that he outspent Tom Barrett, the Democratic candidate, seven to one.

This translates into seven times more mind-numbing commercials. No one bothered to fault a political culture where this has become what it’s all about. Nobody complained that these ad campaigns leave little or no time or space for rational deliberation, the hallmark supposedly of collective decision-making in democratic states.

What the “left leaning” talking heads complained about instead was how unfair the PR wars have become now that the Supreme Court has given corporate “persons” carte blanche to spend all they please.

There was hardly a word, therefore, about how Obama remained aloof from the events in Wisconsin throughout 2011, as people from all walks of life mounted the most sustained revolt in decades against capital’s escalating attack on the working class. And neither was there much discussion of how, in the days before the election, Obama couldn’t even be bothered with the recall election – except to send a bland tweet of support for Barrett the day before.

He was too busy palling around with corporate CEOs in adjacent states, and chatting up hedge fund managers and banksters in Chicago; too busy, in other words, showing his true colors.

And, of course, no one thought to mention how little the Barrett campaign had to do with the aspirations of the tens of thousands of people who occupied the state Capital in the winter and spring of 2011; or of how the class offensive Walker launched was only an extreme version of the neo-liberal assault on the gains of the middle decades of the twentieth century, a regressive project that Democrats and Republicans alike have been pursuing for more than thirty years.

Therefore no one pointed out how the most one could have hoped for from a Barrett victory was a kinder and gentler version of Walker’s overreaching.

None of this is surprising. Serious discussions of anything other than the horse race between Romney and Obama would be too much to expect from the pundits at MSNBC. They are basically cheerleaders for Obama. They work a different angle.

Because they have so little to cheer, they fear monger shamelessly — making much, perhaps too much, of Republican idiocy. It’s nice work if you can get it because Republicans are easy prey – their plutocrats are more than usually repellent, their elected officials are morons, and their useful idiots wear their ridiculousness on their sleeves.

Rubbing all this in is well and good. But it is also diversionary. It helps Obama and Company go ahead with their endless (and largely secret) wars. It draws attention away from their war-induced disregard of the rule of law. And it frees them up to toady to the capitalists whose hearts and minds they yearn, in vain, to win over.

While Obama and the others do all this and more, liberals don’t notice or else they notice but still cut them slack. And why shouldn’t they? By their lights, Obama and his minions are all that stand between those who still have the wits they were born with and the demented theocrats and market theologians on the other side.

No matter that if there was anything like equal justice under law in the Land of the Free, Obama would have been indicted or impeached long ago. Having American citizens put to death without even a semblance of due process is only the most egregious of the high crimes and misdemeanors with which he could be charged. Nixon did no worse; by comparison, Clinton was impeached for a trifle.

No matter too that many of the Nobel laureate’s machinations abroad are actionable under international law. Were the mighty held to the standards they impose on others, Obama, like Bush and Cheney before him, could count on spending the rest of his life in an orange jump suit.

But none of this matters to the “liberal” media — not when there are Republicans to mock and Democratic voters to frighten.

On most domestic issues, Kennedy and Johnson and even Nixon were better than Obama by orders of magnitude. But like Obama and Bush before him, they waged ruinous wars that outraged the moral sensibilities of people throughout the world. Then, like now, the situation they brought about seemed impossible to set right; not, anyway, through the usual political channels.

The apparent impossibility of changing the old order from within led some of the opponents of Kennedy’s, Johnson’s, and Nixon’s wars to call on intellectual traditions that transcend the horizons of normal politics by focusing on the contradictory character of prevailing institutions and norms.

The most venerable and soundest of these radical currents, and the most influential in that period, derived from the philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831). The usual point of entry to this tradition for anti-war and anti-imperialist militants in the United States in the sixties and seventies was through the writings of thinkers associated with the so-called Frankfurt School.

Herbert Marcuse was not the most eminent exponent of Frankfurt School thought but he was by far the most influential propagator of it in the United States. As such, he quickly rose from obscurity to fame, becoming a target of adoration in New Left circles and, needless to say, of media vilification. Today, he is an all but forgotten figure.

But his work remains a source of suggestive – and timely – insights that can be useful for thinking about overcoming hopelessness in the Age of Obama and in the aftermath of the Wisconsin defeat.

* * *

Four decades ago, Marcuse published a widely read essay with a seemingly self-contradictory title, “Repressive Tolerance.”

His aim in that essay was to account for the astonishing degree of political conformity he observed in the United States and other liberal democracies. What struck him was the fact that, despite a comparative absence of overt repression, “critical” thinking, counter-systemic thinking opposed to the established order, was, if anything, even less evident in liberal democracies than in societies where speech and other forms of expression were subject to government suppression and control.

For Hegelians like Marcuse, history is the story of the career and ultimate realization of Reason in society or, what comes to the same thing in the Hegelian view, of a certain idea of human freedom, according to which, at the end of history, universal principles of Right govern human interactions and institutional arrangements. The United States, for all its liberal virtues, was nothing like the ideal. Marcuse was struck by how politically inconsequential this fact was, and at how much support there was instead for the existing order.

From within a broadly Hegelian perspective, one possible explanation for political conformity could be a rational consensus supporting the status quo. It could be, in other words, that there is little critical thinking in societies like ours because the goal of criticism has already been realized. Marcuse, for obvious reasons, rejected this explanation. For him, as for all “left Hegelians” since the 1840s, liberal democracy was, at best, History’s penultimate stage; not its “end.”

