Another busy week last week. You’d expect things to slow down now that we’re getting close to the holidays. We’ll see. Anyway, here are some of the big stories from state news in the week gone by.
Regents come around. Last week was a crowded one for the University of Wisconsin. Lots of twists and turns, but in the end they approved a very good deal worked out by System President Jay Rothman and Speaker Robin Vos. I had more to say about that in my blog over in Isthmus and I’ll probably write yet more on the topic (it’s a big story) later this week here.
Foxes and chicken coops. If I were the Republicans (and despite what my liberal friends may think, I am not them), I would want this fake electors story to go away ASAP. Instead, they keep giving it legs. In the last couple of weeks Republican officials hare reappointed a fake elector, Robert Spindell, to the Elections Commission and a key fake elector strategist, James Troupis, to a committee that advises judges on ethical questions. The Spindell appointment is especially egregious because he has a long history of saying outrageous, Trumpy things in addition to participating in trying to overturn the results of a free, fair and accurate election process. To have this guy anywhere near election administration is flat out outrageous. The Troupis appointment is less offensive since that committee doesn’t do much of anything anyway. Still, to have a guy who was a legal advisor and one of the architects of a scheme to essentially defraud the voters anywhere near judicial ethics has, to put it mildly, a bad look.
Wow, what a surprise! In what will be a candidate for the least surprising story of the year, the woman Supreme Court liberals installed to run the state court system on an interim basis has decided she’ll take the job permanently — or until conservatives take the Court back and sack her just because she’s not one of them. Back in August, and literally within hours of taking the majority, the liberals summarily dismissed the well-respected courts administrator, Randy Koschnick, and replaced him with Audrey Skwierawski, a colleague of new liberal Justice Janet Protasiewicz. Koschnick’s crime was being a conservative and a Republican, though all the evidence was that he had administered his nonpartisan position in a professional and even-handed manner. This kind of patronage is expected in partisan bodies like the Legislature. The fact that it has now come to the Court is another indication of how that body has sunk into the tribal morass.
Or not. Speaking of the new liberal Court, it did a mildly encouraging thing last week by turning down a case that had the potential to end or severely curtail the state’s popular school voucher programs. The suit was brought by uber liberal gadfly Kirk Bangstad and it sought to skip the lower courts and go straight for the endgame with the Supremes. And it was on that procedural basis that the Court turned back the case. It will now start where it should only to, perhaps, return to the high court where the result will be what Bangstad wanted in the first place. Bangstad, in a fit of candor, may have provided the clearest explanation for what transpired. “They’re sticking their necks out politically to be able to rule on those two huge issues for both Wisconsin and the United States,” he said. “So I think that taking an original action from us on voucher schools… might have been a little too much political baggage to take on for this majority.” So, it’s all just a long-term political strategy to make their eventual rulings on redistricting and abortion look less political? Yeah, probably. Still, the only real proof that a justice is truly interpreting the law without bias is when she votes against what are her own clearly stated political preferences because she thinks that’s what the law demands. That sort of happened here. Anyway, it’s hard to imagine a Court with a conservative majority passing up on a chance to strike down something they hated, proper procedure be damned. So credit the liberals, but not much, on this one.
Hot stove league. The Brewers might not have competed in the Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes, but that didn’t stop them from bolstering their pitching staff last week with the acquisition of Taylor Clarke from the Royals. The 30-year old righty boasts a gaudy 5.05 lifetime ERA, though last year that ballooned to almost 6.00. Take that, Dodgers!
Bowl full of bowls. The bowl season kicks off this week with, among many others, the exciting Toastery and Gasparilla bowls. These are among, count ’em, 42 bowl games featuring 84 teams. Fifty years ago, in 1973, there were a total of 11 bowl games, so going to one of those meant something. The Badgers like to talk about their string of bowl games — this year it’s the Reliaquest Bowl — but that says more about their fans, and their desire to get out of Wisconsin in the depths of winter, then it does about the team.
School board needs challengers. Dane County Board needs candidates. Incumbent Madison School Board members Savion Castro and Maia Pearson have announced that they’re running for reelection in April. I have deep concerns about the direction of this Board. So, I hope candidates will step forward to challenge them with a fresh and practical vision. You need only 100 signatures to get on the ballot and nomination papers can be circulated now through January 3rd.
As for the Dane County Board, all 37 seats are up this spring, but only a handful have contested races so far. I served on the Board myself for five years and it was a deeply rewarding experience. You get to participate in important issues like the county jail debate, social services, the zoo, the airport, land use, water and natural resource issues and more. And, in this case, you only need 50 signatures to get on the ballot. Same deadline of January 3rd.
Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos 