Conservatively Speaking

Governor Doyle this morning announced his vetoes of the budget repair bill approved by the Legislature that I voted against.

Doyle vetoed delaying school payments to the next biennium.

The governor ordered an additional $270 million in lapses from state agencies, including the Transportation Fund. This is a favorite tactic of the governor’s, and it comes at the worst possible time, when roads are in need of repair from the harsh winter, and when motorists expect one of the highest gas taxes in the nation to go the Transportation Fund to be used for road projects.

The governor also vetoed a transfer from the REAL ID fund.

He did veto the Property Tax Exemption on Low-Income Housing that I and other legislators requested.

Doyle did not veto a corporate tax increase.

The Wheeler Report lists the vetoes:


General School Aids Payment Delay. Vetoes delete delay of $125 million in school aids and mechanism to reverse the total $200 million delayed payment.

Tobacco Bond Refinancing. One veto addresses a cross reference relating to the definition of appropriation obligation. The DOA will also be authorized to refund the tobacco appropriation bonds in the future based on call provisions included in the bond structure. Second veto allows the transfer of money from the permanent endowment fund to the MA trust fund at any time during the 07-09 biennium. The DOA secretary is requested to structure the refinancing “in a way that is most cost-effective for the state, including a lower up-front payment.”

Lapses to the General Fund. One veto removes the $50 million restriction on the amount of funds that can be transferred from the DOT and the requirement the transfer must come from an appropriation for state highway rehabilitation. Partial veto increases the lapse and transfer amount to $270 million during the 07-09 biennium.

Real ID Implementation Funds. Veto restores Joint Finance Committee authority over Real ID implementation funds and transfers $2 million of the funds to the General Fund, leaving about $20 million for the committee to supplement DOT for the program.

Required General Fund Balance. Veto restores the $65 million statutory balance requirement (from $25 million in the bill).

Authorization for Child Care Payments. Veto leaves funding for child care payments, but removes methodology for reimbursing child care providers under the Wisconsin Shares child care subsidy program. DWD is directed to suspend the current attendance-based rule for the remainder of fiscal year 07-08.

Property Tax Exemption for Low-Income Housing. Veto removes entire provision “because they are major non-fiscal policy and should not be included in this bill.”

Payments to Related Entities – Australian Unit Trusts. Veto removes exemption from payment provisions for Australian unit trusts. Further, in regard to interest on intra-company loans where both entities of the company are subject to the Wisconsin income tax, DOR is requested to “ensure that companies are not, in effect, taxed twice due to this provision.” 


Here is the governor’s veto message.

I was one of several legislators to sign a letter sent to Wisconsin’s Congressional Delegation, requesting they take action to ease the cost of gas for consumers.

You can read the letter here.

I was one of several legislators to sign a letter sent to Governor Doyle asking him to veto from the budget repair bill the Property Tax Exemption for Low-Income Housing.

You can read the letter here. 

The state Senate today approved the Great Lakes Compact. I am a strong advocate for a Compact that protects the quantity and quality of the Great Lakes. Because this document comes up short, I voted against the Compact.

For a year and a half, I served on the Legislative Council Special Study Committee on the Great Lakes Compact. The committee was outstanding, the most rewarding committee I have served on during my years in the Legislature. The makeup of the committee was amazing in that such a varied group of individuals including legislators from both parties, interest groups, businesspeople, environmentalists and university officials worked for countless hours on a critical issue of enormous magnitude. The debate and shared information was of an exceptional quality.

During today’s floor debate, I posed four questions about the Compact to Democrat state Senator Mark Miller. Senator Miller chairs the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee, and was instrumental in crafting the Compact legislation.

I asked Senator Miller who would resolve issues about the one state veto, communities in straddling counties, public trust doctrine, and the effect of the Compact on Indian tribes. Senator Miller answered that the federal courts would resolve questions. Legislation that lacks certainty and relinquishes authority to federal courts is not in the best interests of Wisconsin. On the question about the effect on the tribes, Senator Miller replied that he didn’t know.