How then can the inherently conservative, non-critical “one dimensionality” of our politics be explained? Marcuse’s ideas were sketchy and problematic, but they grew out of a striking insight that warrants careful consideration.

He thought that while liberalism had been and in many ways still is part of Reason’s forward advance, and while tolerance of speech and other forms of expression is a defining element of liberal doctrine, tolerance can and sometimes does work to maintain an oppressive status quo. Marcuse claimed that tolerance did for the regime in place in the United States and similar societies what repression did for societies on the other side of the “iron curtain.”

He was vague about how this comes about. Much like his contemporary, Marshall McLuhan, his reflections focused on the nature of modern mass media and, for reasons he never made clear, he ascribed great causal significance to the differences between, say, flat screens and printed words. His reflections were at most only suggestive. They were also vague enough to be ignored or dismissed once the political moment that had made them seem timely passed.

But however unsatisfactory or obscure his explanations were, he was clear as can be about the phenomenon itself: in (literally) repressive societies, subversive ideas are potent. On the other hand, where repressive tolerance reigns, anybody can say anything, but it doesn’t matter; critical thought is effectively neutered.

According to Marcuse, it is not the potency of critical ideas that necessitates their repression in authoritarian societies; quite the contrary, it is their repression that renders them potent. Similarly, it is not the impotence of critical thinking that makes pure tolerance possible in liberal regimes. Tolerance, Marcuse argued, is what renders criticism impotent.

To be clear: Marcuse was not an opponent of liberal values. For him as much as for any defender of pure tolerance, an ideal world would be a tolerant world. And he agreed with the founding figures of modern liberalism — John Stuart Mill, for example –when they maintained that in general tolerance is a means for advancing the ideal; that the end and the most effective means for achieving it are in many cases one and the same. His point was just that in societies like ours, for any of a variety of barely specified reasons, tolerance had “turned into its opposite”; that what had been and ideally is an instrument of human liberation had become a means for impeding humanity’s forward march.

Marcuse’s account of repressive tolerance was not just an idle philosophical reflection. It was a contribution to on-going philosophical debates about free speech, but it was also a political intervention at a time when students and others engaged in struggles for civil rights and against the Vietnam War would sometimes disrupt the speeches of racists and war defenders.

His views on disrupting speech were more subtle than those of many of the disruptors: he held that illiberal means are almost always counter-productive, even if there is no moral constraint in deploying them. Still, his brief against pure tolerance was taken as a theoretical justification for a political practice that had taken on illiberal colorations. This was yet another reason why Marcuse’s fame was brief.

But his position was not as out of line with mainstream thinking as might appear. For example, among those who think that violence has no place in an ideal world, there are some (the vast majority) who think that a judicious use of violence in the actual world can be, and often is, useful for advancing the ideal. Only pacifists, for whom violence is everywhere and always morally proscribed, think otherwise.

Liberals who uphold tolerance in any and all circumstances are like pacifists. Marcuse’s position is analogous to the non-pacifist’s. He thought that, in certain circumstances, a judicious use of intolerance can be beneficial for bringing a more tolerant society into being, just as others think that a judicious use of violence can help bring about a more peaceful world. Presumably, the bar with respect to both transgressions of the ideal is best set high.

Whatever we ultimately make of Marcuse’s position on free speech, his main point, properly generalized, is unassailable: that in the actual world, where the misfortunes consequent upon the indefinite prolongation of capitalist civilization are manifest, it can be and often is counter-productive to act as one should in a world closer to the Hegelian ideal.

In that spirit, it bears reflection whether, in our circumstances, democracy, or at least the electoral system that captures a large part of what we nowadays mean by that word, can work to the detriment of democratic ideals, whether it too can function repressively (or, more precisely anti-democratically).

This is a possibility that the Wisconsin insurgents would have done well to worry about more, and that people involved with the Occupy movements should think carefully about as well, especially now that Team Obama is eager to coopt their energy while quashing the ideas and not-yet-fully-articulated intuitions that spurred them into action.

* * *

The analogy with repressive tolerance is imperfect, of course. Marcuse’s target was pure tolerance, tolerance of speech and expression regardless of content. His point was that acting as if we are already living in a world in which pure tolerance can work the beneficial effects its defenders imputed to it can impede efforts to bring that condition about; that there are times and places – our own, for example – where tolerance that takes no account of content actually works to the detriment of the ideal.

But our democracy is anything but ‘pure.’ It is an amalgam of institutional arrangements and practices concocted long ago by lawyers, merchants and slave owners who sought democratic legitimacy at the same time that they were intent on shielding themselves from the consequences of government of, by, and for the people. Thus we don’t even pretend to implement anything like the principle of one person, one vote.

In addition, our democracy has lately been sullied further by Republican Supreme Court Justices intent on making plutocratic domination – they call it “free speech” — the law of the land. And lately, again thanks to the GOP, efforts at voter suppression are rife.

Therefore even if we identify democracy with competitive elections that, like ours, are more or less “free and fair,” our democracy is not nearly as ‘pure’ as our tolerance is. Nevertheless, Marcuse’s reflections on how tolerance turned into its opposite are applicable to what passes for democracy in our time and place.

Implicitly, the people fighting Walker’s depredations in Wisconsin realized this before the force of circumstances caused their efforts to take an electoral turn. The masses of people involved in the Occupy movement realized it too with even greater clarity. They grasped what had not yet become clear to many of them a year or two earlier or indeed to the millions who voted for Obama in 2008: that if the idea is to make the world a better place, forget about an electoral regime dominated by Democrats and Republicans.

