Kenosha News, Jan. 14
Along with strong debate, let’s see some compromise and civility in Madison
It was an encouraging start to Wisconsin’s new administration last week, based simply on the tone of both Gov. Tony Evers and legislative Republican leaders.
With five former governors in attendance for his inaugural address, Evers stressed the need for renewed unity and civility in state politics.
“It’s time to remake and repair our state and reclaim our better history,” the Democrat said last Monday, calling for an end to a political climate that has become “indifferent to resentment and governing by retribution.”
A call for civility was heard in other states too, among them Virginia and Vermont, as new administrations began. Evers had a lot of company.
Evers called for a return to “the Wisconsin values of kindness, integrity, respect and civility.”
We might add working together, getting things done and acting on big ideas. Wisconsin’s elected leaders can do all of this, and we should expect it.
Given that it’ll be a divided government in Madison for the first time in eight years, with Republicans in firm control of the Legislature, the tone from GOP leaders was equally important. They too called for cooperation and civility.
“The voters told us to work together,” said Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester. “Divided government means a lot more discussion, debate, and yes, even argument.”
Later in the week Assembly Republicans delivered what they called a “gesture of our goodwill” to Evers, outlining some areas - an income tax cut, a school funding increase and a reduction in borrowing to pay for roadwork - where they think they might find common ground.
Vos said Republicans in both the Senate and Assembly plan to hold an unusual joint meeting with Evers Tuesday. “This is a good faith effort for us to say we’re looking at what he promised, what we think we can deliver and find ways to be able to do that together,” Vos said.
Melissa Baldauff, Evers’ spokeswoman, said the governor hopes Republicans work with him on major issues such as health care access, transportation and education. “However, actions speak louder than words,” she said in a statement.
Time will tell, and there will be debates, arguments and rejections on what’s best for Wisconsin. We’d just like to see some compromise and civility along the way too. Wisconsinites deserve that.
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The Journal Times of Racine, Jan. 15
Compromise needed to set Wisconsin’s agenda
With last week’s swearing in of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and the election of Democrats to top state offices, Wisconsin enters a new era of possibilities.
With Republicans still controlling both branches of the Legislature, Evers will be limited in his power to set a new agenda for the state. Likewise, Republicans will no longer have free rein - as they have in the past eight years - to pursue their political aims since they will have to contend with possible vetoes by the governor.
Against that backdrop Wisconsin could be on the road to partisan gridlock which would ill-serve the voters of the state and put its motto of “Forward” into neutral. The other option, of course, is compromise: finding common ground, addressing the state’s needs and working together to resolve problems, settle issues and putting partisan pursuits and political gamesmanship on the back burner.
We have only to look to Washington, D.C., where President Donald Trump and the new Democratic majority in the House have run aground over funding for a border wall and catapulted the country into a needless partial government shutdown to see where the gridlock road goes.
We don’t care for brinkmanship when it takes the country (or the state) over the brink for partisan purposes that hurt the economy, upend the lives of ordinary government workers and imperil needed programs that service the poor, close national parks and threaten tax services to everyday taxpayers.
Our hope, and recommendation - to Evers, state GOP leaders in the Senate and Assembly, and newly-elected state Democratic officeholders - is that they work hard to focus on finding common ground answers to the state’s problems and embrace the opportunity for shared and respectful government.
At the top of the to-do list for our elected officials, we would suggest finding some low-hanging fruit where they can find agreement. That might come, for instance, in dealing with the state’s long-term transportation needs. Former Gov. Scott Walker refused, time and again, to consider increases in gas taxes or the use of toll roads to fund transportation; he used borrowing to keep the transportation budget afloat, even though there was support for increasing user fees among legislative leaders.
This would be a good place to start a new conversation, and to set the tone for shared governance.
A second item on that list might be resolving the staffing problems and overuse of overtime to run the state Department of Corrections. News reports last week showed the cost of running state prisons and correctional facilities reached $50 million in overtime last year, and that 15 percent of the correctional officers and sergeant positions were vacant last year, triggering the overtime. That level of understaffing and high overtime is a problem that needs to be addressed before it blows up.
The state has serious issues that need to be dealt with, and that will take cooperation and compromise by both Democrats and Republicans. Get the job done, by working together.
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The Capital Times, Jan. 16
Walker, Fitzgerald and Vos failures still haunt Wisconsin workers
Tony Evers has taken on the task of cleaning up the mess that former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos made of economic development initiatives in Wisconsin. Evers has the right instincts and some good plans for cleaning up their cesspool of crony capitalism and corruption.
But it will take time.
That’s unfortunate because it means that the damage done by the former governor and his legislative allies continues to haunt Wisconsin workers. Last week, Kimberly-Clark Corp. notified the state Department of Workforce Development that it will close its Neenah plant this spring. According to Kimberly-Clark, roughly 75 workers and managers will lose their jobs by May 31.
Could some or all of these jobs have been saved?
We will never know for sure because Walker, Fitzgerald and Vos bumbled the challenge of keeping Kimberly-Clark in Wisconsin.
The company announced a year ago that it planned to cut jobs in Wisconsin. The threat was real. Unfortunately, Walker, Fitzgerald and Vos were so wrapped up in political posturing for the 2018 election that they could not be bothered to focus immediately or effectively on the threat to jobs and communities in the Fox Valley. The Republican governor and his legislative allies did not respond with a sense of urgency, let alone the sort of creativity that companies look for from bargaining partners.
Instead of getting serious about the K-C threat, these supposed protectors of Wisconsin jobs went off on their own merry ways. These supposed soulmates on the state’s economy couldn’t even decide among themselves how to deal with a corporation that after a century in the state only wanted the kind of favors they had already championed for outsider Foxconn.
Instead, Walker alone pleaded to send big bucks to K-C and called for a special legislative session to deal with it. But Fitzgerald and Vos decided to use the lame-duck session to enact a power grab that was designed to make it harder for Evers to do his job. They even moved to undermine the new governor’s ability to address the mess they created with Walker’s scandal-plagued Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., but did nothing about K-C.
When Walker finally focused on the work at hand, Kimberly-Clark compromised by accepting $28 million in subsidies and keeping open its Fox Crossing plant of about 400 workers while jettisoning the Neenah plant.
That raises questions Wisconsinites have a right to ask: What if Walker, Fitzgerald and Vos had tried a little harder? What if the former governor and his fellow partisans had jumped into action to retain an employer with deep roots in the Fox Valley? Could Walker and his cronies have saved more jobs? Perhaps cut a deal that was less expensive to Wisconsin taxpayers?
We know Tony Evers will address economic development far more seriously than did Scott Walker. Indeed, the seriousness that Evers displayed with regard to these issues during the 2018 campaign played a critical role in his defeat of the incumbent.
With Walker gone, we hope Fitzgerald and Vos will finally recognize that it is time to stop playing political games and start doing right by Wisconsin workers.
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