Senator Miller’s answers sent a strong signal that if the Compact still had many unresolved issues, why should the Legislature endorse it? That prompted me to make a motion to refer the Compact back to the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee for the proper work needed to improve the Compact. The motion failed.

The Compact contains the very problematic one state veto provision. Allowing one governor from another state to deny a water diversion to citizens that cannot vote for that governor is a very serious flaw in this document. To surrender our sovereignty to a regional body of governors that can make changes after the Compact is adopted is unacceptable. I do not support a document that gives up our sovereignty to another state.

The Compact as written contains page after page of language that lacks definition, as outlined by our highly respected Legislative Council. The significant amount of language lacking definition in the Compact indicates this issue almost certainly will wind up in federal courts for years and years to come.

The National Crime Prevention Council has issued an alert, warning about tax rebate scammers.

The federal government has begun to mail out economic stimulus checks to taxpayers. Scammers are calling people, claiming to be from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) asking for personal information so the check can be deposited directly into the taxpayer’s account.

Don’t fall for this scam.

The IRS will not telephone or e-mail taxpayers. The only way to secure a stimulus check is to file a 2007 income tax return.

Here are more details.

This morning, I was a guest of Joy Cardin’s on Wisconsin Public Radio. We discussed the issue of requiring a photo ID to vote.

You can hear the interview by clicking “Listen” below. My interview is 18:40 into the program.

Joy makes reference to a column I recently wrote on photo ID. You can read it here.

I will be a guest of Joy Cardin’s on Wisconsin Public Radio this Monday morning from 7:30-8:00 a.m.

We will discuss a photo ID requirement for voting.

Wisconsin Public Radio can be heard on WHAD, 90.7 on your FM dial.

Just about everyone in every group in America supports voter ID, and almost no one is excluded from voting by this requirement.

Those are the findings of a survey written about by MIT Department of Political Science Professor Stephen Ansolabehere in February 2007. During 2006, a collaborative survey project among 37 universities included a 36,500 person national sample survey, called the Cooperative Congressional Election Survey (CCES).

The survey was taken of people who voted in 2006 elections and was conducted in three timeframes: August-September 2006, October 2006, and November 2006.

Here are the key findings pertaining to voter ID. A large majority of all respondents expressed support for the requirement, over 75 percent with 17 percent opposed, and eight percent unsure.

It doesn’t matter what part of the country the question is asked. The majority of voters endorse voter ID. The highest level of support is in the South where every state has some form of ID requirement to vote. An incredible 81 percent supports voter ID in the South, with three-fourths of voters in the Midwest and West and just over two-thirds of voters in the Northeast like the idea.

What is the breakdown by political persuasion? Ansolabehere writes:

“Ninety-five percent of people who identify as Conservatives or as Republicans support voter identification requirements. Slightly more than 7 in 10 moderates and Independents supported the voter identification rule. Two-thirds of Democrats supported the idea, as did 60 percent of people who identify as Liberal and 50 percent of those who identify as very liberal. The very high support among Democratic voters comes as something of a surprise considering the very strong opposition to the voter identification proposal from Democratic congressional leaders and members.”

The biggest surprise from the survey came with race. Ansolabehere writes:

“The surprise was the lack of division. Over 70 percent of Whites, Hispanics, and Blacks support the requirement. Black and Hispanic voters did not express measurably less support for voter identification requirements than whites. The Congressional Black Caucus and the Democratic Party leadership were wholly out of step with the analogous segments of the electorate on this issue. The lowest levels of support (and again it’s a majority) came from White Democrats and White Liberals.”

The true test of voting requirements that include identification according to Ansolabehere is in the rate such laws exclude or prevent people from casting ballots. The MIT professor offers the reminder that the Help America Vote Act created a fail-safe mechanism: the provisional ballot. If a voter’s name is not on a list or questions a rise, the individual can cast a ballot that is verified later. Studies done by the Election Assistance Commission conclude that approximately two percent of ballots cast in 2004 were provisional. About two-thirds of those were valid, and most of those consisted of people who were not in fact registered.