If only it could have stayed that way!

When the electoral season was still far off, it was still possible to ignore Obama and the national Democratic Party, to pay back Obama’s indifference in kind. [In Wisconsin, the state Democratic Party was a different story; at key moments – for instance, when the entire Democratic caucus in the Senate fled the state – Democrats actually played a constructive role.]

But it soon became apparent that democracy in the streets would have to assume a more political focus. It was not possible to ignore Obama and the Democrats indefinitely, especially in an election year.

After what happened in Wisconsin, it has become as plain as can be that, in a repressive democracy, it is essential to name the enemy. The enemy includes benighted theocrats and free marketeers and, of course, the plutocrats who bankroll GOP candidates. But the list includes Obama too, and the Democratic Party, and their paymasters.

That’s not exactly news, but it is a point that that not everyone in the MSNBC demographic and in the ranks of organized labor realizes yet. Or, if they do, they don’t dare draw the obvious conclusion.

It’s that lesser evil thing again. And who can deny the reality of the menace? Romney and the Republicans truly are pieces of work.

Even so, it’s not clear what follows. Lesser evil voting almost always has race to the bottom consequences that must not be overlooked and that can be devastating over time. And it is demonstrably the case that when a Republican is in the White House, Democrats in Congress become better (less bad).

Compare the period from 2006 to 2008, when the executive branch was still in Republican hands and Democrats controlled Congress, with the period between 2008 and 2010, when Democrats controlled both branches of government. A case could be made that we were better off in the earlier period, even despite Nancy Pelosi’s, Harry Reid’s and other leading Democrats best efforts to keep the party on its rightward, Clintonite, course.

On the other hand, it is almost certainly the case that we can’t get from here back to there because a Romney victory in November would all but assure another Democratic “shellacking” in the House and Senate. And there is the additional consideration that a Republican administration would make worse judicial appointments than Obama would, and that we’d be living with the consequences for decades to come.

In short, the coming election raises problems for which there is no obvious solution. The only sure thing is that the outcome, whatever it is, will be awful – for everyone for whom the failure to recall Walker is awful, but on a grander scale.

A first step in gaining a sound purchase on just how bad the situation is, and therefore for figuring out what to do about it eventually – there may be nothing that can be done in the short run — is to realize, in the spirit of Marcuse’s account of repressive tolerance, that our democracy is indeed a repressive democracy, and that the electoral system itself — not in general but in our time and place – has become a means for keeping an oppressive status quo in place.

* * *

The problem would be mitigated, of course, if elements of the old liberal-labor coalition would break free from the Democratic Party by voting for candidates who run on platforms that plutocrats don’t own. In the presidential contest this time around that would mean voting for Jill Stein of the Green Party.

However it is a deeply entrenched dogma of our political culture that third party votes are wasted. This self-fulfilling prophecy is all but impossible to dislodge, and so its consequences cannot be evaded. If even a deeply respected national figure like Ralph Nader could only garner 2.74 per cent of the vote in 2000, running against Al Gore and George W. Bush, what chance is there for someone who is unknown and massively underfunded to break out of the iron cage?

The short answer is: none at all. But that doesn’t mean that her candidacy can’t be useful for telling people, those who are able to listen, what they need to hear. And it doesn’t mean that it there is no point in casting a protest vote when the alternative is piling on votes for the lesser evil, especially when it isn’t clear who the lesser evil is.

In our very impure repressive democracy, the only way to cast a protest vote against Obama is to vote for somebody else. Since voting for Romney is unthinkable for any ninety-nine percenter with minimally developed moral and intellectual capacities, voting for the Greens may be all that’s left.

To be sure, voting for someone, no matter how estimable, who has no chance of garnering a single electoral vote is making the best of a very bad situation. But at least it is not, as the conventional wisdom would have it, wasting a vote – at least not in states where, thanks to our impure democratic institutions, the electoral votes are already effectively cast.

In those cases, the best, perhaps the only, way to waste a vote is to cast it for the purported lesser evil, the drone-besotted corporate flunky who has made it all but impossible even to speak without derision of “hope” or “change.”

Wisc.Gov. Walker promised billionaire he would ‘divide and conquer’ unions

By David Edwards - RAW Story
Friday, May 11, 2012

Before Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI), who is facing a recall election, introduced legislation to strip some public employees of collective bargaining rights, he promised a billionaire donor that he would use a “divide and conquer” strategy to bust unions, a newly released video reveals.

In the video shot by documentary filmmaker Brad Lichtenstein on Jan. 18, 2011, billionaire Diane Hendricks asks Walker if he would make Wisconsin a “completely red state, and work on these unions, and become a right-to-work?”

“Oh, yeah,” Walker replies. “Well, we’re going to start in a couple weeks with our budget adjustment bill. The first step is we’re going to deal with collective bargaining for all public employees, use divide and conquer.”

Hendricks went on to give the governor’s campaign $510,000. That makes makes her not only Walker’s biggest donor, but the biggest donor to any candidate in Wisconsin’s history, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Only a month later, Walker introduced the legislation that cut collective bargaining for most public workers, triggering months of protests and a wave of recall elections.

The video seems to contradict the governor’s claim that he had no intention of making Wisconsin a right-to-work state, which would cripple unions by prohibiting that they require that employees join or pay dues.

“Scott Walker told me directly that he believed in prevailing wage,” Operating Engineers Local 139 business manager Terrance E. McGowan recalled to the Journal Sentinel. “I tried to hold some dialogue with him when the collective-bargaining issue went down. I am a union man. I believe in collective bargaining. The one thing he assured me, time and again, is that he believes in private sector unions. I don’t know whatever beef he had with public sector unions. But he said he believed in private sector unions, and that’s why I believe I have no reason to believe that right to work would be a threat from his office.”

After seeing the newly released video clip, McGowan said he found the “divide and conquer” strategy troubling.

“It means turning worker against worker,” he explained.

Lichtenstein, who filmed the video, donated $100 to Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett in 2010. Earlier this week, Barrett won the Democratic primary and will face Walker in the June 5 recall election. His campaign has already used the video to created an online ad.

Watch this video from Barrett for Wisconsin, uploaded May 11, 2012.

What a scumbag! And I know that many out there approve of this strategy of crushing the working class--those people who are loyal to companies who aren't loyal to them back.--jef

Court Rules Parts of Walker's Anti-Union Law Unconstitutional

Saturday, March 31, 2012 by Common Dreams
Federal judge has struck down key provisions of Act 10

Key portions of Governor Scott Walker's controversial legislation limiting collective bargaining -- or Act 10 -- were ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge yesterday. The court ruled that the law, which has sparked a recall campaign against the Wisconsin governor, creates an arbitrary, and possibly politically-motivated distinction between "public safety" employees and other public employees. This, according to the court, violates the equal protection and First Amendment rights.

* * *

PR Watch: Federal Court Strikes Down Key Provisions of Walker's Act 10 as Unconstitutional

A federal judge has struck down key provisions of Act 10 -- Governor Scott Walker's controversial legislation limiting collective bargaining -- on grounds that the arbitrary, possibly politically-motivated distinction between "public safety" and other public employees violated equal protection and First Amendment rights. 

Several public employee unions had challenged the fact that Walker's bill exempted certain law enforcement and firefighter's unions from Act 10's restrictions, including the law's requirement that unions recertify annually with an absolute majority of members and its prohibition on voluntary union dues deductions. 

"So long as the State of Wisconsin continues to afford ordinary certification and dues deductions to mandatory public safety unions with sweeping bargaining rights, there is no rational basis to deny those rights to voluntary general unions with severely restricted bargaining rights," wrote U.S. District Judge William M. Conley. 

The suit was filed by multiple public employee unions, including the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the Wisconsin Council of County and Municipal Employees, multiple district councils of the AFL-CIO and AFSCME, SEIU Healthcare Wisconsin, CTW, CLC; American Federation for Teachers - Wisconsin; and the Wisconsin State Employees Union. 

Defendants in the suit included Governor Walker and head of the Department of Administration Michael Huebsch, as well as the heads of the offices tasked with implementing the law.

Wisconsin Voter ID Law Struck Down by Court

Wednesday, March 14, 2012 by Common Dreams
A Wisconsin law that requires voters present a photo ID when voting, was struck down by a Wisconsin Court today. Dane County Circuit Judge Richard Niess ruled that the law, signed by Walker in May of 2011, violated the Constitution.

"Without question, where it exists, voter fraud corrupts elections and undermines our form of government," wrote Niess in his decision. "The legislature and governor may certainly take aggressive action to prevent its occurrence. But voter fraud is no more poisonous to our democracy than voter suppression. Indeed, they are two heads on the monster."

Gov. Scott Walker said he would appeal the decision and vowed to continue to fight for a photo ID requirement in the voting booth.

* * *

From the Huffington Post.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) signed the voter ID bill into law in May, calling it a "common sense reform" that would "go a long way to protecting the integrity of elections in Wisconsin." 

"It’s a shame activist Dane County judges continue to stand in the way of common sense," said Cullen Werwie, a spokesman for Walker. "We are confident the state will prevail in its plan to implement photo ID." 

Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen (R) said he plans to appeal the decision. 

"In its rush to enact a Voter ID law, the Wisconsin Legislature failed to pay attention to the Wisconsin Constitution. Luckily, the League of Women Voters had the courage to stand up and defend the fundamental right to vote that our constitution guarantees," said Pines. "The proponents of Voter ID assert that it is meant to prevent fraud. We all know the truth: it is designed to suppress voting by poor people and students. Now, in Wisconsin, that will not happen." 

This is the second time in two days that such a law was struck down. Yesterday, a similar law in Texas was blocked by the Justice Department. Activists are hailing the curbing of these laws as a victory for minority communities that, many argue, would be disproportionately impacted by this kind of legislation.

Walker Enlists Karl Rove Protégé to Promote New Protest Policy

Saturday, December 17, 2011 by PR Watch

by Brendan Fischer

 

As Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s new policies restricting protest in the Wisconsin capitol take effect in advance of the anniversary of 2011's historic labor uprisings, the controversial governor has enlisted a new spokesperson to sell the rules, a 28-year old protégé of Karl Rove and new political appointee of the governor. 

Madison blogger Joe Vittie broke the story on WisconsinReporters.com about Jocelyn Webster, the person Walker hired as the public face defending the rules. Webster cut her teeth with Rove’s notorious Office of Political Affairs in the George W. Bush Administration. A congressional investigation of the activities of that office yielded allegations -- including specific allegations against Webster -- that Rove’s team was involved in partisan campaigning on the public dime, a claim also leveled at aides of her newest boss during his tenure as Milwaukee County Executive.