The MIT survey found, as Ansolabehere puts it that, “Almost no one was excluded from voting. Only 23 people in the entire 36,500 person sample said that they were not allowed to vote because of voter identification requirements. That figure translates into approximately one-tenth of one percent of voters. The real lesson from the data is that the total number of people who said they were not allowed to vote because of voter identification requirements is trivially small.”

What about race? Ansolabehre writes:

“Exclusions because of voter qualification questions showed no racial differences. Of those Election Day voters whose registration was problematic, 70 percent were white, 16 percent were black, and 10 percent were Hispanic. Across all racial groups 85 to 86 percent were allowed to cast regular ballots and 13 to 14 percent cast provisional ballots. It is rare in survey data that a true zero arises. The number of people who said they were excluded from the polls as a result of voter identification requirements, however, is approaching that limit.”

Ansolabehere is blunt in his conclusions:

“Voter identification is the controversy that isn’t. Almost no one is excluded by this requirement, and when problems arise there is now a reasonable fail safe mechanism. It is not surprising, then, that large majorities in the public support the idea.

It is charged that voter id requirements are used to discriminate against people, especially racial minorities, and that has a chilling effect. That almost no one is prevented from voting because of voter id requirements casts doubt on arguments from the left that this amounts to a new poll tax or literacy test.

It is also hard to imagine how id requirements could have a chilling effect, if they are rarely used to prevent people from voting. The poll tax, literacy test, and other tools of the Jim Crow laws are powerful metaphors derived from a very ugly period in American history. Id requirements in practice bear absolutely no resemblance to such discriminatory practices. This is simply not a case of voter intimidation. Almost no one in the survey (less than one tenth of one percent of voters) reported that they could not vote.”

Here is survey data breaking down responses from various groups. You will see two numbers. The first is the percentage that supports voter ID from that particular group. The second is the percentage of the group that was prevented from voting because of voter ID:


All Respondents 77% / 0.1% 

Northeast 68% /0.1% 

Midwest 76% /0.2% 

South 81% /0.1% 

West 76% /0.1% 

Democrats 67% / 0.2% 

Republicans 95% /0.1% 

Independents 72% /0.1% 

Very Liberal 51% /0.2% 

Liberal 61% /0.3% 

Moderate 74% /0.1% 

Conservative 95% / 0.1% 

Very Conservative 95% / 0.0% 

Whites 77% /0.1% 

Blacks 70% /0.4% 

Hispanic 78% /0.1% 


Here are some other numbers closer to home to consider.

April 1, 2008, Wisconsin voters decided a statewide referendum about the Frankenstein veto. With 99% of the vote reporting, 567,913 (71%) voted in favor of the constitutional amendment to end the veto, and 237, 338 (29%) voted no. That means at least 805,251 people in Wisconsin voted on the veto issue.

Probably about 805,000 and maybe more Wisconsin voters would like to go to the polls and cast a ballot about a photo ID requirement for voting in our state.

It is sad and unfortunate that 19 individuals, Governor Doyle and 18 state Senate Democrats block voter ID in Wisconsin. Governor Doyle vetoed voter ID three times.  Senate Democrats refused to bring the issue to the Senate floor March 6, 2008, days before the end of the 2007-2008 General Session of the Legislature. The Constitutional Amendment process is dead and must start over with approval during the 2009-2010 session of the Legislature and the 2011-2012 session of the Legislature. The only other option is to convince Governor Doyle to approve and not veto a photo ID bill. 

Governor Doyle and Senate Democrats are, in essence, standing in the way, obstructing the will of hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin citizens denying them an opportunity to speak out on election reform.

Here is Ansolabehre’s entire paper about voter ID.

Senate District 28 that I represent has a great number of boaters and waterfront property owners.

There is great concern about invasive species, especially hydrilla and milfoil.

Hydrilla is described as a prolific, rapidly-growing submerged aquatic plant that forms dense mats of vegetation. Milfoil is an invasive plant that forms thick mats at the water’s surface that is easily snagged and carried on boat motors and trailers. A single fragment can colonize a new body of water.

To prevent the spread of these and other invasive species and disease, the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is urging boaters to follow these steps:

·         Buy bait fish only from a Wisconsin bait dealer.