Webster’s Eye-Rolling Lead Some to Discover Her Karl Rove Roots 

 

On December 1, Walker's Department of Administration (DOA) released a twenty-three page policy announcing new limits on demonstrations in and around the state capitol, the site of massive protests earlier this year. The policy was clearly drafted with an eye towards landmark federal First Amendment cases, but legal observers have criticized the new rules, and the ACLU of Wisconsin is considering legal action. Walker opponents view the new rules as an effort to suppress dissent. For example, the definition of a "rally" as four people appears aimed at the Solidarity Singers, a group who gather every day at noon to sing popular songs altered with political lyrics criticizing the Walker administration.

DOA unveiled the policy December 1, but announced a two-week "educational period" (which some perceived as a public relations blitz) to help the public understand the new restrictions. The rules take effect December 16.

Just before the policy was announced, the Walker administration selected a new political appointee to serve as DOA Communications Director. The name of the appointee, Jocelyn Webster, was at the top of the December 1 press release announcing the new restrictions on capitol protests. Webster was also quoted in the press claiming that the “updated policy is meant to remove confusion and create consistency” for law enforcement officers and the public.

Webster caught the eye of citizens attending a recent public "information session" about the new restrictions on rallies in the capitol. Based on what some described as her petulant eye-rolling in response to citizens expressing concerns about restrictions on their freedom of speech, Vittie took a closer look at her experience and background.

From Washington to Wisconsin 

 

Webster is no local. She was most recently in Dallas, Texas, working government relations for the global convenience store chain 7-Eleven. Previously, she worked four months for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s PR shop. For nine months before that she pushed press inside the beltway on education policy in the 2008 election year. She also worked PR for New Yorker Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign.

But before those experiences, Webster worked for the federal government in Washington, D.C., and was cited in a major congressional investigation.

After graduating from college in California, Webster got a gig at the new Department of Homeland Security as a liaison to the George W. Bush White House. After six months, she moved to the White House and became a staffer in the Office of Political Affairs (OPA) in February, 2006.

OPA was overseen by Karl Rove and was reportedly tasked with tracking the political environment. A three-year investigation into Rove's OPA concluded in January of this year with a report showing the office routinely violated the Hatch Act, a federal law that prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars on partisan political activities.

The report by the Office of Special Counsel found that the taxpayer-funded activities of OPA employees "were directed at the electoral success of Republican candidates and the Republican Party as a whole," and that "U.S. Treasury funds were unlawfully used to finance efforts to pursue Republican victories at the polls.”

"OPA was essentially an extension of the RNC in the White House,” the report stated.
Rove's OPA violated the Hatch Act throughout the Bush presidency, said the report, but particularly in the run-up to the 2006 mid-term elections, when Webster joined the OPA.

Webster's Ties to Bush White House Email Controversy 

 

The controversial role of the office in which Webster worked did not end after the 2006 mid-term elections.

In 2007, it was revealed that OPA staffers had been using partisan Republican National Committee (RNC) email accounts for official business, such as the controversial firings of federal prosecutors. This practice circumvented the requirements of federal sunshine and ethics laws, such as the Presidential Records Act, which required that employees preserve a record of all communications taking place at work. The National Journal wrote that Karl Rove sent ninety-five percent of his emails on his RNC account.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) sent a letter to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman requesting an investigation. As a result of that congressional investigation, the Bush Administration claimed that 5 million emails had been lost or deleted. After a lawsuit, computer technicians were able to reconstruct some of the deleted messages and found that up to 22 million emails had been deleted.

Chairman Waxman rejected demands by the RNC that the searches of the emails be limited. In an April 2007 letter (pdf), Waxman notes that accepting the RNC's request to limit the email search terms "would not have located a January 19, 2007, e-mail from an official in Karl Rove's office to an official at the General Services Administration transmitting a copy of Powerpoint slides prepared by the White House that list the top 20 Democratic targets in 2008. That e-mail read: 'Please do not email this out or let people see it. It is a close hold and we're not supposed to be emailing it around.'"

Waxman's citation?

"E-mail from Jocelyn Webster (pdf), Staff Assistant, Office of Political Affairs, White House,
to Tessa Truesdell, Confidential Assistant to the Administrator, General Services Administration (Jan. 19,2007)." Webster was not charged with any crime for her activities in Rove’s operations during her work for him from early 2006 until early 2007.

Webster Role in "Pentagon Pundits" Operation, which CMD Helped Expose 

In early 2007, with public support for the Iraq war declining, Webster moved to the Pentagon's public affairs division.

In 2008, David Barstow broke a story in the New York Times about the depth and breadth of the Defense Department’s public affairs operation using "surrogates" to promote Bush administration policies in the press, without disclosing the Pentagon's hidden hand. The Center for Media and Democracy’s founder John Stauber called the scandal “the Pentagon Papers of this war” in Iraq. CMD, which publishes PRWatch, made the documents Barstow obtained available to the public through its SourceWatch electronic library. Barstow and the Times won a Pulitzer for its investigation.

One part of that program was described in an earlier Harpers Magazine article by Ken Silverstein, who specifically identified Webster as working on the project. The so-called "Surrogates Program," according to Silverstein, "arrange[d] regular conference calls during which senior Pentagon officials brief retired military officials, civilian defense and national security analysts, pundits, and bloggers. A few moderates are invited to take part, but the list of participants skews far, far to the right. The Pentagon essentially feeds participants the talking points, bullet points, and stories it wants told."

Silverstein wrote, "it’s quite clear that the Pentagon views it as a propaganda program."
Neither Webster nor others involved were charged with any crime, even though watchdog groups like CMD noted how the so-called "surrogate operation" violated long-standing federal appropriations rules and other laws against military propaganda in the United States.

Webster Joins the Walker Administration, and Makes a Splash 

 

Throughout the 2011 Wisconsin protests, Governor Walker falsely claimed that most of the demonstrators were from out-of-state. But some are now questioning whether he recruited his own out-of-state agitator in Webster.

During last week's public information sessions on Wisconsin's new capitol access rules, citizens concerned about the policy's impact on their First Amendment rights were dismayed by Webster's dismissive attitude towards them, which she reportedly expressed by rolling her eyes and shaking her head at their comments. Many were also put off by Webster's misleading press release that had asserted the new rules, which require permits for groups as small as four persons, were simply restatements of existing policies.

Her first real public performance in her new taxpayer-funded job caused some, like bloggers at WisconsinReporters.com, to look into her actual track record. At a hearing this week, Paul Schmid of that website expressed concern about the background of the Department of Administration's new communications director.

"This is the state of Robert LaFollette, open government, transparent government," said Schmid, noting that citizens were unlikely to trust the administration considering Webster's past involvement in taxpayer-funded political activity.

In response to Schmidt's comments, Chris Schoenherr, DOA Deputy Secretary, replied:
"You'll decide whether, or not, you decide to trust the administration. Or not."

ALEC Politicians Spin Special "Interest" Bill to Protect Corporate Wrongdoers as "Job Creation"

 (To my tea party friends--this is the end result of tea party politics: corporations exploiting you and your family so that they profit and don't get prosecuted for breaking laws...well, they'd be breaking laws had they not gotten those laws changed so that THEY don't get prosecuted, and THEY don't pay huge fines...but you do. ALEC exists to further cement profit as a higher priority than the rights of citizens. When you vote all tea party, you are in essence approving of your very own rape, figuratively, of course. But you'll still blame the other guys--and welfare moms and homeless people and minorities, and teachers--instead of the guys who are passing you around and having their way with you. Cognitive dissonance meets the Stockholm Syndrome...--jef)


Saturday, October 15, 2011 by PR Watch

by Lisa Graves

 

For years, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), has been itching to protect big corporations from high interest rates charged in cases where corporations have killed or injured Americans. Now, Wisconsin politicians serving on key ALEC task forces are pushing a bill embracing this idea as part of ALEC alumnus Scott Walker's latest effort to force the ALEC agenda into law based on claims that doing so will help "job creators."

Citizens Pay 12% but Companies that Injure or Kill Pay 4.25% 

 

The bill, introduced by Wisconsin State Senator Rich Zipperer of Pewaukee and Representative Paul Farrow, also of Pewaukee, would reduce the interest rate on court-ordered payments for Wisconsin residents who have convinced a jury and a judge that a corporation injured them, killed their loved ones, or violated consumer protections guaranteed by law. Under current law, in almost all types of civil lawsuits, Wisconsin requires the losing party to pay 12% interest on the judgment, until the amount owed is paid in full or unless overturned on appeal.

But ALEC politicians Zipperer and Farrow want to slash the interest rate charged (to about 4.25%) -- but only in cases involving personal injury and consumer claims. By definition these are cases in which virtually the only time there will be a financial judgment is when a Wisconsin resident proves in court that the defendant company violated his or her rights. But when a corporation, such as a bank or leasing company, sues a citizen and wins, the Wisconsin citizen still has to pay interest at 12% until the bill is paid in full.
How does this aid job creation?

"Lowering the price of breaking the law doesn't target job creation or economic development," says Laura Dresser an economist from the Center on Wisconsin Strategy. To put it less academically, "the only jobs it creates are for undertakers," said Democratic Rep. Brett Hulsey at a press conference about the so-called job creation bill package. To call legislation that rewards adjudicated corporate wrongdoers "job creation" is simply spin.

Anti-Consumer Bill Echoes ALEC "Model" 

 

The Zipperer-Farrow bill serves very special interests with their own special interest rate. It looks like ALEC's Pewaukee Posse -- a former estate lawyer and a current home inspector -- has taken a page from ALEC's "Prejudgment and Post-Judgment Act." That so-called "model" bill, which the Center for Media and Democracy exposed this summer through our ALECexposed.org project, would reduce the interest charged to corporations that kill or maim Americans.

This ALEC wish list item is a piece of the ALEC corporations' so-called "tort reform" agenda, an unabashed effort to tilt the scales of justice in favor of corporations in nearly every imaginable way. But Zipperer and Farrow have one-upped ALEC by adding consumer cases into the mix, on top of the cases involving Americans who have lost their lives or livelihood to corporate neglect, malfeasance, or greed. The Pewaukee Posse also tweaked the interest rate calculation of ALEC from using the Treasury bill rate to the prime rate plus one percent. These are differences without distinction -- both slash the interest rate paid by corporations that kill or maim. The Zipperer-Farrow bill is the ALEC bill on steroids by sweeping in all consumer cases in the state as well.