·         Drain lake or river water from boat, live wells and bait containers before leaving a landing.

·         Do not move live fish away from any water, except for live minnows purchased from a Wisconsin bait dealer and kept under certain conditions.

·         Inspect your boat and trailer and remove all fish, mud and plant matter.

 

• Create and attach scanned records on each registrant to the Law Enforcement Sex Offender Registry web site, allowing law enforcement to access PDF files with complete and accurate sex offender registry records.

• Develop an improved address verification program, resulting in greater registrant accountability and information accuracy.

• Analyze Wisconsin’s Sex Offender Registry law and compare day-to-day registry operations against new federal registry mandates under the Adam Walsh Act.

• Update registration data collection tools to fulfill mandates under the Adam Walsh Act.

Here are details on the Adam Walsh Act. 

These improvements will increase the state’s ability to ensure offenders do not remain anonymous in our neighborhoods.

Here is more information about the Wisconsin Sex Offender Registry Program.

Over two weeks ago, I blogged that Governor Doyle had quietly dropped a state program designed to save $200 million over four years because it wasn’t working.

An audit of the failed program is now planned.

The Associated Press has more details, including the Doyle administration’s claim that the program was only intended to save $35 million over two years.

By the way, here is the governor’s press release on the program called the ACE Initiative when it was announced. Read the promise in the very first sentence of the release

Wisconsin’s Do Not Call List is phenomenally popular. During 2007, more than 1 million Wisconsin residential phone lines were covered by the list that is operated by the Wisconsin by the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP).

Unfortunately, fewer telemarketers at dinner time mean more salespeople knocking on your door.

DATCP is warning residents to be aware of door-to-door salespeople who are popping up more frequently in Wisconsin neighborhoods selling home improvements, lawn care, the traditional vacuum cleaners, meat, and even investments. The department is offering tips on proceeding with caution whenever you get an unexpected knock on your door.

Avoid being pressured to sign any contract on the spot.

Call DATCP’s hotline at 1-800-422-7128 for information about complaints.

Rather than being compelled to make a quick, impulsive purchase, do some comparison shopping.

Be sure you are aware of the exact total you must pay, not just the monthly payment.

There is also the notorious fine print to worry about. DATCP reports one alarm company had in its contract fine print that it could increase monthly fees when it so desired and could demand payment of monthly fees in full if the purchaser ever canceled the contract. If you are being pressured to pay more than the original contract indicates, you are advised to call local law enforcement.

Since August 1, 1999, Wisconsin has had a direct marketing rule providing consumer protection that applies to telephone, e-mail, fax, mail, and door-to-door transactions. These include purchases made in places away from the seller's place of business.

All direct marketers, including door-to-door salespeople must, after a short greeting, tell who they are, who they are working on behalf of, and what they are selling.

Before finishing the sale and taking any credit card information or cash, direct markets must tell consumers the cost, quantity, conditions, refund policy and the name and address of the principal company.

A direct marketer must obtain verifiable authorization before a credit card is billed and must keep transaction records for at least two years.

According to DATCP, the direct marketing rule also prohibits:

Tax Freedom Day has finally arrived.

Traffic deaths in Wisconsin are down 30 percent from this same time one year ago.

As of April 21, 2008, there have been 137 traffic fatalities in Wisconsin this year compared to 188 the same time in 2007, according to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (DOT).

Why the big increase in safer roads?

The DOT chalks it up to two reasons:

1) We had a very bad winter, so people either slowed down, or didn’t drive as much.

2) Gas prices have been on a steady rise, so motorists have cut back on their driving.

Even so, the news is remarkable. During March of 2008, Wisconsin had 27 fatalities. The DOT reports you have to go back to the World War II era with gas rationing, slower speed limits, and a much smaller population to find such a small monthly fatality rate.

There were 743 traffic fatalities in Wisconsin during 2007. So far this year, the state has recorded 137 fatalities in the first 112 days of 2008. If Wisconsin continues its current safe pace, it would end 2008 with less than 500 traffic deaths (447).

Here are more details from WISN-TV. 

Drive carefully everyone.