Pewaukee Posse Pushes ALEC Agenda in State 

 

It should come as no surprise that Zipperer sits on the ALEC Civil Justice Task Force. "Civil justice," in this case, is an Orwellian term for giving corporations whose products or policies happen to ruin people's lives more "justice" in the judicial system than corporations get under longstanding rules that protect people done wrong by corporate greed or negligence. The "private sector" head of that task force is none other than the so-called "King of Tort Reform," Victor Schwarz, who has long advanced the interests of tobacco and asbestos companies that for decades deep-sixed scientific proof that their products were literally killing Americans.

Zipperer is also one of the politicians who asked Wisconsin taxpayers to pay the $50 bucks a year ALEC charges for politicians to be members. And he's received financial compensation of over $1000 from ALEC for at least one trip, likely to an ALEC gathering known for schmoozing with corporate lobbyists -- lobbyists interested in legislation just like the one Zipperer and Farrow introduced. Like Zipperer, Farrow is no ordinary member of ALEC. He was chosen to sit on its Telecommunications and Information Technology Task Force alongside lobbyists from AT&T and other companies that have been sued for policies and practices that take advantage of consumers.

Pfizer Lobbyist One of ALEC's Corporate Co-Chairs for Wisconsin 

 

This is not the only bill being spun as job creation that has ALEC DNA and that would adversely affect injured Wisconsin residents. Another ALEC bill sponsored by Zipperer would limit the rights of Wisconsin residents to recover any damages in strict liability cases (the primary legal basis for cases involving injurious products) if they are injured by prescription or over-the-counter drugs. Like the special interest rate bill, the drug bill goes even further than the ALEC model -- adding in medical devices and barring lawsuits for drugs approved by the FDA, not just barring punitive damages for regulated drugs, ALEC policy since 1995.

Perhaps, it should come as no surprise that the latest corporate co-chair of ALEC assigned to the state of Wisconsin is none other than Pfizer through its lobbyist Bryon Wornson. The list of drugs Pfizer has gotten through the inadequate FDA review process only to recall them later is long. Last year, an intravenous drug it distributed was recalled because it "might kill" hospital patients. That's just the tip of the iceberg on unsafe products produced and recalled over the years by Pfizer, and Pfizer is just one of the many transnational corporations whose drugs or devices got through the FDA's process only to end up killing or causing life-threatening harm to American consumers.

"This proposal does nothing to help employ the people of Wisconsin and everything to help big-time, special interest drug company CEOs," says Phil Neuenfeldt of the state's AFL-CIO, speaking of the drug and device bill.

The interest rate bill and the drug and device bill are part of a package being considered under Governor Walker's "Special Session on Job Creation," but so far it's hard to spot the bills that actually focus on creating jobs.

Very Special Interest Bill Just One of the Posse's ALEC Echoes 

 

The Pewaukee Posse has proven to be such eager sponsers of legislation with ALEC DNA that perhaps they will get gold stars, or "scholarships," from ALEC's new state co-chair Robyn Vos to attend coming ALEC conventions/vacations along with invitation-only parties hosted by global corps. Vos and his predecessor as ALEC state co-chair, Senate Leader Scott Fitzgerald, have been charged under ALEC by-laws with a "duty" to get ALEC bills introduced in their home states. ALEC's politician co-chairs also are tasked with distributing the largess raised by state corporate co-chairs, like Pfizer, from corporate coffers to fund trips for loyal legislators.

Zipperer has put his name and effort behind: SB-1, which echoes several ALEC provisions to limit the rights of Pewaukee residents and other citizens of Wisconsin killed or injured by corporations, including negligent nursing homes (signed into law by ALEC alum Walker); AB-7, the so-called "Voter ID" bill that may block tens of thousands of students and others from voting in 2012, and which includes provisions consistent with ALEC's model bill (made law by Walker); SB-10, a tax give-away that benefits Wall Street speculators, similar to ALEC's "capital gains tax elimination act"; and AB-94, which expands taxpayer subsidies for private schools, echoing ALEC's privatization agenda in its "parental choice" bills.

Farrow has also pushed bills echoing the ALEC voter suppression agenda, capital gains, and school privatization efforts, and has introduced even more ALEC-like bills than his Pewaukee brother, including bills limiting the use of transportation taxes and embracing the NRA's shoot first bill known as the "Castle Doctrine," which shares core concepts with a parallel ALEC bill urged by the NRA, the former ALEC Criminal Justice Task Force Co-Chair.

These lists do not include all of the other bills similar to the cookie cutter legislation flowing out of the ALEC bill factory that the Pewaukee Posse voted for or that ALEC Alum Scott Walker signed into law this year.

But their latest foray into advancing the corporate wish list, through their very special interest bill, goes even further than ALEC has dared by targeting not just Wisconsinites physically injured by corporations but also consumers statewide.

A Right-Wing Jobs Program for America: To Apply, Just Go Directly to Jail

Monday, August 1, 2011 by OtherWords

by Jim Hightower

 

Attention jobless Americans! If you're among the millions of long-term unemployed people searching in vain for a job, here's a hot tip: they're hiring in Wisconsin.

There's one little catch, though, you have to be a Wisconsin jailbird to get one of these dandy positions. But that's no hill for a climber — I'm sure America has plenty of out-of-work folks who are enterprising enough to move to the Badger State, steal a six pack from a 7-Eleven, go to jail, and become eligible. I should mention, though, that you won't get paid.

This so-called "work opportunity" is the first tangible product of Gov. Scott Walker's corporate-scripted mugging of the collective bargaining rights of teachers and other civil servants. Having stripped public employees of their democratic rights in the workplace, government managers can now replace them willy-nilly with low-wage workers — even with free prison labor.

Jim Ladwig, the executive honcho of Racine County, has leapt on this like a chicken on an extra-juicy June bug. The day the law took effect, he announced that such jobs as landscaping and snow shoveling would be transferred from unionized county workers to prisoners. The captives will receive no pay, but they could be rewarded with reduced sentences. "We have a win-win when we use the inmates," Ladwig exulted.

He's not the only one thrilled with this scheme to take middle-class paychecks from public employees. The Washington Examiner, a far-right newspaper that cheers on the privatization of public services, hailed Racine County's jailbird ploy as "great news for Wisconsin taxpayers. Hopefully, we'll see more of it."

So there you have the right-wing's idea of a good jobs program for America. When Walker ran for governor last year, he promised to create 250,000 new jobs, and now he's delivering. To apply, just go directly to jail.

WI Supreme Court clears way for collective bargaining law to take effect

Tuesday, June 14, 2011 by Wisconsin State Journal
by Ed Treleven

A Dane County judge overstepped her authority when she voided Gov. Scott Walker's measure limiting public sector collective bargaining, the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in a fractious 4-3 decision.

In a nine-page decision -- followed by about 60 pages of concurring and dissenting opinions -- the court's conservative majority said Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi "usurped the legislative power which the Wisconsin constitution grants exclusively to the Legislature" when she voided the law.

Sumi ruled that a legislative conference committee violated the state's open meetings law when it hastily met in March to amend the bill, allowing the Republican-controlled Senate to get around a boycott by Senate Democrats.

But in a stinging dissent, Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson wrote that the authors of the court's order -- Justices Patience Roggensack, Annette Ziegler and Michael Gableman, along with concurring Justice David Prosser -- lacked "a reasoned, transparent analysis" and incorporate "numerous errors of law and fact."

The court's order was met with delight by the Republican majority in the state Legislature.

"We've been saying since day one that Republicans passed the budget repair bill correctly, so frankly this isn't much of a surprise," state Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said. "We followed the law when the bill was passed, simple as that."

State Sen. Alberta Darling, R- River Hills, said she was "thrilled."

"We knew we hadn't done anything wrong," she said. "Today was a day of justice. Today is a day of victory."

The court, however, declined to step into the dispute over whether the March 9 conference committee meeting violated the state's open meetings law, leaving it to the Legislature to set its own rules.

"In the posting of notice that was done, the Legislature relied on its interpretation of its own rules of proceeding," the court wrote. "The court declines to review the validity of the procedure used to give notice of the joint committee on conference."

State Department of Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch said DOA "is reviewing the Supreme Court's order and will begin implementing (the law) when appropriate."

Gov. Scott Walker said the court's ruling "provides our state the opportunity to move forward together and focus on getting Wisconsin working again."

Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, D-Kenosha, said the court's decision validates secrecy by the Legislature.

"The majority of the Supreme Court is essentially saying that the legislature is above the law. It's now clear that unless the constitution is amended, the Legislature is free to ignore any laws on the books," Barca said. "By this interpretation, the constitutional right of the people to know what its Legislature is doing has been significantly minimized."

The court also said that Sumi erred by barring publication of the law by Secretary of State Douglas La Follette, and it ruled that the constitutional requirement that the doors to the houses of the Legislature be open during business were met.

When the conference committee met, the court said, the doors to the Senate and Assembly and the room where the conference committee was meeting were open to the press and to the public.

"There is no constitutional requirement that the legislature provide access to as many members of the public as wish to attend meetings of the legislature or meetings of legislative committees," the court wrote.

In his concurrence, Prosser wrote that he was "troubled" by Sumi's "apparent indifference" to established law on the open meetings question.

"The circuit court second-guessed not only four legislative leaders but also the Senate chief clerk - an attorney - when it determined that no senate or assembly rule...governed the notice requirement of the special session conference committee," Prosser wrote. "The circuit court, in effect, told the Senate chief clerk that he did not know what the Senate rule meant."

Prosser wrote that only a clear constitutional violation would justify voiding the collective bargaining law, but only after the law was properly published.

In her dissent, Abrahamson said the high court erred in taking the case through "original jurisdiction" instead of waiting for one party or the other to appeal a lower court's ruling. She singled out Prosser, whose concurrence, she wrote, "is long on rhetoric and long on story-telling that appears to have a partisan slant" and, like the court's order, "reaches unsupported conclusions."

Instead, Abrahamson said she agreed with Justice Patrick Crooks' dissent, that the case should come to the Supreme Court as part of an "orderly appellate review of the circuit court's order with a full opinion."

"Only with a reasoned, accurate analysis can a court assure the litigants and the public that a decision is made on the basis of facts and law," Abrahamson wrote, "free from a judge's personal ideology and free from external pressure by the executive or legislative branches, by partisan political parties, by public opinion or by special interest groups."

Crooks wrote that the majority reached "a hasty decision" that doesn't address important questions about the Legislature's constitutional requirements to provide public access to its hearings and the courts' role in holding it to those requirements.

"Those who would rush to judgment on these matters are essentially taking the position that getting this opinion out is more important than doing it right and getting it right," he wrote. "It is rather astonishing that the court would choose to decide such an unusual and complex case without benefit of a complete record."